Category:

life and death themes

7/7/2016

Baby Evening Grosbeak on our Deck

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine passed away. Terry Phliger, who lived in Michigan, died only days from his 69th birthday and only hours before his scheduled resettlement in Ontario.

Terry Phliger--R.I.P.

Terry was an artist, professor, humourist, practical joker, story-teller and a compassionate and highly intelligent human being. His mind and spirit were powerful, which was obvious in all he did and said. He was also a person who continually encouraged me, whether in my personal life or in my creative one. His humour and laser-sharp, insightful responses would usually leave me chuckling and encouraged, while sending my problems fleeing to some decrepit corner, where, safe from Terry’s iron-clad diagnosis, they could sulk and suck their miserable thumbs away.

I’ll miss Terry. As astute a man as I have ever known and one who, I’m sure, if there is an afterlife, is already planning some heavenly prank or is busily becoming a pain in the devil’s ass.

“On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend’s life also, in our own, to the world.”
H.D. Thoreau, Thoreau On Man & Nature

Larry, Grace and Sue on our Knotty Pines Patio in Ingonish

Maritime Mac, who likes to hang around train stations, was hanging around the front door of the Truro train station one grey, humid day . He was there because he had to drive a friend to the station.

While hanging out by the heavy doors he also enjoyed the delicious odour of Murphy’s Sea Food which drifted around the corner and into Maritime’s nose.

Three young lads approached on their bicycles. The oldest boy might have been twelve while the other two were younger. Maritime only heard part of the conversation and he didn’t hear the names of these characters, nor that of the character they were talking about, but what he did hear made his loitering worthwhile.

I’m going to make up the names, all for the sake of security and quality, so you can enjoy the conversation.

“Tod kissed Rebecca,” one boy said.

“I’m going to kiss her,” said the second little boy.

“You already kissed her. It’s my turn to get one,” responded the third little fella.

Then the three cycling smooch bandits rolled on down the concrete plaza sidewalk and out of Maritime’s life. Leaving Maritime Mac chuckling and with a wee story he knew he’d just have to tell to some Cape Bretoner when he got back to the mountains.

Sue, Grace and Buster enjoying a morning walk in Ingonish

***

And now a brief note to Marianne. Never fear, I have been keeping my eyes open for the angelica plant and have already filled two big plastic bags with their shrivelled up bodies. I think, however, now that I recognize what they look like in their infancy, that next year, I’ll walk my grounds in the early spring and pull them up when they’re in their babyhood.

Thought you’d like to know.

***

I think comments on the language in my book, ‘White Eyes’ are a good example of democracy at work. For every person who doesn’t like the swear words in my book, there is at least one other who doesn’t mind those nasty words or may even find them cathartic.

I’ve mentioned this profanity issue in another blog, but because it has been brought up again and because I try to respond to comments from folks who read my blog, I’m discussing it here, once again.

I think profanity can make the dialogue in a story more authentic and not too sugary sweet, when used appropriately. However, the longer I continue to write, the more careful I am about when and when not to use these big-bad-wolf words.

The strange thing is, I don’t, for the most part, swear. However, when I’m writing, and I have the dialogue bouncing around in my mind, the words are there and I simply type them out. Later on I may edit out some of the little buggers.

My hope is that folks who don’t swear, can read through, over or under the words and still enjoy the stories.

Like the fella who read my book and then congratulated me on capturing the insanity in this world. I appreciated his kind words. He’d apparently found this theme in my stories and as in many stories in many books, the messages aren’t always so easy to discover.

Moon Peering Through the Trees

“The voice of fable has in it somewhat divine. It comes from thought above the will of the writer. That is the best part of each writer which has nothing private in it: that which he does not know; that which flowed out of his constitution and not from his too active invention; that which is the study of a single artist you might not easily find, but in the study of many you would abstract as the spirit of them all.”

Emerson, Selected Essays

One thing I’m trying to say through my stories, is that we aren’t as important as we think we are. Our actions, philosophy and status on this small, rotating, egg-shaped ball of immense diversity, aren’t as solid, momentous, or as superior to ‘the others’ as we believe they are. Intrinsically believing that an idea or opinion is rock solid does not prove anything.

HOWEVER, BEWARE! Our creative muses, like wind or spirit, once tamed or fully understood, lose their power. Sort of like when Delilah cut off Samson’s long hair. He couldn’t pull down a pillar, a post or a two-by-four and maybe that’s why, in the original Hebrew, the word God was written without vowels. Impossible to utter and therefore out of our taming and diminishment-of-awe reach.

Heavy Mist at Ingonish

Anyway, no matter how I try to convey it, I’m really not very good at verbally expressing what touches and affects my soul. That’s why I write stories.

***

When ‘White Eyes’ first came out, I found myself walking around town with my head down as I waited for the criticism - negative and/or positive - to begin. I found that both kinds of appraisals filled me with all kinds of emotions and often not the feelings I expected.

Not too long after ‘White Eyes’ was published, I was walking along the lake shore in Baddeck. It was only a few days until Christmas and the snow hadn’t yet come to Baddeck with any vengeance. While hiking along the shoreline I came upon a friend who was sitting in his vehicle, looking out over the lake, teary-eyed. Not because of having read my book, but because the memories Christmas brought to him were stirring his heart.

We chatted and, at one point, he told me he’d read one of my stories.

Then he said, “I didn’t like it.”

He apologized for not liking it.

I told him not to apologize, because I took negative criticism better than positive. Maybe I’m more used to it, I don’t know. But funnily enough, he has since become one of my best ‘White Eyes’ promoters. However, I found his negative criticism easier to handle coming from a non-Aboriginal than the accolades coming from non-Aboriginals. At least during the first year.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I genuinely appreciated receiving positive comments from non-Aboriginal folks. However, what I really needed was to hear the Aboriginals respond positively to ‘White Eyes’ and therefore, being congratulated by non-Aboriginals would often cause me to feel, at some level, emotions of guilt and sadness, even though I appreciated their kind, supportive words.

I think it was because I knew that the stories only existed because I’d had the chance to spend time with the Aboriginals. Therefore, I needed to know what the Aboriginals thought about my book. Because, if I didn’t hear positives from them, then I knew I’d feel like just another exploiter, as so many White people were before me.

‘White Eyes’ wouldn’t have existed had I not been able to live in their community, taste their food, drink their drinks, experience their customs, share in their joy, feel their pain, be sad when they were sad, laugh at their humour and a whole lot more that I will probably never be able to properly represent. That’s why, on the first page of ‘White Eyes’, you can find an appropriate verse which is taken from the Bible. “I was a stranger and you took me in.” Matthew 25:35

One cold night, a Native fella and his daughter dropped around to pick up some toilet paper. Notice I didn’t say borrow toilet paper, for obvious reasons.

It was after midnight. The Aboriginal fella’s daughter, about twelve years of age or so, picked up a copy of my book from the coffee table. She opened it, quietly read a little bit, looked up and then told me she liked the book, specially when it talked about eagles and she told me all her friends were passing the book around and enjoying it.

That was the best critique I could hear. And then as time went on and other Aboriginals commented on White Eyes, I came to realize that the Aboriginal folks around here enjoyed the fact these stories were written about them. They found the stories funny and ‘White Eyes’ had also allowed the non-Aboriginal world to take notice.

Also, many of them visualized me as being the main character in most of the stories. One fella talked about when I fell under a truck in the story called, ‘Mountain Iris Spirits’. It wasn’t really me and that specific incident never happened to anybody I knew. It was made up. However, I did get my thumb wrapped up in a rope as a load of logs shifted on the back of a wagon.

I may, from time to time, include in my blog the beginning of one of my stories. Just a page or two, in the hope that it may whet the appetite of some blog readers to read ‘White Eyes’.

Oh, and many of you might be wondering what bits of Busterness Buster is up to. A lot, so stay tuned. I’m sure you’ll hear more about Buster, but for now, please read the first very small section from one of my stories in ‘White Eyes’.

MOUNTAIN IRIS SPIRITS
We were up on Owl Mountain. Both of us frustrated up to our yin yangs with Denise’s extended family. We live with them, on the reserve, in the family home. Three bedrooms and fourteen people. Us sleeping on the living room floor. Everybody else sleeping in bedrooms, except for Uncle Charlie who, with his fat tabby cat, slumbers half his day away in a tent on the front porch. Denise’s ex moved in last month and Denise gave him our small basement bedroom. A piss-off but she felt sorry for him. Red alert to our relationship, as we couldn’t sleep or do anything personal until the last member of the family had decided to turn off the television. Phony anger fits and antics were on almost the whole goddamn night, and in the morning we’d awaken, our eyes swollen from lack of sleep, to find the kids dripping their breakfast all over our bed sheets while they watched cartoons, or tiny Tod-alias Batman during the day-soaking us in everything from thirty-five S.P.F. sunscreen lotion to his cereal milk.

According to Denise, this mountain we had retreated to is also the home of spirits. She said they were everywhere, but today it was quiet and peaceful, as a bald eagle circled over the spruce forest. I hadn’t seen many eagles in Ontario but there sure were a lot of them in this part of Cape Breton.

“My stomach’s all jittery. Means there’s spirits hanging around,” Denise said.

“I get that with a hangover.” I laughed. She didn’t.

“Yeah, right. Most of you white people couldn’t see the spirits if they were plastered to your nose.” She swept her long black hair up into the mountain air, looking like an ancient mountain fairy queen.

“Maybe I can. I’m just not around people who talk about them all the time. You’ve been drenched in ghost talk. People always going on about spirits. Everywhere. Cripes, your sister ties her blankets down so the ghost won’t yank them off her bed, and you’re always hearing about somebody finding Mary or Jesus or some saint on a window or somebody’s toilet seat.”

I was sounding skeptical. Denise didn’t care for skepticism.———-

***

There, that wasn’t so painful, was it?

Thanks for reading my blog and you all take care.

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Shackwacky - Chapter and Verse

31/3/2015

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I’ve just finished reading a science fiction detective novel by Sherry D. Ramsey. That’s a lot to say in one breath. The book is called ‘The Murder Prophet’. Now, it was a novel that made me look forward to going to bed. Because that’s when I read novels. The book, in a few sentences, is about Kit, the main character, who’s trying to solve a mystery before a millionaire named Aleshu Coro is murdered. The threat was made by the mysterious Murder Prophet.

Many of the characters in this book, including the animals, have super powers. Power to tell whether somebody is lying. Power to tell if somebody is using their powers. Power to change a person from one thing to another, including themselves. Anyway, lots of different powers. I particularly enjoyed a delightful side character, a goose by the name of Trip, who had a very special power. The goose liked to practice killer ninja moves, could talk and was active throughout the novel.

Anyway, I enjoyed the book. It was a good read and can be ordered through Amazon.ca as a Kindle or paperback edition at http://www.amazon.ca/The-Murder-Prophet-Sherry-Ramsey/dp/0993897304/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

***

My god, but haven’t we had enough snow? For what we are once again about to receive we are truly thankful, amen. NOW GO AWAY! Enough is enough, and as I’m writing this blog, in the living room, with Buster lying on my foot, and at the end of March, I’ve just heard that we are to receive another ten to fifteen cm today. Hallelujah!

                “One must have the mind of winter
                              To regard the frost and the boughs
                              Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

                              And have been cold a long time
                              To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
                              The spruces rough in the distant glitter”
                      Wallace Stevens, The Snowman

Our Trail to Road

***

WARNING!! THIS PART OF THE BLESSED BLOG WAS INSPIRED BY A SEVERE CASE OF ACUTE SHACK-WACKINESS!
And I did go to bed one night. And I had a dream. I dreamed that I bought a )(*&^ snow blower. And thus I woke up and declared, “Lo and behold, I’ve just had another friggen nightmare.”

But I did go out and purchase a snow blower, anyway. Although my mind was shouting at the top of its voice, “Larry, Larry, my son, verily, verily, you will be verily, verily sorry and will surely repent of your stupid deed in buying a cursed snow blower when you were warned against such a stupid action. Thou faithless servant.”

And verily, and thus and therefore, I discovereth, over a short time, that my dream was true. Because verily one friggen wintry morning, I couldn’t get the friggen snow blower to move. I did pull and push all the sacred buttons and levers, but it would not budge. The wheels desisted and resisted and so I had to pull the son of a blower through the deep snow, to the fair entrance to our driveway, where I left it for the snow blower purveyor to pick up and take to his holy little motor workshop.

And lo and behold and verily, thus and therefore, he phoned me and told me that my snow blower, Grinder, had frozen his bolts off and that’s why Grinder wouldn’t move. So, they got him all nicely warmed up around their pellet stove and gave him a cup of hot W30 oil and cinnamon. Then they delivered him back to our abode.

And lo and behold and verily, thus and therefore, the snow blower did blow snow for a few very brief occasions, until the snow got too heavy or icy or wet or white or some damn snowy issue, when lo and behold, hark the herald snow blower angel asked me, “Did you know that your snow blower has stopped blowing?” And how would I not? And I said to god, “Why, god?” And I asked the same question of the snow blower man, “Why, snow blower man?” and he said, “Hark, I think you probably broke a belt.”

So, verily and thus and therefore, he came to our snow-stuffed lane and picked up Grinder and did take him away, while I stood in six feet of snow and waved my frozen glove and fingers bye-bye at my disappearing snow blower. Then did I thus whisper under my breath, “And don’t come back, you unreliable son of a beech.”

But verily and thus and therefore, they couldn’t find a replacement belt. Not until the snow was ice and too much for poor Grinder to remove. So, verily, thus and thou and hark, when they finally did find a belt, verily many weeks later, and they put the belt in and delivered it to me, the snow was unmanageable and so verily, I did dig out our little, blessed, metal toolshed and put the snow blower in said toolshed so it could hibernate in the summer. And I told the snow blower not to move a bolt, nut or screw or it would be turned into a pillar of salt.

The next winter, I verily, thus and therefore, took the snow blower out to prepare him for some certain upcoming manly snow blowing. But verily, I smelled the odour of gasoline and the snow blower would not verily start.

So, verily, thus and thou, I picked up my feet and took up my phone. Phoned the snow blower purveyor. And lo and behold he came and he picked Grinder up and then verily in not a verily long time he told me that some cursed mice had built a forty-room condo in Grinder. They had built a restraining wall against the gas line and thus it had broken asunder. And lo and behold, thus and thou, I ordered him to hand them their notices and then fix the gas line.

Oh snow blower, you break my heart. How many ways do you verily have thus? And the tiny little snow flakes fell, each one a different shape from its brethren, and I got out my snow blower and did blow and blow for about an hour when suddenly the snow blower wouldn’t move forward on command. So I verily, thus and therefore investigated and behold! I found out I had broken a breach pin. Which meant that only half the sacred augers were going round and round. So that was why I was rolling up a gigantic snowball on one side of the snow blower while the other side was not valiantly blowing away. So, I went again to the snow blower man and I bought another breach pin and installeth it myself.

The snows continued to fall and the world grew all white and my eyes began to see strange colours from the all white, everywhere, top and bottom and side by side and the ice came and the ice left and Grinder and I did manage to make it through the rest of the winter. Hallelujah!

And verily, thou and thus came the winter of 2014-2015 did arrive. And the snow felleth and felleth and felleth and felleth and felleth and felleth and it did raineth too and raineth more and more and the ice got thicker and the snow higher and verily I got to use the snow blower twice before it stopped.

I verily, thou and thus, decided to check it out myself. I very carefully read the manual. I worked on the snow blower only long enough to feel I had accomplished something or learned something and then I would verily quit before I went into a crying tantrum. Because verily, verily, I have little patience with disobedient servants.

And, after cautiously working on the said Grinder, I managed to find the problem. The belt was rent asunder. And I verily spotted little mice feet and mice faces and mice other parts sticking out of the holy inner sanctum where the belts do their business. And I, by myself, did replace the belt.

Path from Woodshed to Trailer

Then more snow did fall. Then some of it melted and froze and melted and froze and I got, maybe, three snow blows out of my snow blower and my new belt that I put in all by myself. Although, Sue did hold the snow blower and did use a tiny pair of pliers to pick out the tiny pieces of mice I missed and some of their bits and pieces of nesting material.

Then, one fine morning, I went to the woodshed and tried to start Grinder. But he wouldn’t start and lo, I pulled and pulled and pulled until my puller was exhausted.

Lo, I took a rest and then returneth and pulleth some more. And suddenly the engine did start in a violent rush of engine power. And then all was silent.

It was then that I witnessed, in a vision, a burning snow blower. And I took off my tuque and came forth and lost the race. (Probably heard that one somewhere, right?)

And verily, thou, thus and disgustingly, the engine man phoned me and told me that my engine was as dead as a frozen parrot. He said, “You must have got some ice or snow in the engine that melted and then froze.”

“But it’s a snow blower! Isn’t it supposed to get snow and ice on it and in it, fgs? My truck and Sue’s car get ice and snow on them and they don’t blow up their engines. My lawn mower doesn’t desist because it gets grass in it. So, what the hell are you saying?”

“Well, let me put it this way. There were a lot of parts that wanted out.”

He then explained that when or if I get a new motor, I should probably keep it covered or inside. And maybe brush the snow off, because it can melt and run down into the engine and then freeze. Then you get the results I got.

I’d like to put it this way, if I verily may, “What the hell is the use of a snow blower if you have to keep snow off it after you finish with it, set mousetraps inside, lay moth balls around all its internal and external organs, place a hot water bottle on it before you go to bed, make sure it’s tucked in on a bed that can pass military inspection, don’t push it too fast if the snow is thick, and make sure you don’t snow blow slush because it can freeze the wheels and the inner sanctums? That’s what I have Buster for.”

AMEN

We now use shovels and snowshoes and to hell with the snow blower.

Lots of Shovelling

***

“The light made the snowballs look yellow. Or at least I hoped that was the cause.”
Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars

Buster on Watch Duty

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Psyching the Mic

25/1/2015

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Not long before Christmas, I had to do a CBC radio interview. I’m not going to give out the time of the show because I don’t think I did very well. But what the hey, I never promised I would, and I’m sure all the professional Google people out there can find it. But, just in case you’re interested, I’ll give you one hint. It was on a Friday afternoon.

I was on the radio because one of my stories was in a book called, 'FLASHPOINT' which had just been published by Third Person Press. I’m grateful that they published my story and also grateful for what they’ve taught me about short story writing.

There are also no fingers on my hand pointed at the interviewer. “She” was professional and kind. (I think I just gave you another clue.)

This anthology of speculative fiction short stories can be bought in some bookstores and can also be purchased from the Third Person Press website. So, before I go any further, I suggest you drop everything you’re doing, and buy the book. Chop, chop.

Here's their website: http://www.thirdpersonpress.com/ (There's a lot of interesting stuff on their site, by the way.)

Here’s what John Updike said about being interviewed: “It rots a writer’s brain, it cretinises you. You say the same thing again and again and when you do that happily you’re on the way to being a cretin. Or a politician.”

Anyway, apparently there are some things that interviewers find difficult when they are interviewing. For example, they don’t like interviewees who give too long or too complicated a response, who are boring, who leave their sense of humour somewhere else - those sorts of things. Well, I have to say that humour is not something I can leave anywhere. My problem is trying not to be funny or crazy when answering questions.

Quite a while before this particular interview, I’d been prepped for another online conversation. It occurred in the early summer. That interviewer let me practise before I was let loose. When I thought I was ready, I sucked it up and spewed it out. One of the things this online interviewer explained to me was how to hold the mic. He said that the microphone should be approximately a fist’s length from my trap. So, while I was being interviewed, the CBC interviewer poked the mic toward my face, while she asked me a question. I tried to grab the mic out of her hand. She quickly yanked it away and I think she shook her head in a ‘don’t-do-that’ way. However, it’s not like any listeners saw me make a grab for the intimidating mic.

Now, I have never loved my voice because I know what the little bugger can do. My tongue, especially if I’m nervous or have exercised hard, has the ability to dump a bucket of hot peppers over my yapper box. On the other hand, the author who was being interviewed with me, had a voice that seemed immune to cracking and squeaking. So I felt a bit intimidated by the contrast. Oh, if I could only sound like Gregory Peck.

Here's another point about my earlier on-line interview session. One of the questions I was asked at that interview was, “What books have been important to you in your life?”

I could have mentioned Grisham, George Elliot, Hemingway, Tolstoy, Larry Brown, Stephen King, or a whole slew of authors. At least some author that would make me look or sound a teeny bit suave, cool, professional and literate. But no friggen way. Nope, and believe you me, I did hear my brain shouting, fairly loudly, “Don’t say it, moron.”

But all to no avail as I said, “Walter Brookes and his wonderful ‘Freddy the Pig’ books: ‘Freddy Goes to Florida’, ‘Freddy the Detective’, ‘Freddy the Cowboy’, ‘Freddy and the Ignoramus’, and on and on. " Not anything wrong with the books, but couldn’t I have dug a little bit deeper? Apparently not.

So, before the CBC interrogation, I’d prepared a little cheat sheet, because I’m not that good at remembering names or titles. This list had included the title of some speculative fiction books I’d read or was reading, along with some other book genres I was reading or had read. But you see, the author who was being interviewed with me, and who I thought had a really cool voice, had no cheat sheet to encumber his response freedom. So there I was, intimidated by him and by the fact that I’m on CBC radio, live, and so what did I do? I parked my cheat sheet. I went raw.

Then, look out. The CBC questioner asked, “You write speculative fiction, so you must read a lot of it. What books do you read?”

Oh, duh! Come on, Larry. Get a grip. My brain was shouting, “Moron, moron!”, even before I answered the question, and for Pete’s sake I knew damn well that one of the main purposes of the book launch and for us authors being interviewed was to sell speculative fiction and ‘Flashpoint’ in particular. But what did I say in response to her question? I said, “No, I don’t read much speculative fiction.”

You think the interviewer looked surprised when I made a pass at the mic? Nothing compared to her reaction to that answer. After this faux pas, I bungled around a bit and said I was trying to catch up on the classics and I was even able to name a few authors.

But you see, I don’t try hard to make my stories speculative fiction. Because my life is so damn speculative, that to be accurate I should say that some of my stories should probably be considered non-fiction. However, I didn’t think to mention that. It might have added some balance.

James Thurber wrote: “My opposition to interviews lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give-and-take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.”

Also, maybe subconsciously, I mentioned the classics to the interviewer because I didn’t want all the on-line listeners from my summer interview to think the greatest books in my past were ‘Freddy the Pig’ books. Which, by the way, really were a great read, particularly behind my grade five math book.

By the way, Wikipedia defines ‘Speculative Fiction’ as “…a broad literary genre encompassing any fiction with supernatural, fantastical, or futuristic elements.” It also probably includes a mix of the above, which I would suggest they call ‘mutt speculative fiction’ in celebration of the mutt we just purchased from the SPCA.

His name is Buster and he acts like a Buster. One of his first tasks, after arriving at our little trailer, was to force us to flip the mattress. Which, we then discovered, has only one official lie-on-it side, so we had to flip it back and put the wet end at the far corner, along with a change of sheets. We love Buster.

Buster and Mr. Peabody

So, in the CBC interview, I mentioned the classics and then I squeaked out, through the hot peppers and coal dust, that I also read Stephen King, but doesn’t everybody? And finally I threw out the name of a fantasy author whose book I’d been reading. But by gosh, I couldn’t remember the author’s name, because I’d pocketed my cheat sheet. So I said that I was presently reading a fantasy book by Bradley Zimmer. Oh, if I’d only looked at my tiny sheet of paper, I’d have known to say that I was reading ‘The Saga of the Renunciates’ by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Did you notice where the Zimmer and Bradley were supposed to be?

And it totally escaped my mind that I was also working my way through ‘Black Water’, a terribly thick anthology of magic realism short stories.

Oscar Wilde wrote, “Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are.”

So, this blog is, in a way, a bit of an apology for not doing a better job of promoting the book, ‘FLASHPOINT’.

However, possibly on the positive side, I suspect that I have some kind of safety valve in my brain and mouth, which will not allow me to be a cool interviewee or a charming regurgitator. I think I can safely say that I’m in some ways immune to being sucked into the dumping grounds of slickness and consumption and I suppose I should be happy about that. However, if I’m not really immune, but only think I am, then please be kind enough to let me be like the ostrich and keep my head buried up my keister.

Ski Trail Near Inverness, Cape Breton

My next blog, number 35, might have a little more about Buster, our new dog, who has decided that his brand new expensive bed is a chew toy. Lord, help us. Guess where he sleeps?

Do they really think I'm going to sleep in this thing?

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Worth Fighting For

29/10/2014

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I began this blog in Kingston. My spanking new computer set up on the hotel room’s wee round table. A large steamy window to my right. An air conditioner clinging to the glass. Its rusty, damp air invading our room and lungs.

Today, we’re back in Cape Breton. The wind is shaking the trees loose from their leaves, and Grinder, our snow blower, has already had me down on bended knees with grass, wood chips and mud dampening my clean blue jeans, as I performed some emergency surgery. This involved the loosening up of his little paws to make it possible to get him started. Which would give us a fighting chance of holding off the relentless attacks of snow which use our yard as a shortcut.

These days, I find myself standing on the porch, gazing out over the huddling mountains, looking at the sky and wondering if the snow forces are already formed up and ready to rush over the mountain and plunge us into another winter battle.

And Skippy, the squirrel, is terribly quiet. He wasn’t when the wood was first delivered, but now, since we’ve returned from Kingston, we haven’t heard a swear word from him. I think he used his time wisely while we were away. I wish him a cozy winter in behind the many stacks of firewood.

Finally, because this is my twenty-ninth blog, yeah, I decided to take a little time to rant. Use a few words to spout off. Get some irritations off my chest because there are times in my life when a rant is about all I can do.

Little Salmon Lake north of Kingston, ON

TIRADE NUMBER ONE

First, I would like to say that this is not directed against all marketers, nor all those who try to help writers and me in particular, including all my friends and colleagues who give me their kind support.

However, I have had some irritating personal experiences lately. Also, I have read and listened to authors and other artists discussing this topic, so I think that my spouting off isn’t uselessly spinning towards a distant galaxy. May the force be with you, Hal.

One night, at a bar, I was talking to a fella. We got to talking about art and writing and that sort of thing. He’s a playwright and has a movie floating around called, ‘21 Brothers’. I haven’t watched it but it can be found at these establishments: Amazon, Hunes, Shaw and Cogeco and DVDs are available at HMV and Amazon. I’m planning on watching this movie and I believe it has been positively critiqued.

Anyway, he was talking about sending the movie off and the marketers getting hold of it and, well ———, I don’t want to say too much but there are a lot of sharks out there in the Marketers’ Ocean of Despair.

I’ve been exposed to the forces that be and if I’m going to protect anything, beyond my family and friends, it’s my art.

You see, my writing isn’t based upon how much I sell, although I’m definitely not against selling.

It’s not based on becoming a famous writer. Do I have to worry?

I write because I love to write. I’ll admit that I enjoy hearing that my writing is being read but that’s secondary to the actual writing.

However, like my friend who made a movie, artists are under constant pressure. Pressure from their own creativity and emotional foibles. Pressure from the marketing world where there is always a better way presented to get the readers’ attention or a more profitable place suggested where they can feed out their work. Many of these folks are willing and eager to take your dollars to help you become known and re-known.

Then there’s the occasional acquaintance who thinks he knows the best way for you to get your work known is to get it on the big screen.

For some, it’s just because they want to see you become successful, but for others it’s an attempt to own your work or at least ride on your coat-tails to some pre-conceived marketing success. I’m not sure how fast the ride would be if you hopped onto my coat-tails.

I once asked a fella, ‘What is the difference between a writer and most of the marketers and critics?’ I was actually surprised when he didn’t have the answer.

The answer to this quiz question is, ‘Writers write’.

That’s the thing about writers. They write and they’re not always so proficient with the selling part.

Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with searching for help. And many of us have the creativity to think outside the box and sell our work, but that takes energy. Also, there’s a certain amount of anxiety about single-mindedly spouting off about our work. Which, I think, might be wed to the sense of nurturing and mindfulness we have for our inspirations?

One piece of advice I have heard about writing is, ‘Don’t talk your story out.’ Why not? Because it can sap your need to write. The little or big story you’re going to tell gets out too early and like wine bottled too soon, it’s watery and tasteless.

The emotions and ideas must soak in time and thought and when they’re ready, and only then, can they be fruitfully and organically lifted out of our minds and placed full-bodied unto the paper or screen.

Maybe one could also say, “Don’t market your vision away.” Too much emphasis on marketing can flatten the writing energy. Some selling needs to be done, but I’m not willing to use up too much energy doing it. I’m not willing to twist and turn the mystery that drives me to write in the first place, so I can grab a chunk of readership. I like to call my marketing efforts ‘soft marketing’.

You see, I want my little bubble of magic to be sitting comfy and cozy, on a soft patch of grass, her privacy protected by a mountain of wild forest and wind. Covered by a thin veil of gentle mist, faintly perfumed with fir and spruce scent, camouflaged and chameleon-like. Suckling on the universe’s unfathomable ocean.

I want it to be only as clear as will allow it to remain a heartfelt enigma. A contrast to the eager grasping of our society as it attempts to get hold of everything that is worth anything.
Throwing out a little bafflement never hurts. So, as with a good poem you have read, you have a sense that the poem has no solid mental perimeters. An awareness, faint but present, that there’s an idea or emotion that hasn’t yet been fully plumbed.

TIRADE NUMBER TWO

Something else I’ve noticed. This may be because I was born into a rather black and white religion. It was my difficult and harsh departure from this form of thinking which instilled in me a terribly strong, tenacious need to defend my little creative piece of turf. Besides, trying to separate any artist from control over his or her art is like trying to take a bone from a hungry wolf.

And it’s because of my black and white background that I have become an expert at recognizing when my creative vision is under threat. I might even have to consider myself hyper-sensitive.

And guess what? When I hear somebody tell me that they know what’s best, that they are certain they are correct when it comes to how I should write, what I should write, how I should market, the existence of a pink elephant hiding in the back of my truck, or anything else for that matter, I realize there are a hell of a lot of black and white thinkers out there besides those who are labelled fundamentalists.

***

“Besides, what you love, you will protect.
That thou lovest well remains,
                     the rest is dross
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee
What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage
Whose world, or mine or theirs
                       or is it of none?
First came the seen, then thus the palpable
Elysium, though it were in the halls of hell,
What thou lovest well is thy true heritage
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee"
                    Ezra Pound, Canto LXXXI- libretto

***

I believe that many artists see their art as some form of commission. Maybe even as prophetic.

William Noble, in his book ‘Conflict, Action and Suspense’ wrote, “It’s pretty well acknowledged that readers “hear” as well as see words on the page. That is, word sounds and word images play in the readers’ minds even as their eyes scan the words. Some have referred to this as “the music of words.”

So, using this quote as an introduction, I’d like to quote another section of an Ezra Pound poem.

“Go, my songs, to the lonely and the unsatisfied,
Go also to the nerve-wracked, go to the enslaved-by-convention,
Bear to them my contempt for their oppressors.
Go as a great wave of cool water,
Bear my contempt of oppressors.
Speak against unconscious oppression,
Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative,
Speak against bonds.
Go to the bourgeoise who is dying of ennuis,
Go to the women in suburbs.
Go to the hideously wedded,
Go to them whose failure is concealed,
Go to the unluckily mated,
Go to the bought wife,
Go to the woman entailed."
Ezra Pound, “Commission”

Hike to North River Falls, Cape Breton

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The Path in the Sky

30/8/2014

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I’m back and hoping that you’ve all had a great last few weeks and are getting pumped up for the fall. Which you know as well as I do, is the precursor to winter.

I’ve just finished reading a wonderful poetry book written by David Woods. He’s a black author and the book is titled “Native Song”. This was his first collection of poetry.   It is an intense and passionate collection that reveals his determined and unrelenting fervour to right the wrongs that were done to the Blacks.

David Woods has also written plays and is an accomplished artist. Here are a few samples of his poems.

“It is never good to agree
to hands choking you to death.”

        David Woods, ARTIFACT (For Rose)

“Each fragment lying outside
The structure of love
Turns to monster in the late night,

Each society that discards people
Sharpens hands for killing.”

      David Woods, MACHUKIO (The Terror)

***

A few months ago I was asked to be one of the judges for a writing competition. And whew, the more I thought about this judging task, the more serious I felt about the whole venture. Me, having the audacity to tell people that their stories are better or worse than somebody else's!

You see, I’ve submitted a few short stories to a competition or two. And, I’m proud to say, I’ve never won any. Yeah, blow the horns and bang the drums.

However, I’ve come close. One story got an honourable mention and one made it to the long list on a CBC short story competition.

The thing is, I labour over the stories I submit. Rewrite and rewrite. Change the plot. Discard the plot. Start a new story. Totally change that plot. Get out my notes and check the story against lists of short story musts and maybes. On and on and on and then one day I mail the story out. Usually on the deadline day.

Once it’s in the mailbox I try to forget about it. Put it out of my mind, but still, there’s always a tiny flitting bug memory that buzzes around in the back of my consciousness. Which periodically bites me on the brain stem and makes me think, “I wonder how I’ll do in the competition?” “When will I hear from those short story writing gods?”

I also wonder who is judging my story. Is the judge a woman or a man? How old is the judge? Are they watching television and eating a peanut butter sandwich while they are reading my precious baby? Are they drinking? Oh god, no. While they were looking at my story? My story!!

Is he or she in a bad mood? What kind of life philosophy do they have? Will my story yank their chain the wrong way? Are they sophisticated, snobby readers?

So, when I was reading the stories that I was supposed to judge, I kept all those thoughts in my head. I really, really tried to read the stories carefully. And I didn’t eat anything while I was carefully reading them. Although, I did drink a cup of hot tea. And I only had quiet music on while I sat in my office with my door shut as tight as a honey jar.

Not only that, but Sue also had a read of the stories and made her own notes. Oh yes, we made notes, but I didn’t read her notes until I finished reading the stories. I didn’t want to be pre-prejudiced. (Is that a word?) Neither did she read mine.

She was as serious about the job as I was and then afterwards we sat over a cup of tea and talked about the stories and argued a bit and then came to a conclusion.

Of course, it was a subjective exercise and in the overall picture that is probably a good thing. Because writing and art are subjective by nature. As are so many of the dictates we are exposed to which tell us how to behave or not to behave, eat or talk. Much subjectivity must rule if our lives are to expand, and if we and our race are to venture out into the creative unknowns.

Writing Tips I've Gleaned over the Years

Here are a few points to remember if you are writing a short story for a contest.

1: Begin with a bang.

2: Try to introduce an element of uncertainty or suspense at the beginning.

3: Make your characters alive and real.

4: Make your story different.

5: If you have no length restrictions then try to keep your story reasonably short. Say between 1,500 and 3,000 words.

6: Have an ending that is positive, meaning one with a different turn to it. It doesn’t have to be a happy ending. It can be sad, but it should say something important.

7: Make sure you have one clear central theme or plot running through the story.

8: Try for a story that goes against the grain. Don’t always stick to the politically correct issues of the day.

9: Follow the contest rules.

10: Watch out for errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. No matter how many times you reread your work, you will miss some errors. Most writers ask at least one other person to proofread their stories.

***

I’m going to try to tie a thin thread between our time at the cottage and my thoughts on subjectivity, rules, freedom and creativity. Here goes.

We recently spent a week at a cottage. It was a large cottage. It had to be because ten of us were going to be rattling around inside its walls. And it was a beautiful cottage. Alas, it did have some problems.

For example, the well went dry. Which meant the toilets didn’t work for a time. Therefore a gigantic truck had to squeeze down the cottage road and pump thirty thousand litres of water into the parched well.

However, we still didn’t have the downstairs toilet or washing machine operating because there was a pain-in-the-ass leak down there. So the plumber had to shut the water off to the downstairs washroom until it was fixed.

This problem affected the family members who had to sleep in the basement or, to use a more genteel label, the downstairs. The downstairs was damp and probably not so comfortable for those family members and some nights the pump was running almost continuously.

There were other problems too. One family had a sick cat which had to go to the hospital and another family had a child who was bitten by a tick and she had to go to the hospital.

So you might think that I would think the week at the cottage was near to being a disaster. But in my mind it wasn’t even close. And it also proved that having lived a life that was a bit or a lot off the grid can be an advantage.

You see, even though there wasn’t plumbing for a day, there was an outhouse. And that’s what I used anyway. Even before the plumbing went up shit creek. Because I was used to using a shit-house or, if you want to be more genteel about describing it, a privy.

I remember when Sue and I moved to our trailer with the indoor toilet that we missed the outhouse. Missed sitting inside, with the door open, looking at the ants, listening to the wind, watching the clouds, smelling the flowers, feeling the snowflakes tickle our face, listening to the ice on the lake speak. Those kinds of natural earth- bound events.

So, when the two dumpers shut down, it was no big deal for us. And when the plastic toilet bowl pail in the outhouse was full, again there was no big problem. Sue and I simply went outside and dumped it in the designated place so the various family members would have a tidy place to attend to their personal needs and requirements. And she and her daughter hauled buckets of water from the ocean for washing purposes.

The privy had a Dutch door so we could sit in there, secure from onlookers, while admiring the ocean and watching the blue heron who spent time on the beach.

Antigonish Harbour

What were the other positives? The beautiful ocean. The trip to PEI. The chance for the family to better understand each other and to spend undistracted time together. Time to read and drink beer or wine or rum and coke or ginger ale or cola, etc. And the weather was good for the most part, so we all played in various ways outside. The meals created by Sue’s son and son-in-law were wonderful. We got to meet an interesting fella who helped us all realize that the world doesn’t whirl the same way for everyone. Or maybe I should say, revealed to us that the sun shines on everybody. Subjectivity. Subjectivity.

I found a hiking trail; we played games with each other; I met up with a dog named “Luka” who was kind enough to jump up on me and show me his teeth.

Luka

My new camera captured some beautiful pictures; I kayaked for the first and second time. Oh, I could go on and I’m sure that everybody else has lots of good memories too.

Of course, we all went into the cottage with a bunch of expectations. And, the cottage was reasonably expensive, so of course we wanted everything to work out. But instead there were the problems. Things broke, didn’t work the way we wanted them to and it rained one day, just like life. Lots and lots of things happen in life. And, in my mind, it’s the things in life that surprise us and disrupt our plans, or don’t follow the rules as laid down by those who have the power to lay them down, that play a large part in what moves the human world forward in a creative Wabi Sabi way. (Wabi Sabi is the Japanese art of appreciating the beauty in the naturally imperfect world.)

View of Antigonish Harbour from Cottage

***

By the way, I painted our trailer a different shade of green. We like it better.

One interesting thing, though. If you look at the picture it looks like one section had one less coat of paint applied to it. However, it didn’t. They all received the same amount. Maybe it was the rain that caused one section to look more faded. Maybe I mixed one batch better than another. Who knows, but DOESN'T IT LOOK CREATIVE?

Our newly painted home

***

             “For every evil under the sun
              There is a remedy, or there’s none;
          If there is one, try and find it;
          If there is none, never mind it.”
                               A Proverb

          “The woods were dark, and the night was black,
          And only an owl could see the track;
          But the cheery driver made his way
          Through the great pine woods as if it were day.

          I asked him, ‘How do you manage to see?
          The road and the forest are one to me.’
          ‘To me as well,’ he replied, ‘And I
          Can only drive by the path in the sky.’

                                                  Amos R. Wells, The Path in the Sky

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Literary Angst at the Bird Feeders

6/4/2014

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I, Larry A. Gibbons, hereby declare that as of Sunday, April 6th, I have received more than enough rain, freezing rain, ice pellets and snow.

I, Larry A. Gibbons, also hereby declare that my snow blower is useless. Unless I can hire a team of moose to pull it through the above mentioned precipitation. Snow blowers detest ice pellets underneath their wheels. Confound them!

Larry's Daily Occupation

I, Larry A. Gibbons, also hereby declare that after clearing off the snow plough’s many big dumps, along with the sky’s larger dumps uponst all the sundry acres of paradise for which I am responsible, that I have, as of now, fired myself from snow removal. I will continue to be available for minor wood splitting and spooning of sugar into my piping hot tea.

I, Larry A. Gibbons, also further hereby declare, that I was not friggen impressed by the April Fool’s joke of another snowstorm. Ha, ha, and who else is laughing?

Finally, I, Larry A. Gibbons, hereby and finally declare, that this is my last hereby declaration. Which I hereby declare to be declared.

Have you read “Cape Breton Christ”, written by Denise Aucoin and published by Breton Books? I have, and although I’m not much for writing a technically proper book review, I can say that I enjoyed this book. It was a comforting and uplifting read. The thing about this book is that it’s a short novel written in the form of a poem. And I loved the ending. I won’t give it away, but I’m reasonably sure that if Christ were going to pick a place to live, he might very well decide to settle down in Cape Breton. It’s an island with a big heart. Here’s a quote from Denise’s book:

“not for one second am i about to suggest
that our baby Christ came to be born
in the middle of mabou
or bridgeport
or any other such community on cape breton island
what i am announcing is that
in the sacred and incredible act of creation
our beautiful island was immensely blessed
by the heart and hand of god
over five hundred and seventy million years ago.”

I’m not a person who has settled into many new places. So I don’t have the skills down pat on how to burrow into a new environment, while keeping the connections back in the last place piping hot and fresh. And, being reasonably sensitive, according to some observers, I worry about keeping the old emotional ties strong back in Ontario, while working on building new emotional bonds in Cape Breton.

One niggling worry is that my associations in Ontario are feeling the strain on the psychological threads of friendship that were nurtured over so many years.

So, hello to all my friends in Ontario, Alberta and Michigan.

C’est la vie, mes amis. May we someday enjoy a Gamay together at our favourite aunt’s place.

Rona Lightfoot-Celtic Piper

Life is a koan. Don’t you think? One of the biggest koans might be the viewpoints held by non-Aboriginals versus those of the Aboriginals. Whew, a tough one, and the puzzle is quite apparent up here in Cape Breton, where different colonial cultures live side by side with the Aboriginal population.
On Saturday, I was talking to an Aboriginal friend who lives off the reserve. This offers him a different set of problems from
those who live on the reserve.

So he deals from his unique perspective with the intrinsic views of the non-Aboriginals and with those of his culture who live on the reserve. If that isn’t a rock to the noggin, problem-solving puzzle, I don’t know what is. His attempts to fit the pieces together must have his synapses firing fast enough to burn down a meth lab.

I was thinking, what if this fella was a writer? He’d have lots of emotional material to put into words. Because, as you know, I believe writers need at least some chaos and uncertainty in their lives for them to have the material to incorporate into their blood and guts creations.

However, it may be difficult to write about a crisis such as a relationship breakdown, if you are in the midst of one. But once you’ve put it behind you and are trucking on down the road, well, the pen will, at some point, be ready to burn, baby, burn.

Many writers, like myself, get discouraged. Sometimes I’ll read a short story or a novel and I’ll think, “Shit, I can’t write like that. Hell, I don’t even think like that”.

Take many of the literary magazines. So many of their stories have been diced, spliced and sautéed into an urban gruel. They’re the ones that seem to grab the publishers’ attention. Put a character in a bar, a bedroom, a downtown apartment, a subdivision, a jail or a whore house on Yonge Street and your odds of being published rise. Of course, I know this is not always true, but these thoughts do occasionally bounce around inside my skull.

And hell, we live in a forty-five-foot mini home in the forest. My main conversations are with crows, squirrels and Ben, the dog down the road. Now, I’ve seen birds and squirrels getting amorous. And I’ve seen a crow eating a dead squirrel while the squirrel’s family members run up and down the branch trying to get a look at who it was that was killed and is being devoured. We suspect the perpetrator was the black cat who creeps up to our house in the early morning and waits for breakfast by our bird feeders.

Squirrel peeking through our window

And the chatter on the street is there’s a new crow in town. What is the inner angst of this rogue crow? Why does Ben choose to poop on our laneway and not on his own? Look out, literary magazines. Here comes an award winner.

But, really, there are so many good writers out there. Urban or rural. Which leads me to a point about my marketing savvy. By the way, don’t spend too much time trying to find my marketing savvy, because I don’t have a lot. And, I don’t know if I will ever get myself worked up into a marketing frenzy. Which, I think, is a problem for many writers. Because the various forms of social media, with their unlimited potential, are so powerful that writers feel they have to be involved in it all the time. If not, they worry they are going to be left behind by a massive herd of social media-savvy key-tappers. Which must have some deleterious effects on their energy to create.

Here’s an example of my marketing enthusiasm. When I was a kid and thought as a kid and didn’t look at myself in the mirror very often, I used to have a paper route. The newspaper would hold subscription drives. I hated the door-knocking, the persuading and the rah-rah sessions. I did, however, win a raincoat at one rally, but they had to draw twenty times and there were only about twenty-five carriers in the room. Plus it was a dry summer. Ha.

***

I’m also humble about my vocabulary. Which isn’t gigantic, although it’s growing. People generally use the words they heard when they were growing up. So, if you hear a lot of words when you are a child, you will most likely use them when you’re older, along with the dialect you heard.

Note, that doesn’t make a person with a larger vocabulary more intelligent, but it will open up more opportunities for them. My warning to those with a big vocabulary is to not resent having to drop your vocabulary by a thousand words so you can communicate with the likes of me. Because isn’t it the luck of the draw as to what family you have or don’t have? Just buck up and enjoy your view.

Stephen King has pointed out that a person shouldn’t wait to write until after they have acquired a greater number of words. The words will come with the writing and the reading. However, you must read.

***
Finally, what amazes me about writing, is that the creative activity involved in this pen to paper thing, opens us up to universal bits and pieces. Maybe because a writer is someone who keeps an eye out for these messages and surprises. Most writers are always on the job. Therefore they recognize more clues and bits of unusual info.

Like last week. I was travelling down Disheartened Highway 104. I was questioning my vision and my style and indulging in other downer thoughts, when I stumbled upon a Walter Whitman poem. It’s called, “Quicksand Years”. (I do this stumbling thing all the time.) Here’s the poem:

“Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither,

Your schemes, politics, fail, lines give way, substances mock and elude me,

Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-possesse’d soul, eludes not,

One’s-self must never give way-that is the final substance-that out of all is sure,

Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life, what at last finally remains?

When shows break up what but One’s Self is sure?

Does this poem say a lot about what your own soul has to express? Have you stumbled on any creative aids?

Have a great week!

Cabin across the road from us

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Shack-Wacky Hype

24/2/2014

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A few days ago, I was snow blowing the long path to the tool shed, where I’ve been storing ?????. I’d started clearing out the snow before the sun had even rubbed the sleepy dust out of its corona, so it was dark, and I was thankful for the headlamp on ????. You see, the weather person had called for rain. Which meant that when the temperature dropped, the rain-gorged snow would become as hard as a stale all-bran muffin.

You may notice the question marks in parts of this blog. That’s because I’m curious to see if you readers have been paying attention to my fourteen blogs. Feel free to leave a comment with the names represented by the question marks! I also think I’m doing this weird question mark thing because I’m feeling frisky. Because I’ve managed to compose fourteen blogs, this being my fifteenth. High five! Fourteen, about to become fifteen!

So ???? was shining his light forth into the darkness, while the wind whipped snow back into my face, because it couldn’t figure out where the heck it was going. As ???? blew the snow into the air, more snow filled in the path behind me, and as I inhaled the sweet scent of snow blower fumes and mouse pee, I asked myself, “Is this hell or heaven? Did we make the right move when we up and left ???? to settle in the Cape Breton highlands? Where there are only two kinds of flies, black flies and snow flies? A place, where even when the day is sunny and bright and not a cloud hovers over my head, the snow gently falls from the sky, albeit at an angle, and alights upon my just cleared patch of home turf.” And I thought if I listened carefully, shut the snow blower off for a few friggen seconds, I might even hear the mountain winds blowing through the bare trees. And if I was really, really quiet, I might hear those tall, rounded, tree-covered mountains tee-heeing and having a great old time. For much of our snow is booted our way from the other side of those mountains.

In summary, and after a bit of time to think it over, I’ve decided that it’s not heaven but a hell of a lot of work. I’m reminded of the last verse of Cape Breton poet Aaron Schneider’s poem, “Life at Sea":

“We’ll stay with the storm,
run before it stoking
and steaming, while each day asks
what tied us to this frozen helm
horizon a great white wave?”

FYI, the snow blower is in the shop for repairs and I have to drive through a snowstorm to find out what the doctor has to say.

Skiing on Snowy Ski Trails Beats Snow Blowing!

As I said, this is my fifteenth blog. Fifteen. Not a big deal for some bloggers, who seem to zip one off every day or two. When I first started writing this blog, I was given some advice. These are the two suggestions I remember.

One fella said, “You have to watch that you don’t write yourself out.” His fear being, I think, that writers could put so much of their writing energy and content into the blog, that they wouldn’t have much left for their other creative endeavours. His advice put a bit of a scare into me.

The second piece of advice sounded more daunting. It was that I should put the blog out fairly often. Once a week at least. So I could continually be in my readers’ faces, waving some new Larry tidbit.

Holy crap, Batman. I’m not even on facebook. I can see the value of facebook, but I’m not comfortable with it.

My emails are person specific. One email per person. All personally tailored, with a bit of gossip for this guy and gossip about the first guy to the second guy; each email hand-made with person-specific snoop and chatter. Very few of my emails are generic, mass produced or consumer friendly. So, as you can see, I wasn’t prepared to pump generic tidbits into the blogosphere.

I also worried that if I became too prolific, I might be disrespecting, neutering and trivializing my emotions, ideas and teeny bits of wisdom, by semi-obliviously tossing them into the mass ocean of talk, words and images. Which scream, blare, humour, whisper or sing from anything that has a screen or a speaker. Besides, I don’t think I have an unlimited amount of ideas, news and knowledge to feed into this hungry sea which often seems to have the memory of a goldfish.

Also, I have read in more than one book about writing, that you can talk a story away. Not run out of the ideas or feelings required to write in a blog, but yap away the creative power needed to write something complex and powerful.

For example: I enter a shop. I see a small, older woman in a tiny, cluttered room. She’s selling second-hand books and clay figurines made by her husband. The store is empty. She’s waiting for customers, sitting behind an old cash register and drinking coffee out of a small white styrofoam cup. It’s not hard to tell that her business isn’t doing well. The room looks shabby and dusty and she looks shabby and dusty, but also sad, lonely as hell and a little bit desperate. I can feel her melancholy. I also sense a story bubbling up in my mind. It begins to simmer. Empathy for her plight is stirring it up.

And I know that my muse, who lives under our trailer, can feel it too. Which means he’s probably working on the story while I’m doing whatever. Like when I’m frying eggs and boiling water or clearing snow off our laneway. I think I’ll write a blog about snow clearing some day. Ha!

So, let’s say I meet this woman, and then a little while later, I get together with some friends at a local pub, and while quaffing down a beer I tell them about this lonely woman I saw at this shop. I discuss a possible story. Leak out a few plot ideas. Blah, blah, blah. My friends might offer their opinions and the story becomes muddied, mutated and mangled before I have time to sit in my writing room and keyboard it out.

The next day or so, when I sit down to write this story, guess what? The story has been partially gutted. My emotions, which were fresh and eager to be penned, have fizzled like a wet firecracker. Damn!

I’m not saying the story has vanished. It might still be there, but the fire may have been partially talked away. And as I said in my last blog, a large part of fiction writing, at least for me, comes from the gut. It’s not really a rational process.
Maybe it’s because when you leak out or pour out a story idea you partially encapsulate it or frame it. Nothing my creative muse hates more than a framed idea. Gutless, and when I invite my muse up to my writing/Black and Decker drill and saw/Sue’s files/our vacuum cleaner storage unit/office, to join in the writing project, well, he’s ticked off.

“Hey dude, you’ve already blabbed that story out. So what do you want me to do? Warm it up and send it out as second-hand crap? Go pencil yourself.”

My Office

Anyway, as you may know, I spend a lot of my time in a little trailer in the forest. Trying my best to be hip with the hype and not go shack-wacky. Maybe I should say, worrying about getting with the program, but not often actually doing it. And I don’t really want to end up doing what Salinger did. He wrote his last works and then hid them away. I guess writing them was enough for him. Where was his marketing savvy? What was wrong with him?

Sidney Cox once wrote, “Do not try to write a poem until you want to.”

Diamond in the Rough

So, maybe writing too many self-promotional words in order to get my writing out there, or talking too much about what I want to create, can mute my desire to write.

I know that as with everything in life, when you create, you’re walking a fine line. Because the diamond in the rough is super hard and yet as fragile as a spider’s web. Choosing not to run as quickly as the hare might fail to get a writer so much into the world’s hungry, obsessive gaze, but it might also be a way to save his or her writing self by keeping the flames hot.

Yeats wrote: “But when I shut my door and light the candle, I invite a marmorean Muse, an art where no thought or emotion has come to mind because another man has thought or felt something different, for now there must be no reaction, action only, and the world must move my heart but to the heart’s discovery of itself, and I begin to dream of eyelids that do not quiver before the bayonet.”

Snow-covered Lake Ainslie

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The Suspect

14/10/2013

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Holy Helvetica font, Batman. This is my seventh blog post. So thank you to all the readers who have actually landed on my website and have taken the time to read it.

Last weekend, the Cabot Trail Writers Festival hit North River. Sue and I attended the Friday and Sunday events. Well worth it! We enjoyed the readings by authors Russell Wangersky, Carol Bruneau and Peter Robinson, their panel discussion on Sunday morning, the music of Otis Tomas, Carmel Mikol and Buddy MacDonald and all the tasty food. The fall colours were nearly in full display so the venue was about as perfect as one could wish for.

So, I got myself all educated up, by listening to excellent writers throwing out their writing wisdom and then I went home.

Panel Discussion at Cabot Trail Writers Festival

Last Monday, I was working on a short story. Previously, I had read an article on what judges are looking for in a good short story. I’ll give you a partial list. Here it is: The writing should be sincere, hold few generalities, pack an immediate punch, show rather than tell, be character-driven and have knock-out sentences. There are others too. Aren’t there always others?

The one point that stuck with me was the grab-the-reader idea. To fill my stories with zip - wild sex if need be. To grab the readers by the shirt collar, lift them up off their feet, stare them square in the eyes, and shout, “Read my story, damn it, or I’ll melt into a puddle of talking-head verbiage.”

In Creative Mode

So, I was sitting in my back-friendly chair, tapping away on my old, somewhere around twenty-year-old Performa 580CD MacIntosh computer. A workhorse. I was attempting to write something that had sticky plot claws and would save me from becoming another wicked witch in a meltdown. I’m not sure, but I might have even been wearing coloured striped socks, when did I not see floating by my window a scary looking woman wearing black, riding a bicycle with a little black dog in the bicycle basket? Oh, probably not, but as I shook that image away, I thought I’d stumbled upon a real zipper. Which I can’t share, because I’m still considering it. Because that’s one of the rules of writing. Don’t talk away your story before you have written it. At least it works for me.

I sometimes hit upon topics that emotionally seem to be so far outside my comfort zone that they induce guilt in me. Scare me, and having been raised in a religiously conservative tradition, I come by this feeling naturally. So, there I was, tip-tapping away, while noticing that my back was beginning to complain. I put the pain down to the damage done to my back years ago when it prevented me from being crushed by a falling, fully-loaded fridge, or to a psychosomatic reaction to writing "no-no" stuff. I adjusted my chair and kept on slogging away and suddenly the paragraph I was working on was jumping all over the computer screen. What the h---! I started banging on a few keys to make it stop. It didn’t. The wild, grab-you paragraph I was writing just leapt to another page. Then another and then back and then I was getting dizzy.

As if that weren’t bad enough, I realized that I had added about fifty blank pages to this story. I ran my fingers over the keys, hoping I could hit a key that would stop this nonsense. I’d lean forward to try another key and my paragraph would high-tail it for another page while more blank pages were being added. I started to wonder if my muse had something to do with it, but he was nowhere to be found. I whispered, “Oh my god, I think I’ve written my way into a perverse, dangerous, spirit-filled hell-hole. Maybe I should stop writing this story and change direction.”

The Suspect

Then I figured it out. It was so simple. Did you see it? Remember, my back was sore. I’d readjusted my chair. The right arm of said chair was resting on the <ENTER> key on the keyboard. So simple...yet I was a little disappointed. Because, if my writing had been able to get my inanimate computer’s attention, just think what it might have done to the reader. It frightens me to think about it.

Of course, I had to clean up my chair’s interference and cut and paste to another document so I wouldn’t be saving about a hundred blank pages. Sue’s printer would not appreciate it, nor would Sue.

So, as you can see, writing is a psychologically dangerous profession. And even though I had solved the problem, I began to wonder if my chair was trying to give me a message. Not the computer, but my chair. I mean, what are the odds that my chair’s arm would be able to hit the key that would make my brilliant, Hemingway-like paragraph leap around like a jumping bean?

Thanks again for sticking with me and my blog. I hope this blog doesn’t make you nervous about the objects around you but instead gives you a good idea to use so you can grab your readers’ attention and throw them on their proverbial asses.

My Hiking Buddy, Lloyd Stone

I know blogs aren’t supposed to be too long, because of the twitter world, but I just have to tell you that our bat is not far from us.

A few Saturdays ago, we were having new windows installed in our little ancient trailer. In preparation for this exercise, I had leaned a large piece of particle board against the woodshed and covered it with a large tarpaulin to keep it dry.

The contractor came to our door to tell us that there was a bat sleeping in the dark folds of the cover. Oh, we knew. She was back. We followed him to the board.

Yep, there was the little gal. Sleeping, and this is where it gets interesting. Sue is scared of bats. We have an understanding. I catch the bats and she catches the mice. So I found a box and tried to swipe the bat down into the box. The bat fluttered away. They do flutter like butterflies. Very interesting how they flutter and she fluttered to, you guessed it, Sue’s shoulder.

I walked around Sue, who was standing like a statue, and watched the little bat bare her teeth. They looked healthy and sharp. She seemed to like the material in Sue’s sweater.

Well, I did finally persuade the bat to drop off Sue’s shoulder into the box. Sue was the one who carried the box to the woods where she let her go. I expect to see both again.

I also must say that I was proud of Sue, who won’t let her fear of a creature get in the way of her understanding a creature. No matter how small or big it might be.

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Tread Gently

8/9/2013

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Bat newsflash! Bat newsflash! Bats can get through a hole no larger than three-eighths of an inch. The teeny weeny open space in the vent to our stove was about, let’s see, three-eighths of an inch.

So, a night or two after thinking we had every nook and cranny sealed, we had our wee silky package of delight fluttering from one hanging kitchen utensil to another. Until she finally settled down on our vegetable grater. Whereupon I once again escorted her outside. And, as she seemed in no hurry to leave the grater, I had to give her vehicle of choice a few taps on the porch railings before she would vacate.

I was, however, gentle with the bat, and not just because bat wings are fragile. But also because bats are dying at a frightening rate from a disease called “White Nose”. This disease causes them to end their hibernation too early in the year. So, they end up flying around looking for insects who haven’t arrived yet, because it’s not time for them to come out and offer themselves as bat protein. And don't forget, bats eat black flies and mosquitoes, so we need them to stick around--just not in our kitchen.

***

Deer on our lane

You know, I’ve had some doubts about having this blog. There’s such a massive quantity of verbiage already out there. People connecting, networking, expressing and making a thunderous brouhaha. Do I need to add to this noise?

For example, somebody writes something that is important to them and on a topic into which they might have poured much thought and emotion and bing, bang, bash! A horde of reactions is instantly shot out into the ethos from mostly anonymous reactors, directly aimed at the initial writer. Often rudely or profanely and often with little forethought. Knee-jerk this and that.

I think this noise can discourage and enervate writers. Now social media can be a wonderful way to market books and reach readers, but it can also drive writers into a near frenzy of busy marketing and networking. Also, is there a risk of saying too much in their need to market themselves? Not all writers can afford an agent and there are so many ways to network and to get into the public’s eyes and ears. Attending workshops, doing readings, sending twitters, writing blogs, emails and facebook entries, reading books about marketing, physically selling books, thinking up new ways to market, and well, I have to take a breath by adding a period to this list of possible methods. It’s wonderful, but it can be a dilemma.

Does the muse get our attention some of the time? Does she have to make a ten-minute appointment?

So, as I said, I write this blog with some trepidation. I can feel the consumeristic-mass production-more growth-and-prosperity devil tempting me to empty my creative tank. To mass produce my thoughts and feelings. Be a good salesman. Get the commission. Sell, sell, sell. Spreading out like a bad spill into an ocean of buzz.

Oh and don’t forget those grammar or politically correct, perfectionist Nazis who are ready to pounce at the first sign of a dangling this or that, or a politically incorrect word or idea. Writers can learn from them but they can also be hindered and made timid and anal. Although language is one of the things that makes us human and we need it to be called writers, it can also be a wonderful way to keep writers and others from shifting paradigms and being creative.

Russell Lyne wrote, ”The true snob never rests; there is always a higher goal to attain, and there are, by the same token, always more and more people to look down upon.”

A few days ago, I was hiking along our lane. I heard a downy woodpecker squeak. Then an evening grosbeak chirped in reply. The woodpecker answered with a squeak. The grosbeak answered with a chirp. This went on for some time. Each bird waiting for the other bird to finish. I realized I was listening to a woodpecker/grosbeak twitter, without an account. Two different species of birds having a conversation. Each waiting until the other one had expressed her or himself. It just sounded so much more civilized than what I’ve been noticing.

Take care, and when you are writing, have fun and stay connected. To your soul.

Cheers.

Here is a picture of Buddy Lee parked in front of the Middle River after Tuesday night’s rainstorm.

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life and death themes

Shackwacky - Chapter and Verse

Psyching the Mic

Worth Fighting For

The Path in the Sky

Literary Angst at the Bird Feeders

Shack-Wacky Hype

The Suspect

Tread Gently

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