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My November Reads

curtains-from-outside-at-nightOctober’s sunshine and clear skies have disappeared and the wind and clouds have arrived.  A bitter rain is slapping against my office window as I write this, and though it’s not quite four o’clock, it’s almost dark outside. So I’m drawing the curtains early today. I’ve been doing that a lot lately. I’m not exactly cocooning (I have too much work for that), but I am cutting back on my commitments, especially at night.  I’m using that time to catch up on some writing, and to read. Here’s what I’m dipping into right now:

At the gym:   Heroes Are My Weakness by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

On the Kindle: With Love & Light: A True Story about an Uncommon Gift by Jamie Butler

Beside the bed: Delancey: A Man, a Woman, a Restaurant, a Marriage by Molly Wizenberg

Books Read to Date in 2014:  63

 

Get Your Turtle On

turtleA few weeks ago, I talked about NaNoWriMo and the combination of awe and fatigue I feel when I think of producing that many words so quickly.  At the same time, I also admitted that I wanted to boost my productivity, including my daily word count, and I was determined to find a way.

After dumping some bad habits I picked up over the last few months, my productivity is up.  But my word count still isn’t anywhere near as high as I’d like it to be. Part of that is my process (see last week’s blog post) but the other part of it is, well, a little more depressing.  I realized the other day that I’m more like the tortoise than the hare.

And, sure, the tortoise eventually wins the race but honestly, I’d rather be a hare. Hares have a lot more dash and flash than turtles.  They’re sleek and fast and productive. Plus, they’re cute. Turtles, not so much. They’re ground creepers. Members of the reptile family. Turtles have thick, leathery skin, an armored shell, and they are slow.  Painfully so.

I can’t remember the last time I received a compliment for going slow. Or gave one out. I like fast. I celebrate fast.  I hate getting stuck behind the slow driver on the highway. I’m impatient if I have to wait more than two or three minutes when I make a phone call. And let’s not even talk about all the waiting around on book submissions.

Unless it’s a soup that needs simmering or a garden that needs growing, we embrace fast.  It’s a mark of pride if our kids talk or walk at an early age. If our dogs finish first in agility. If we get our Christmas shopping done in October.  If we write three books a year instead of two. Or two books instead of one.

No wonder the thought of being a turtle held little appeal.  Then I found a book about totem animals. Here’s what I learned about the symbolism behind turtles:

Turtle wisdom is linked to the power of Earth. It gives us the ability to stay grounded, even in moments of chaos. It is the way of peace, whether it’s inviting us to cultivate peace of mind or walk our path in peace.

Turtle wisdom is also linked to the spirit of water. Since turtles are fast and agile in water, it has much to teach us about the fluid nature of emotions.

Turtle wisdom encourages us to slow down, to pace ourselves, and to take a break to look within.

Turtle wisdom lends us determination, persistence, emotional strength and understanding.

Turtle wisdom teaches us to travel light . . . to let go of those things we have outgrown.

Because the turtle carries its home on its back, turtle wisdom teaches us to own our space and to take all the time we need to do whatever it is we feel called to do.

Turtle wisdom encourages us to remember that we there is no such thing as failure as long as we are inching towards our goal.

Turtle wisdom reminds us to enjoy the journey and to remember that life is a never-ending process of arrival.

Turtle wisdom reassures us that we have all the time in the world . . .  and that we are always where we are supposed to be.

After reading all of that, I suddenly didn’t mind identifying with the turtle. After all, the turtle is also the symbol for longevity. And I’m in this gig for the long haul.  So my advice? Get your turtle on. And forget about the hare.

Ready, Set, November

ready_set_goNovember is a month for abbreviations and productivity. At least in my world, it is.

There’s PiBoIdMo, which is short for Picture Book Idea Month. The idea is to come up with a picture book idea every day for the month of November.  There’s also NaNoWriMo, which is short for National Novel Writing Month. The concept is similar though the word count is longer – produce a 50,000 word rough draft of a novel in 30 days. That’s 1666 words a day. Every single day. Weekends included.  Unless you want to take weekends off. In that case, you’ll need to write about 2500 words a day for the next four weeks.

A lot of people sign up for these things. Some people do it every year. A few people I know do both NaNoWriMo and PiBoldMo.   Somewhere in there they find the time to go on social media and post about ideas generated or daily word counts.  And to congratulate or post encouragement to others too.

It’s all good. Really, it is. But, honestly, it makes me tired just thinking about it. And leaves me feeling vaguely guilty. I average 1000 – 1200 words a day four or five days a week. Weekends are for chores, for groceries, for meal planning and all that good stuff.  Even if I intend to write on weekends, I rarely do, though I’ll often find myself mulling a character, a plot twist, or an upcoming scene.

I’d like to change that. For one, I have a novel that’s almost done, and another one to start and finish by March 2015. I have a major feature due at the beginning of December too.  So this November, I’d like to up my productivity and boost my idea quotient. I’d like to clean out my in box and clean off the top of my desk. Hit the gym, stop eating wheat and do 100 push ups every day. Finish my Christmas shopping. And maybe finish the needlepoint that’s been sitting in the closet since 2008 too. In other words, I’d like to kill the month of November.

Just call me LeMeWriMa or Lean Mean Writing Machine.  Or, if you’d rather, go with the pros and check out these sites: http://taralazar.com/piboidmo/     and http://nanowrimo.org/

 

My October Reads

fall2013 007The squirrels are gone from the attic, the garden is put to bed, and the soup pot is already seeing action. In a few days we’ll set our clocks back an hour to standard time. Not everyone appreciates the fewer hours of daylight, but I don’t mind.  It’s a little lighter in the morning but darker earlier at night. That means more time to read!  What’s not to love about that?  My ‘to-be-read pile is higher than my fridge so I’m looking forward to sitting by the fire and losing myself in a good book.

Here’s what I’m reading this week:

On the Kindle:  Walking Home by Sonia Choquette

Beside the Bed: What I Love About You by Rachel Gibson

At the Gym: Beautiful Lies by Lisa Unger

 

Books read to date in 2014: 57

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I’m Going Squirrelly

Squirrel-on-roofVirginia Woolf said, ‘a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.’

No argument there. But with all due respect, Virginia, you missed something. Along with money and space, a squirrel-free zone helps too.

We have squirrels in our attic. Or at least we did. It’s been quiet the last few days, though that’s no guarantee. They’ve tricked us out before. We noticed them first this summer. They’d run through the yard taunting Team Sheltie. One took to sleeping on our fence where the sun hit in the middle of the day. I thought it was sweet. We had a house squirrel, I told myself. A totem protector.   How cute is that?

I am so naïve.  So. Naïve.

We no longer have a house squirrel. We have an army of squirrels. They’ve captured the attic and are defending their territory with a vicious determination that makes ISIS look like a group of kindergarteners. Given that Mr. Petrol Head is protective of his family, not to mention the fact that he’d like to keep our roof, our insulation and our wiring intact, he declared war.  He would eradicate the mighty army himself. Just call him the original squirrel slayer.

Just to clarify – our attic isn’t a traditional space where you store clothes and steamer trunks and kids go to play on a snow day. Our attic isn’t accessible, at least not by anybody taller than eight inches.  It’s a narrow space just below the roof where the insulation lives. It is accessed by vents. Vents in squirreldom are known as front doors. And ours apparently have a great big flashing WELCOME sign visible only to squirrels.

After some on line research, the Original Squirrel Slayer got to work. He tried moth balls which squirrels apparently hate. Maybe they do somewhere. Not where we live.  He screened off the vent. The squirrels laughed and chewed through it. He made a ‘foolproof’ one way door out of all sorts of heavy, squirrel proof material and snapped it over the vent.  Squirrelgate he called it. The squirrels thumbed their noses. They pulled a break, enter and repeat. Squirrelgate was breached.

I’d had enough. Call in the experts, I said. Let me try something else said the Original Squirrel Slayer, who was spending more and more time on our roof determined that the rats-with-tails wouldn’t get the best of him.

A new and improved Squirrelgate was created and installed. Things got quiet. We were hopeful. We were sure the army had been conquered.  We were sure we’d won the war.

Then came Saturday.  I woke up to find the Squirrel Commander-in-Chief chewing his way through the screen on our open skylight.  The army was on the move. The attic was no longer enough. The capture of new territory – in the form of our TV room – was the goal.

The Original Squirrel Slayer conceded defeat.  Refusing to accept his new moniker, he picked up the phone, dialed the Squirrel Whisperer and went back to being Mr. Petrol Head.  Some things, like marauding squirrels, are better left to the experts. squirrelgate

Imagination: Blessing or Curse?

mental-workspace-in-human-brainOne great thing about being a writer is my imagination is always on steroids.

One lousy thing about being a writer is my imagination is always on steroids.

Plus when you’re a writer and a mother, there is guilt. I’m not talking about the guilt of deadlines, or traveling when there’s an event at home, or being preoccupied with the book a little too much.

No, I’m talking about the guilt of having an imagination that’s always on steroids. Because if you have more than one child, chances are high you’ll pass that particular blessing on to at least one of them.  If so, my condolences. And a suggestion: get out the Tylenol. You will need it.

Case in point (actually two cases).  Case one: Several weeks ago, a friend left six chocolate covered strawberries on my doorstep. Delighted, I brought them inside, ate one, and put the rest on a high table for later.  When my back was turned, Luna, my Sheltie, jumped up, grabbed three and gobbled them down before I could pry her mouth apart (first time she has ever grabbed food from the table).   I spent the next twenty-four hours in one of three states: on my laptop trying to assess how much chocolate it takes to cover three strawberries and how toxic that would be to a 20 pound Sheltie; staring at her while I waited for the convulsions to start; and obsessing about how we would break the news to Teen Freud that one of the dogs died while he was in Morocco.

Case two: in Morocco, Teen Freud was having adventures of his own, including, but not limited to, getting a bad concussion after hitting his head so hard on a bathroom sink that part of it broke off.  Determined to avoid Moroccan hospitals (he was traveling with an Australian medical doctor who came equipped with her own IVs and syringes, among other things) he opted to wait until he got to the London leg of his trip before seeking medical attention. Unfortunately before he could do that, he bumped his head a second time which led him to immediately google second impact syndrome. He spent the next several days convinced he had it, waiting for the convulsions to start, and obsessing about dying so far away from home.

By the time we got wind of all this, Luna had recovered completely but Teen Freud was certain he was poised to die from a brain bleed.  I’m not minimizing brain bleeds. They’re serious, we all know that, and there’s no question Teen Freud had a bad concussion, which is nothing to mess with either.Two doctors told him so (one was, in Teen Freud’s words, ‘barely out of diapers’ and you haven’t lived until you’ve heard your baby child describe someone else as young enough to be in diapers).

You also haven’t lived until the offspring with the imagination on steroids sustains a (potentially serious) injury 7500 kilometres away from home and you are forced to read between the lines. To separate the rhetoric from the meaningful. The facts from the paranoia.  Until you are forced to remind yourself that he carries your genes, your imagination, and your touch for drama along with a dose of hypochondria that clearly came from the other side of the family.

One great thing about children who travel is they always come home. And there’s nothing lousy about that.  However, Teen Freud is now convinced he has post-concussion syndrome.

We’re beating back our collective imaginations and monitoring the situation. Stay tuned.

Mark These Dates . . .

langston_ArtofGettingStared_pbIt’s shameless self-promotion time. I’m doing a blog tour over the next two weeks to coincide with the release of The Art of Getting Stared At.  I’ll be popping into the following blogs either to answer questions or to do a short guest post, or the blog hosts will be reviewing the book. Feel free to stop by!

September 1st:  Razorbill.ca   http://razorbill.ca/

September 2nd: More Than Just Magic http://morethanjustmagic.org/

September 3rd: Xpresso Reads    http://www.xpressoreads.com/

September 4th Chapter by Chapter   http://www.chapter-by-chapter.com/

September 5th Mostly YA Lit     http://mostlyyalit.blogspot.ca/

September 6  Padfoot’s Library   http://padfootslibrary.blogspot.ca/

September 7th Maji Bookshelf     http://majibookshelf.blogspot.ca/

September 8th Pop! Goes the Reader    http://www.popgoesthereader.com/

September 9th Emilie’s Book World   http://www.emiliebookworld.com/

September 10th Cherry Blossoms & Maple Syrup  http://innocencewalker.wordpress.com/

September 11th Conversations of a Reading Addict   http://conversationsofareadingaddict.blogspot.ca/

September 12th   Addie’s Book Blog   http://bookybelleaddie.blogspot.ca/

 

 

 

 

 

Reading Preferences Showed Early

sue-barton-senior-nurseOver the last week, I’ve been writing material for a series of guest blogs that will upload to various sites throughout the month of September, coinciding with the release of The Art of Getting Stared At. (I’m grateful to the bloggers for hosting me and when I get blog dates, I’ll share them.)   A number of questions focused on the book itself but others were more general.  Several people wanted to know my favorite book as a child.

That was a tough question to answer.  I read early and voraciously, and my tastes changed as rapidly as I grew. I didn’t have just one favorite book. I had a series of favorites.  But as I gave the question some thought, it occurred to me that my natural inclinations were obvious early on.

For the most part, even as a kid I gravitated to two types of books:  contemporary stories that dealt with serious issues or over-the-top glamor romps. A close third was mysteries. I was a loyal Nancy Drew fan.

By the time I was 11, I’d fallen in love with a series of Sue Barton nurse books. She had red hair (how glamorous) and helped save lives (how meaningful).  Though it was toned down somewhat, there was gritty realism in those books.  There was also realism in With Love From Karen about a young girl with cerebral palsy, and in a novel called Mrs. Mike about a 16-year-old Boston girl who moves to the Canadian wilderness, falls in love with a Mountie and copes with extreme hardship. At the same time, I escaped with a series of books about Donna Parker who visited relatives in Hollywood, traveled overseas, and talked a lot about clothes.

The serious/light split continued into my teens as I went through an Ann Rand phase, took up with depressing Russian novelists (Anna Karenina was a favorite) and scared myself silly with Sybil.  At the same time, I devoured the rags to riches story of A Woman of Substance by Barbara Taylor Bradford, Once is Not Enough by Jacqueline Susann and any Sidney Sheldon book I could find.

Maybe that’s why when people ask me to name a favorite book or favorite author I’m as likely to say Jodi Picoult as I am Jennifer Crusie. Or maybe Jojo Moyes or Kristan Higgins. It depends on the day. It depends on my mood. It just . . .  well . . . depends.

And don’t ask me to name my favorite food either. That’s another impossibility. 

My August Reads

crazy busy#BusyAugust is usually quiet. I figured this year would be no exception. I’d anticipated time off to catch up on reading, daydreaming, ice cream eating.  Instead, life threw us a curveball in the form of helping my mother downsize and move. She’d been on a waiting list, the opportunity presented itself, and it was one of those ‘if you say no, you may have to wait another two years’ kind of thing.  So she jumped on it.  And it’s all good except free time has been at a premium. I haven’t even gotten out on my bike yet this summer. I’m hoping things will slow down towards the end of the month so I can get out for a ride or two and read a few extra books. In the meantime, here’s what I’m reading right now:

Beside the Bed: Keep Quiet by Lisa Scottoline

On the Kindle: Newbie Nick by Lisa McManus

At the Gym: The Firebird by Susanna Kearsley

Books read to date 2014: 50

 

The Dog Days of Summer

DSC00163I think of the dog days of summer as being in August – that period of time when life seems to slow down. People are either away on holidays or they leave work early. Meals are simpler (popsicles for lunch anyone?), clothing is lighter, worries seem to recede.

Well, guess what? Depending on who you want to believe, the dog days of summer may end next week (I’m not impressed: that reminds me of fall and I’m not ready for sweaters and slippers).

In ancient times, the Romans associated the dog days with the Dog Star, Sirius, which happens to be the brightest star in the night sky.  It’s so bright the Romans thought the earth received heat from it. In the summer, Sirius rises and sets with the sun and at one point in July, actually conjuncts the sun.  Considered a particularly potent time, the Roman’s deemed the 20 days before this conjunction and the 20 days after as ‘the dog days of summer.’  That meant the dog days could run anywhere from late July to late August, and that’s still the belief in many European cultures today.

However, nothing stays the same, including the constellations in our sky. Given the precession of the equinoxes (basically the drift of our nighttime constellations) the conjunction of Sirius to our sun takes place earlier.  So these days the Farmer’s Almanac lists the dog days as beginning July 3rd and ending August 11th.

Personally, I’m backing the Romans. Mind you, they also thought this period was an evil time when “the sea boiled, the wine turned sour, dogs grew mad and men were plagued with hysteria.”  They were so fearful they generally sacrificed a dog to appease the Gods.

There’s no need for that around here. In my little world, the sea is calm, the wine is sweet and Team Sheltie is happy. Sure, I’m a little hysterical, but that’s nothing new.

And it’s got nothing to do with the dog days of summer.

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