TEE CEE

June 7th 2012

Nobody said this was going to be easy.

And we knew that, right?

Today it was announced that the Conservative Government of Canada cut funding to the Literary Press Group, thus severing one of the vital arms that get the books of independent Canadian publishers to retailers and readers. http://bit.ly/Lgdu2U

It’s depressing, yes. It would be nice to live in a country whose federal government understood and supported the literary arts, the way they do in much of the grown-up, civilized world. But we’re not that lucky.

So what does that mean for us writers?

It means that we keep doing what we’re doing. We behave like the black knight in Monty Python’s Holy Grail. We ignore it. We carry on regardless. The fact is, artists all over the world have to deal with much worse than this. They have to deal with threats, with imprisonment, with fatwas. They go to jail for making art. They risk their lives. We have to deal with a pitiful lack of government funding. This is a flesh wound.

I think sometimes we’re distracted by our proximity to the United States. On some level — not our virtuous conscious but maybe our needy subconscious — we think that art is supposed to pay off for us somehow. I think we can admit that. We think we’re supposed to get something in return for all the sacrifice and suffering. The houses and cars we forego. The backyard pools. The decent wines. Right? We passed up that steady paycheque in order to make art, and the least the government can do is understand and give an indirect helping hand!

When they don’t, as this government will not, it’s infuriating, it’s demoralizing. But what I’m here to say is that it shouldn’t stop us from writing. It shouldn’t get in our way as artists.

We still have to make the art. We still have to write the books. And frankly that’s hard enough. I for one cannot sit here working on the voice of a character or the shape of a sentence if I’m all het up about the raspberry the Harper Government has just blown at my industry. I have to concentrate on the book. What happens after that is a whole other problem, and other people have to get involved. Other people have to join in that fight. But as artists, the first and most important job is to push that stuff out of our minds and just get the work made.

On our bloody stumps if we have to.

Posted at 6:36pm and tagged with: writing, funding, government,.

Nobody said this was going to be easy.
And we knew that, right?
Today it was announced that the Conservative Government of Canada cut funding to the Literary Press Group, thus severing one of the vital arms that get the books of independent Canadian publishers to retailers and readers. http://bit.ly/Lgdu2U
It’s depressing, yes. It would be nice to live in a country whose federal government understood and supported the literary arts, the way they do in much of the grown-up, civilized world. But we’re not that lucky.
So what does that mean for us writers?
It means that we keep doing what we’re doing. We behave like the black knight in Monty Python’s Holy Grail. We ignore it. We carry on regardless. The fact is, artists all over the world have to deal with much worse than this. They have to deal with threats, with imprisonment, with fatwas. They go to jail for making art. They risk their lives. We have to deal with a pitiful lack of government funding. This is a flesh wound.
I think sometimes we’re distracted by our proximity to the United States. On some level — not our virtuous conscious but maybe our needy subconscious — we think that art is supposed to pay off for us somehow. I think we can admit that. We think we’re supposed to get something in return for all the sacrifice and suffering. The houses and cars we forego. The backyard pools. The decent wines. Right? We passed up that steady paycheque in order to make art, and the least the government can do is understand and give an indirect helping hand!
When they don’t, as this government will not, it’s infuriating, it’s demoralizing. But what I’m here to say is that it shouldn’t stop us from writing. It shouldn’t get in our way as artists.
We still have to make the art. We still have to write the books. And frankly that’s hard enough. I for one cannot sit here working on the voice of a character or the shape of a sentence if I’m all het up about the raspberry the Harper Government has just blown at my industry. I have to concentrate on the book. What happens after that is a whole other problem, and other people have to get involved. Other people have to join in that fight. But as artists, the first and most important job is to push that stuff out of our minds and just get the work made.
On our bloody stumps if we have to.

June 5th 2012

What to Write?

It’s the most obvious question for a writer, and the answer should be equally obvious: You write what you have to write.

But sometimes it’s not so easy. I’ve written three novels, and yet before every new project, when I often have many ideas floating around in my head, I debate with myself over which idea to pursue. Sometimes the answer happens naturally. It’s so abundantly obvious what you’re meant to write that you’d be insane to ignore it. Practical Jean happened that way. When it does it’s a relief.

Other times, it takes a long while, and a lot of wasted words before you really know. Before Practical Jean I spent three years and a lot of agonized writing on a novel that just never clicked for me. That’s not a process I’m keen to repeat.

So as I embark on the next project, the question of “what to write” is potent for me right now, as it might be for you if you’re about to embark on your own project. And I think I’ve figured something out that might help.

After the agonizing three years on the novel that didn’t click, the experience of writing Practical Jean was a revelation. It was utterly joyful — even though the book is about murder and death — and the words came so easily that it seemed like magic.

Part of me wondered whether I could trust that experience. I didn’t want to build in expectations for myself that “magical flow” was my new normal. That would mean that if the flow didn’t happen immediately, I was doomed. In fact as I begin the next book, I think I know that this one will be harder. And that’s okay.

But I’ve also come to realize what I need as I begin a new book. I have an understanding of what is absolutely non-negotiable … I have to feel delight.

A new idea has to spark a kind of giddiness in me. It also, yes, must feel like an idea that I can live with and build, maybe for years. It has to have a main character who I want to share with the world, someone I think the world should get to know.

But I felt some of those latter two elements with the book that didn’t click. What I didn’t feel while writing that book, ever, was delight. And that’s why it didn’t work for me. Writing a book is like travelling to a far distant land, and doing it by foot. It’s a long, at times arduous slog. You really have to want to get where you’re going, and you have to enjoy the journey while it’s happening.

So as I spend the next while figuring out “what to write,” I know that I’ll be looking for that frisson of excitement, that inner effervescence, that delight, as I imagine how the new idea might unfold. If you’re in the same position as a writer, I really recommend you search for that feeling. It will tell you you’re on the right track.

Posted at 8:09pm and tagged with: writing,.

What to Write?
It’s the most obvious question for a writer, and the answer should be equally obvious: You write what you have to write.
But sometimes it’s not so easy. I’ve written three novels, and yet before every new project, when I often have many ideas floating around in my head, I debate with myself over which idea to pursue. Sometimes the answer happens naturally. It’s so abundantly obvious what you’re meant to write that you’d be insane to ignore it. Practical Jean happened that way. When it does it’s a relief.
Other times, it takes a long while, and a lot of wasted words before you really know. Before Practical Jean I spent three years and a lot of agonized writing on a novel that just never clicked for me. That’s not a process I’m keen to repeat.
So as I embark on the next project, the question of “what to write” is potent for me right now, as it might be for you if you’re about to embark on your own project. And I think I’ve figured something out that might help.
After the agonizing three years on the novel that didn’t click, the experience of writing Practical Jean was a revelation. It was utterly joyful — even though the book is about murder and death — and the words came so easily that it seemed like magic.
Part of me wondered whether I could trust that experience. I didn’t want to build in expectations for myself that “magical flow” was my new normal. That would mean that if the flow didn’t happen immediately, I was doomed. In fact as I begin the next book, I think I know that this one will be harder. And that’s okay.
But I’ve also come to realize what I need as I begin a new book. I have an understanding of what is absolutely non-negotiable … I have to feel delight.
A new idea has to spark a kind of giddiness in me. It also, yes, must feel like an idea that I can live with and build, maybe for years. It has to have a main character who I want to share with the world, someone I think the world should get to know.
But I felt some of those latter two elements with the book that didn’t click. What I didn’t feel while writing that book, ever, was delight. And that’s why it didn’t work for me. Writing a book is like travelling to a far distant land, and doing it by foot. It’s a long, at times arduous slog. You really have to want to get where you’re going, and you have to enjoy the journey while it’s happening.
So as I spend the next while figuring out “what to write,” I know that I’ll be looking for that frisson of excitement, that inner effervescence, that delight, as I imagine how the new idea might unfold. If you’re in the same position as a writer, I really recommend you search for that feeling. It will tell you you’re on the right track.

June 3rd 2012

I asked the supermarket produce man, “When did this corn come in?”

After a pause he said, “I think it came in today.”

Should I believe him? Would you?

Small lies are so commonplace.

Posted at 7:40pm.

I asked the supermarket produce man, “When did this corn come in?”

After a pause he said, “I think it came in today.”

Should I believe him? Would you?

Small lies are so commonplace.

June 2nd 2012

1 note

Posted at 10:06pm and tagged with: full width,.

January 26th 2012

Seen (and captured!) by my friend author Ania Szado at the Strand Bookstore in New York.

Posted at 12:04am.

October 31st 2011

Thoughts on Mona Simpson’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was one of those rare celebrities whose attitudes and actions affected our daily lives. And because we felt more connected to him than to most celebrities, his death touched us more deeply. We felt we had a right to grieve his death, because we felt loss, and we wondered about what the future would hold now. And that mixture of gratitude for what he had done for us, and anxiety about the future, felt similar to the way we feel when we lose a close member of the family.

For that reason, it seemed we had earned the right to share in his final moments, and we were granted access to those moments through the public eulogy written by Job’s sister, Mona Simpson. It’s beautifully written. (Here’s a link that won’t be affected by the New York Times paywall). Simpson is a novelist, and she uses all her skills as a writer to let us see a version of Steve Jobs that is very different from the one we thought we knew. Her eulogy takes us into his personal life, gives us a glimpse of how he lived and lets us see the special bond between Jobs and his wife, Laurene.

Reading this eulogy, I was grateful to Simpson for sharing this loving picture of Jobs with the world. And then I came to the end of the eulogy, when Simpson reveals Jobs’ final moments, and his last words, and I felt a little differently.

I have been with someone — my mother — in the moment of death. And I understand the need to share that moment with others. But death is such a private experience, I’m not sure it should be shared with everyone. My mother chose to have only her three closest living relatives with her when she died — her two children, and her brother. I don’t know what Steve Jobs’ wishes were. It’s very possible he wanted his last moments, and his last words, revealed to anyone and everyone.

But coming to the end of Mona Simpson’s eulogy, I felt a little ashamed, frankly. I felt I was peeking behind a curtain to peer into a private scene I had no business seeing. Immediately after reading it, I tweeted that it was a “privilege” to read those words. That was my first attempt to articulate what I was feeling, the sense of having been allowed into the inner sanctum to witness something so terribly personal as someone’s moment of death.

Now, part of me wishes I hadn’t read those final few paragraphs. Did Steve Jobs really want me there with him when he died? Did he want me to hear the final, ecstatic sounds he made?

Oddly, I care about him enough (a feeling his sister’s eulogy helped to cement) to feel that I should not have looked onto that last, most private scene. I don’t judge Mona Simpson for letting me, I just wish I hadn’t.

Posted at 12:48pm and tagged with: two column,.

October 24th 2011

Practical Jean is going on a Virtual Tour! Check out all the Blog stops Practical Jean will be making over the next few weeks.

Posted at 6:32pm.

October 12th 2011

Practical Jean in Pictures

This short video is a documentation of a project undertaken by Studio 12, a group of local photographers in Hamilton, Ontario, who combined their efforts to depict scenes from my third novel, which has just been released in the United States. Everyone involved was a volunteer. The force behind it all was Dundas resident Ruth Renters, who got the project rolling before she knew she would, in fact, be portraying Jean herself. Friends and other members of Studio 12 filled out the remaining cast of characters.

There are 13 images in all, only some of which are shown in the video. All of them will be on display at 126 James Street North in Hamilton (2nd floor) the evening of Friday, October 14, as part of Hamilton’s monthly Art Crawl. Thanks to McClelland & Stewart for helping to defray some of the printing costs.

Of course, it’s enormously flattering that a group like Studio 12 would be inspired enough by the book to want to make scenes from it “real.” They’re great people, and I’m thrilled to be able to share their effort with you.

Posted at 2:54am.