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Being a professional writer invariably leads to public performances. I actually never thought this through when I started writing and only realized, in horror, that I’d have to read my words aloud in front of people I both knew and didn’t know…. I grew up as an introvert child…. Performing in front of people was something that I never aspired to do nor fantasized about. I thought being a writer meant I could be by myself a lot to write…. <weak grin>

Happily, after many years of reading in public, I’ve come to  enjoy the performative nature of the engagement. It still makes me feel very nervous and I have a kind of tizzy when I have to perform new things, but I can often leave the stage feeling satisfied. It may never come easily to you, but developing a professional modality of performance can greatly affect how often you are invited to engagements. Remember, every time you read in a public space you are introducing your work to a potential fan who will go on to buy your books. Performing well can affect sales. If you’re trying to get by on your writing EVERY GIG COUNTS.

Some Tips on Performance:

1) Never go longer than your allotted time.

2) Never go longer than your allotted time.

3) NEVER GO LONGER THAN YOUR ALLOTTED TIME! (Clearly I cannot say this enough. Whenever I’m invited to a group reading there will always be someone, maybe several people, who go over time. Really, people. Get over yourself. Some people say they will just go a couple minutes over time because their story is a little longer than the time allotted. No. You should have chosen something that fit the allotted time. That’s all. Be respectful to the organizers of the event, your peers and your audience. If you use up more than your allotted time it may mean that people performing later in the line-up may not have their share of time/space/audience patience-energy. Audiences grow tired. Don’t be a space hog. If you want people to hear you for longer set up a salon at home and invite your friends who love you to bits and won’t get mad if you go on and on.

4) Select an excerpt or story that performs well on the stage. Some things that work well on paper don’t perform well. If you’re not sure if it performs well ask a writing friend to act as your audience and provide feedback.

5) Be sure you’re not going to go over time because you’ve practiced your reading, as well as the preamble/introduction, aloud, at home, several times, as you timed it against the clock. If it goes over time pare it down so it doesn’t. Easy!

6) A public reading is a performance. Try to inflect some feeling into the reading. A reading is more than just words read aloud; it seeps into a grey area closer to dramatic performance. Bring life to your performance. Imagine that you’re reading a bed-time story to your children. Or, imagine that you’re bringing a film into life through the invocation of your words. You are performing a magic act. Transport them.

7) Thank your hosts. Acknowledge the audience.

FOR THE RECORD: I think it’s perfectly acceptable to go over time as an act of political intervention. I.e. you’ve been invited to perform at an event that claims to be inclusive, but you’re the only woman and of colour person in the line-up. I think it’d be totally politically acceptable to HOG UP TIME by reading selectively critical things, etc.

My policy has been to read a little less than allotted time. I kinda feel that it’s better to quit while people still want to hear a little more, rather than hit the point where people are starting to tune you out.  

Go knock their socks off!

If you have never had your work published in a professional venue (i.e. magazine not owned by family members, anthologies, newspapers, contest win leading to pro publications, etc.) and you are eager to do so you might like to ask yourself:

Question #1: Have I worked long at developing my craft?

and:

Question #2: Have I had professional critical feedback on the piece I’d like to submit and I’ve re-written it once again (after numerous previous revisions)?

I think it’s really important that you’ve accomplished these two things before submitting. Of course I’m not speaking in absolutes. There are many paths and ways to being a published writer. The path I’ve taken is what I consider “The Tortoise’s Path” of “The Tortoise and the Hare” model. I’ll blog about that path on another day. ~__~

There are a few other questions you may like to consider. Writers write and seek publication for a wide range of reasons. We are complex and complicated creatures and life is never boring even if a great many of us are neurotics. I digress. I would like to caution the writer who is seeking first-time pro publication, however, if her primary drive to be published is ego-driven. I think that before the ego must come craft…. I’m sure there are wildly successful authors whose ego considerations come before their craft. And that’s fine for them. And, perhaps, that’s fine for you. Who knows? I have strong feelings, however, about the art-fullness of work to be made public. If you’re going to do it, do it to the best of your ability. Make it count. Because once it’s out there you cannot take it back.

If you are a gifted young writer, and I met so many gifted and hard-working writers at the VPL Writing and Book Camp this past week, I would encourage you to not be in a terrrible rush to be published (Unless you’re suffering from terminal illness– that would very sad, and rushing would totally make sense.). Maybe you long to make a big literary Splash in the publishing scene. It has happened before, and it will continue to happen in the future. I think this kind of entry into the publishing scene is not without certain stresses and drawbacks that could deeply affect your career and writing development trajectory. Because even after the pro publication our writing continues to change and develop. We dig deeper. We think harder. We continue to grow. This is the lovely and amazing thing about being a writer. We can keep on learning and growing as long as we seek this! If, perhaps, you seek early career publication and it makes a Splash, you’ve set yourself up in a very public way and there will be expectations that you produce something just as splashy the second time around. The Second Book Syndrome can be paralyzing and destructive to your creative process. I wouldn’t wish it upon anybody. I’ve seen this happen to adult writers. I would hate for this to happen to someone in her teens. Not that you might not be up to the challenge. But let me reassure you: it’s okay to take your time. Writers needn’t race toward publication. If the story, the poem, the novel, is well-crafted and a lovely thing, it will find a home. Author Justine Larbalestier has blogged about being published early that may be of interest: http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2005/08/13/too-young-to-publish/ I don’t want to discourage you if you’re young and ambitious. It’s great to have goals and dreams. I know sometimes there feels like a great urgency to be “a real writer” (i.e. published. I don’t know if I think that only published writers are “real writers” but that’s another essay)…. I swear. There’s lots of time. Read and read and read. Write, rewrite, ask questions, find someone to professionally critique your work, rewrite. Rewrite some more.

Now, if you’ve answered  a resounding, “Yes!” to question #1, I would suggest that you go do research at your largest library and find out what kinds of magazines and journals are being published locally/regionally. Of course you can also look online for these journals as well as looking for online publications. You need to seek out venues that would be a suitable place for your stories/poems. If you’ve written a Pro-Choice poem and submit it to a Roman Catholic magazine it’s not going to be accepted. You need to research the market and submit to likely places. Read a wide variety of journals and magazines and look for a publication that publishes work similar to yours. There’s also a lot of helpful pro tips online if you look around. Do tons of research!

Contests are also a place to submit your work. If the contest is asking for a submission fee or processing fee that doesn’t differ so much from the prize I would advise you not to participate. For instance, if they ask you to pay $25 and the prize is $500 I would consider it “not worth it”. A true contest should not have you paying anything at all. Often a magazine will have a contest and with the processing fee you receive a year’s subscription of the magazine. If it’s a magazine you like and it publishes work similar to yours and you’re interested in the content then I don’t think it’s a rip-off.

Beware of online contests and publications. There’s not a great deal of quality control there yet. You may want to seek out professional advice before submitting to venues you’re unfamiliar with. Do research. Ask around.

Question #2: Where do I go for professional critical feedback? If you live in a major city it is very likely that the central libary or university(ies) have a Writer-in-Residency Program. The Writer-in-Residence is hired by the library/university/etc. to be available to the writing public to offer professional feedback/critiques. I’ve served in four residencies and not so many younger writers were coming in to access the services. There’s no age limit. Younger writers should feel free to book an appointment to receive feedback on their writing. You needn’t worry about your work “not being good enough”, because the whole point of the writer-in-residence is to provide feedback to writers who are working on a project, so they can strengthen it. I would also add, however, that some writers-in-residence may be more helpful than others. This is true of editors. If you have a less-than-helpful interaction with a writer-in-residence or editor it may be that they weren’t the right one for your kind of work. Please don’t despair. Find someone else. Maybe there’s a school teacher who is interested in writing, is a writer herself. Maybe there’re writing workshops through Continuing Education. Find places where you can receive critical feedback so you can further polish and develop your work. Family and friends who encourage us is very important to keep us going, but they may not be the best people to critically evaluate your work. The work being critiqued may not feel so pleasant, but it’s a necessary part of revisions.

There are many paths to becoming a published writers and you will find your way somehow! Ganbare! And believe! ~__~

Everyone I had spoken to on the matter had told me that the Louvre could not be viewed in one day, but I had no idea how enormous the museum was until I approached it from outside and saw the long wings of the former royal palace…. Holy crow, I thought. Lookit the size of it! And it’s crammed with stunning pieces of art– as if all of the photos of my Western Art History book were taken there! The scale! I know the dimensions of the paintings are noted in the textbooks but it is completely something else to stand before The Raft of the Medusa and feel the high drama of the tragic scene so stylized and so freaking enormous– I was imagining that people in the early 1800s might have experienced this painting as we currently experience films on the big screen. Larger than life, dramatic, and intense.

We made the pragmatic choice to see certain paintings that were “the most famous” because we would not have enough time to see everything well (perhaps if we had one week to spend inside the museum?), and, the space was very crowded with high-peak tourists (of which we were an additional five….). So off we went to see the Mona Lisa.

I had also been warned that there would be a queue in front of painting… I was totally unprepared for what I found. I had imagined that there would be those velvet ropes that folded the line-up back and forth into an organized and compact repeating U-shaped order, much like we line up at banks and airline wickets, etc. But there was no order. It was an outright scrum. On top of that most members of the scrum had one arm held vertically in the air with their camera or cellphone, as if they were mobbing a film star instead of viewing a piece of art. They were not trying to view a piece of art. They were trying to capture a piece of it to take home as trophy…. It was an art mob….

I was appalled, fascinated, curious, frustrated, disheartened, surprised, and alarmed. Holy smokes, I thought. What have we come to? Look how the ease with which digital photography has altered our behaviour and relationship!

We had requested a wheelchair for my mum because she couldn’t walk through the entire Louvre for so many hours without a great deal of pain. Bravely we joined the scrum and inched our way forward. It was terribly unorganized. People in the front who had finished viewing were trying to move to the back while the people in the back were trying to get closer. Truly it’s a trampling death waiting to happen. People were pushing and shoving and cutting in front of my mum’s wheelchair. It was a true mob with no sense of individual relationship to others. Daughter grew so disgusted by the entire thing that she left the scrum. Grimly, I pressed forward. The scrum would not stop me from viewing the Mona Lisa (thereby, I was part of the scrum. Oh, the tangled webs!). My sister was pushing my mum’s wheelchair. My mum’s friend was a little to my right. As we neared the front velvet rope that kept the crowd about ten feet away from the Mona Lisa, the pushing and shoving grew greater. There were two gallery minders standing inside the rope and one of them, with a slightly disgusted look on his face,  unclipped it and held it open so my sister could push my mum to the front and away from the awful, awful crowd. They got to view the Mona Lisa from close up, away from the maddening horde!!!! Awesome! I finally got to the front and had 30 seconds to gaze upon portrait. A forest of arms behind me, raised high, the digital clicks of cameras crowding paparazzi buzz and the press of bodies, unsettled longings for things they cannot say–

How quiet she is… how cool her smile. Cool as a deep shadow-dappled pool in a leafy forest…. A pocket of calm. A pocket of still. How remarkable, I thought. How utterly lovely.

We went on to see more paintings and sculptures. The third floor was far less crowded and I was so grateful. I can’t wait to return during the off-season….

It wasn’t only with the Mona Lisa– in front of all the other “famous” paintings people stood beside the artwork so that they could be photographed with it. As if the artwork is a tourist location/moment. Perhaps a little like having a photo taken with Goofy at Disneyland? The engagement was not between art and the viewer, but as site-documentation with placement of self within the frame. I’m not even certain many people actually looked at the painting. Interesting, as Spock would say. I have to confess it made me feel sad. But contexts shift with time and what was is not now, and will be something else in the future. As Octavia E. Butler wrote, “Life is Change.” The paintings are static. Our human culture(s) are not.

I am glad for some things that do not change….

We’ve spent two nights in Paris. When we first arrived the key to the flat was not under the door mat (security!!!) and the five of us stood in a row in the long narrow hallway with our suitcases on wheels, as if we were cattle waiting for slaughter. Sister made a flurry of phone calls, the final one stating we wouldn’t wait for much longer and they could pay for our hotel if we had to get one. An Italian Canadian family who was visiting from Montreal was in a unit on the next floor. When they heard of our troubles they let us bring our luggage into their flat and wait for our key there (where mum could have access to a washroom) as they were going out for dinner. Unbelievable! They were so generous and kind and trusting. It really warmed the heart. Truly, the kindness of strangers. Our key was delivered shortly thereafter and with great relief we gained entry.

Our flat is located near Notre Dame and Centre Pompidou. It’s central so that our mum won’t have so far to walk. But she’s still finding a bit of a struggle. She has various ailments, one of them being a kind of muscular arthritis. She hobbles on cobblestones. I hobble on cobblestones! One year I was in beautiful Sevilla in Spain and my ankles turned every step I took because of shoes that were not designed with cobblestones in mind…. I do have my sensible West Coast dyke Merrills and they do nicely on almost all terrain, but high end fashion they are not.

Group dynamics are always in flux during holiday exursions. Yesterday sister and I had a testy discussion on the Seine tour boat about how must capacity our mum had to be left with her friend from Japan to go shopping on their own in our neighborhood. Sister rated them at zero. I rated them at about 4 out of 10. I.e. let’s let them hobble about and shop on their own. Daughter watched silently from her seat a slightly bored and pissy expression upon her face. Sister pointed out that mum got lost in the hotel in Banff. Apparently she only had to go straight, but she was missing for half an hour and sister went on Search and Rescue. Therefore, she stated, mum could not be left on her own. Sister also said she’d witnessed a mugging in London and it was hard and fast and very traumatic. That we were deterring muggers from mugging easy pickings like our mum because we were with her. Mum does have the tendency to walk slowly her head tilted upward as she gapes at something, her wallet held loosely, forgotten in her hand…. I acceded to my sister’s opinion a little grudgingly: she knows more about Europe after all. I must also accede that my desire for mum and her friend to go off on their own isn’t necessarily for their sake…. <crooked grin> I have decided that the best possible trip for my mother would be a cruise trip. At least she would be confined to the boat thereby there would be a convenient purser near at hand to direct her to her room. There are port stops where she could explore shops with a group of other cruise people. And she would not have to walk too far to get to where she wanted to go. I will never go on a cruise trip.

Mum and her friend natter on and on…. They have so much to catch up on, certainly, but a lot of time is spent socially massaging their relationship. They need to be in agreement on every platform. They are agreeable with each other. Are not the counters so very high. Yes, the counters are very high. Are there not many tourist trinket shops. Yes, there are so very many tourist trinket shops. I know this totally makes sense for group dynamics, but sometimes I just want to say outrageously opinionated things. I want to be the asocial kid who tears through the tea party, tipping over the table, scattering cups and making the other girls shriek. Hahahahahaaaa! Don`t you want to travel in a group with me…. Perhaps to my mother`s friend I am coming across a sullen and ill-tempered. I just don`t like to natter and make conversation for the sake of conversation. Silence can be lovely and sweet. And you can notice things that can be drowned out by the sound of voices. Also, I would like to point out that my mother has said that I was born un-smiley and rather serious…. (I have lost my apostrophes and I do not know where to find them. I seem to have hit a button on the keyboard that has affected workings of buttons with Shift key. Sigh. So am no longer using contractions and sound like the characters in True Grit.)

The pinnacles and carvings of the Notre Dame so very forbidding and domineering. The tourists wind around the building in long lines to see the interior. We snap photos from outside, none of us hearty enough to brave the queue. More photo ops for my mum and her Japanese friend from the Seine tour boat, the Eiffel tower in the background. They have proof of having drifted past one of the main sights that signify France.

Daughter is looking forward to shopping today. There are summer sales going on and there are fashionable T-shirts going for 10-15 Euros!

I will be spending some time with book people today. I had made a mistake and had thought our meeting was yesterday. So I was standing outside, against the building door, looking up and down the narrow street as mostly tourists strolled by. I made a point of looking at my watch now and then so that the souvlaki and sandwich shops across the way would know I was waiting for an appointment….

Is French onion soup French…. Yup! Whew!

Tomorrow the Louvre. We are going to rent a wheelchair for my mum. If my heel starts to act up I will sit in her lap and get daughter to push us. Awesome!!!! Hahahahahaha!

How lovely, how odd, how complicated and delightful…. How do we find ourselves in this time and space, a tourist, a holiday-maker, in a enormous chateau in Dordogne, France? First of all the chateau is enormous– built in 1840 for the Duke “who won Algeria and Morocco for France”…!!!! Class, race, colonialism, imperialism all converge upon the site where we rest our bodies, 21rst C. tourists from so many different countries, races and cultures. Those of us who have the income to afford travel for leisure are truly privileged. I don’t want to forget this; I still want a good time….

I am having a good time! I’m tripped out by the lodgings! So very grand, but also a little worn at the edges. A posh chateau converted into accomodations will wear. But the grand high ceilings, the large massive rooms, the four-poster beds and the tall windows– we are in a time slip and what shall we say when the Duke and Duchess return! I stare at the portraits of the original owners who look down upon us when we dine at the great long table and wonder what they would think. How they would never have imagined such a gathering in their home. The flow of time, the changing of demographics and privilege and today we breakfast upon sweet canteloupe wrapped with prosciutto. Slices of tangy juicy nectarines, savoury fatty fig sausage procured at the market in Martel.

We drove to Rocamadour yesterday. First off I must say that my misgivings about the use of GPS devices have grown since being here. I don’t have one at home and my sister and brother-in-law have been using theirs in the rental cars. They’ve both chosen female voices. You cannot moderate the volume so “The Lady in the Car” (this is what I call the voice) shouts her information at odd intervals startling me greatly. But this is the least of it. Now I understand why there are stories in the news about people driving into lakes and drowning! “The Lady in the Car” (I really mean the program) is limited to what was orginally input. So new roads that were constructed afterward are not accounted for. Following the directions can lead you astray, in oddly circuitous routes, extraordinarily long scenic side trips along back country single-lane farm roads (pretty!!!) and take a very long time even after you’ve inputted “fastest route”! Hahahahahahahhaaaaa! I do see how it would be useful for a single driver who was travelling alone– it’s so dangerous to look at a paper map and drive at the same time.

I loved viewing Rocamadour from the ramparts of the L’Hospitalet perched atop the cliff. The perspective was so intense– the 3-D effect seemed hyper-accentuated, I don’t know why. The valley and river so far below and the tourists milling down the main roadway, going up and down the stairs like Escher people…. And still higher above us vultures soared and spiralled in great sweeping arcs like silent angels.

Enroute we stopped at Martel. It was a smaller medieval town without the bustle and clamour of the more well-trod tourist sites. It was so lovely. We had a most beautiful dejeuner outside under umbrellas. We feasted upon canard and the most delicious sliced and garlicked potatoes! Daughter adored this town.

The vegetables and fruit are so much fresher and tastier than what we buy in supermarkets in British Columbia. What sad things have we done to our produce? They are grown in bulk with fertilizers, picked too early, and shipped from afar to arrive upon our shores tasteless and devoid of goodness.

I hope Son is watering my garden while I’m gone! I have high hopes for my potatoes and carrots. The cold weather things are doing well this year. I think there is time to plant late rows of lettuce and kale upon my return. All good.

I haven’t had a proper walk around the grounds. We have been busy with sightseeing. There is a skylight in our bedroom. The natural shift in light wakes me gently at 6 a.m. It’s such a slow waking I can’t even be resentful. It is calm and quiet this early. The chateau is so full of peoples, children, movement and sound. The morning quiet is a pleasing way to start the day’s movements. Tomorrow or the day after I shall walk around the entire estate. The morning birds.

Speaking of movement, the chateau is so very large (three floors of rooms plus a basement) that people are always looking for each other. One will glide into the dining room, ask for someone, and no, we have not seen her. The seeker moves on and continues searching. Perhaps up the marble staircase. Perhaps up the cramped spiral servants’ passage. The sought enters the dining room five minutes later. So the seeker and sought flow through the chateau, always in another room, one floor away.

I have been so busy I have not posted on my Sundays. But, je ne me regrette pas, because tomorrow– well, today, in fact, daughter and I leave for France! We are “picking up” my mum along the way (via airplane/airport) and will be spending the next two weeks on the road! Tres bien! It is one of my sister’s birthday and she’s arranged for a large gathering of friends and family in order to celebrate. It’s going to be loud, exciting, fractious, hilarious, dramatic…. We are not a quiet family. Nope.

I hope to post On-the-road updates now and then. I’m not entirely sure that our accomodations have internet connection. This detail wasn’t included on their websites. Lordy. I’m kinda addicted to email. I guess time off-line is a Good Thing. But it will take me a little while to acclimatize! I guess I could always write the entries on laptop and then post on a later date.

The past few weeks I`ve been catching up on writing, rewriting, editing and correspondence. Also had the most fabulous “shop talk” meeting with my agent. “Shop talk” is, for me, discussions of the business side of writing. My agent knows a lot about this of course and it’s good to touch base to hear where she’s at, where I’m at, and what kind of goals can be placed upon the horizon in the most potentially fruitful of ways. I find it so very important to me to work with an agent I can talk with– an agent who has the time to sit down and answer questions, ask questions, and share information. Not all agents do this. I suppose not all writers want this kind of author/agent relationship? Some agents don’t like to be asked questions…. They want to be left alone with your manuscript, the author to go back to being creative, and the agent will be happy to hear from you once the next manuscript is completed. The important thing is to find an agent with whom you can work compatibly.

I`ll be meeting my French editor of Baam! in Paris! Half World was translated and released in 2010 as Entremonde. It`s so neat and odd to have one`s book translated into a language one does not know. The translation is a book near to what you wrote, but the translator (in this case, Marie de Premonville!) is the one who literally wrote this French version! I can`t read it to comprehend it. I can sound out the more simple words, and spot a noun here, a verb there, but there is no comprehension other than what I know already of my own English version. A translation is a variation of the original, because there is never an equal and exact translation from one language into another. I love variations… (except in my morning coffee!). Very excited to  meet book people from France! Yay!

Not much time left for sleeps. So adieu mes amis! (Daughter hates my French accent. Or, my English accent atop my atrocious French. It is likely I will embarrass her a Great Deal. Just as my mother will embarrass me. Oh, the legacies! I tell you!)

I’ll try to post while on the road!

Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy features aliens that have three “sexes”: male, female, and ooloi. The ooloi are neither male nor female but a third sex that is necessary for reproduction. The ooloi can manipulate DNA and make genetic alterations– they are living sythesizers of new life. The ooloi manipulate the genetic material in an organ called yashi. The ooloi hunger for new DNA, discovery of new species, etc. If they haven’t tasted something new for a while, they need to seek it out.

I’ve been taking to thinking of the “creative” organ inside of me as my yashi…. Yashi was hungering this past week, so I fed her. ~___~

Watched several films, read several graphic novels, a trip to the Vancouver Art Gallery, made a painting of a squid, attended a lecture on our microbial environment, and working my vegetable gardens all nourish my yashi so very much!

I’d been curious about Parnormal Activity for a while and finally got to see it– was a huge fail for me. Perhaps the intended audience is meant to be younger…? I think I might have been frightened if I were fourteen? But I found the main characters so extremely annoying that I didn’t care what happened to them. (Which led me to question my own morality– i.e. if I didn’t care for a person based on their personality traits, clearly it’s amoral to have no empathy over whether they live, suffer, or die, etc.) However, another element that prevented any willing suspension of disbelief was the use of the hand-held camera as documenting-event-as-they-occur premise, which I find a huge leap of faith because if you’re really in a life or death situation, how many regular joe people (as opposed to dedicated and practiced professional journalists/camerapeople) would keep on filming? If there’s some weird scary evil shit going down, wouldn’t you just frickin’ stop filming and run, fast? There were several lines delivered throughout the film with the character addressing this very question– explainers, on why he feels compelled to keep on filming. Which only underscored the constructedness of the narrative. In the end it was a gimmick film. But I was very much impressed by the low-budget aspect! It did remarkably well for a small-scale production. Kudos!

Also watched My Dog Tulip, a feature-length animation about an older curmudgeonly bachelor writer who adopts a German Shepard. The writing/narration is a little dated (it was written as a memoir in 1956), but the drawings/animations are so very beautiful and lovely…. Gorgeous and strategic use of colour. The deep greens, blues, red alongside shades of brown. The lines sometimes left gestural. It was such a balm upon the senses, especially in this time of CGI-created uber uncanny valleys… (The most recent unpleasant valley I visited was Rango! Especially the female lead, Beans, to the Depp-Rango-Chameleon. Beans was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. I was so distracted by the CGI that I could scarcely follow the story.).

Also finally watched Kinsey! Whoa! Very gripping and interesting and well-performed. Who doesn’t love Laura Linney? I also found the doubling of father behaviours to be well-done. I’ve also begun watching the TV series, True Blood. Not too shabby! And there’s not so  many seasons to catch up to. Not like Battlestar Gallactica. Captn’, it’s not possible!

Read the Best of American Comic 2007, Dogs and Water, and American Widow. American Widow is a memoir of life after 9/11, from the point-of-view of a young pregnant wife who has lost her husband in the attack upon the Twin Towers. Deeply personal, honest and sad, it reveals what the aftermath was like for Alissa Torres, the very intimate human suffering behind a large-scale historic tragedy. The clean, spare artwork of Sungyoon Choi was a perfect pairing with this narrative. Very powerful use of dark and light, simple lines. Unfussy. This graphic novel made me cry….

I was going to share some thoughts on the Surrealist show at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Ken Lum’s installations, and a simple and haunting piece, “Torso of a Young Girl”, by Myfanwy Macleod, but I need to leave, soon, for a plenary session at the Asian Canadian Studies Graduate Workshop! If you’re in Vancouver area please do go to the gallery. If you go on a Tues, between 5-9pm it’s sliding scale and you can pay what you like!

Feeding the yashi is so important to nourish creativity…. Writing is the very visible part of our creativity, but the stuff that supports and sustains it should receive just as much time and focus. And respect.

The neighbourhood crows are gathered in a tall spruce tree across the street– they caw and caw and caw and caw. The last time they were so upset there was a raccoon in the branches. A day of drizzle rain finally lifted in late afternoon. It’s been a perfect watering.

I made dumplings out of the wild mustard that grew spontaneously out of the garden. The seeds must have travelled with the soil that was newly purchased this spring. After some searching online I was able to identify the plant, and also learn that it is, indeed, edible. I thought it might be so– when I sampled a little of the fresh leaf it reminded me of Chinese mustard and daikon greens. Apparently Italians like to eat wild mustard. It tastes similar to rapini, but I find it sweeter. I blanched the greens because they have prickly fur covering some of the leaves and stems, and I read that boiling it would deal with this. I squeezed the water out of the boiled greens and minced it then added organic ground beef, grated ginger and garlic, salt and a dollop of sesame oil. This the filling, the big children and I folded the dumplings and we had our usual discussion of how many to boil and how many to pan-fry. They turned out very nicely and it’s so lovely to discover that a weed overwhelming a planted garden is also food. I did try dandelion greens one year but they were so bitter I had to spit it out. I remember my grandmother making dandelion greens from my half-forgotten childhood in Langley. My oba-chan’s greens tasted good. At least I remember it so.

I’ve started reading the novel, Mother, by Maxim Gorky. I knew nothing of this book or author– I only picked it up because of synchronicity. I had been in the library looking for specific titles for research. After I had found what I was looking my eyes passed over the shelves in front of me when I was snagged by the title in black caps. Just a few weeks ago I’d blogged about being a writer and a mother, then reviewed the Korean film, Mother. Now this! Three is a significant number in Japanese culture. Bemused I reached for the novel and read the back flap and then the first few paragraphs. I added it to my stack.

Gorky’s novel is very chewy. It seems to me that Gorky’s political and social justice agendas are the primary machines that drives this narrative. But he’s folded his ideologies into story form, utilizing the illiterate down-trodden mother to embody and speak the voice of the powerless proletariat “every-person”. According to Wiki, this novel was first published in 1907! I find that I keep on having cognitive dissonance, because the ways that Gorky depicts Pelagea, the mother, as a fully realized and changing and developing character is so very progressive and in some ways, very feminist. I mean this is 1907!!! (Sometimes the mother is idealized, but it’s very much in keeping with the workings of the novel– idealization is part of the ideological lever.) I’m only on page 147, but I’m very much moved by the descriptions of the daily drudgery and suffering of the proletariats as well as the fiery passion for the rights of the working classes and a faith in humanity despite all of the ugliness that circumscribes their lives. 

Sometimes the political speeches go on-ish, but that’s because I’m a reader in my petit bourgeois home, over a hundred years away, well-fed, warm and tired after a weekend of leisure…. Gorky put it on the line for social justice– he was sent to prison many times. He risked his life for his beliefs and his art form. It’s something to think about.

And the crows still caw and caw and I’ve yet to paint bright signs for tomorrow’s rally in support of passing a Burnaby school board policy that ensures that LGBT students and staff are and feel safe in school.

I haven’t worked on any fiction projects today– I did, however, do the dreadful filing of receipts and the desk is clear, wiped free of dust, and blessedly uncluttered. Writing new words at a clean and clear desk is a marvellous thing. But for now off to look for pieces of wood and large paper!

It’s difficult to comprehend fully, but I’ve been a writer for over twenty years. Unbelievable! Weird! By hook and by crook I’ve somehow managed to live off my writerly income, but this has been only just manageable because my ex-husband and I share our resources to raise the children and maintain family. I know I could not have stuck to my writer’s life as I have lived it as the primary care-giver single mom.

I don’t like to think of my writing as business and don’t do it naturally– this is partly a result of the idea of separating art (i.e. “high art”) from the commercial. Braid into this strand the political and it’s even more difficult to frame writing as business. Every profession will have members who think of themselves as the best, or the most “pure” (?), the most evolved, etc. In the great wash of life what people think of you and what you do does not truly matter. However, sometimes we can’t help feeling doubts and question what we do, how we do it. We can’t help these feelings and thoughts, because we are, aside from V.S. Naipaul <rolling eyes>, feeling and thinking social creatures.

If writing is the sole means of your income to not think of the business side of things is selectively naive and counter-productive. To think and plan on how to increase your income with your art so you can continue to do the art you love to do is not an evil thing. I have heard people in the literary arts and visual arts talk to each other about how so-and-so has “sold out” or “went commercial” and wasn’t “truly an artist anymore”. My first question I ask is who is it that deems this so? Are they coming from a place where income is a less pressing concern? I.e. do they have family money to fall back upon so they needn’t fear aging in poverty with no medical plan? And, finally, why must we cling to the weird Romantic idea(l) that artists must suffer for their art?I want to live and eat well. It is everyone’s right.

Art is also labour. I think of the writing I do as art but also as a serious (and joyous) labour. And as a worker I expect to be paid. I’ve been working hard at writing for many years. As I become better at this labour and art form I want a raise! Hahahahahahahahaaaa!

Meeting with my agent’s partners in Toronto has shifted something for me in how I think of my writing. I had been always placing the ideals (subjective) of art and politics in the foreground, but I think I need to balance the field with an equal amount of thinking and energy around elements of business.

One of the agents said that the average reading level was Grade 10. My friend said, That high? Instead of feeling like the writer must come down from her esteemed standards of excellence which involves a large vocabulary, and woeing and wailing that literacy has fallen so low, it can be seen as an opportunity to reexamine the author’s expectations of audience. There are also issues of class. Does your choice of vocabulary, construction and narrative only speak to a smaller specific audience or does it have the capacity to reach a wider and diverse audience? Who do you want to reach? Who do you want to have read your book? Do you want to make more money? To want to make more money is not, in itself, a bad thing.

The same agent said that books are luxury items. Most people cannot afford to buy books in the same way they would spend money on apples or bananas. True, I thought. I love libraries and frequent them and borrow books. But as a writer I earn money when people buy my books.

I don’t think it’s one or the other– we’re either true to our political beliefs and artistic ideals or we “go commercial” and write more mainstream. I like to think that it’s possible to combine the best of all wor(l)ds and an artful writer can pull this off! Why not? If you write it into being, you’ve written it into being!

God, I love this work!