I’m part of an online writing group– friends with whom I share a common goal– finish the writing project! We are all meant to write a minimum of 500 words a day and then send a little snippet to the group. A kind of proof, and, also, a little competitive tidbit that is a very useful mechanism. I know there are writers out there who write reams and reams every day. I am not of this set, alas. And I suspect not many writers are. I think a great deal of the challenge to finish a book-length project (for the full-time writer) is psychological. Every day can be a struggle against the forces inside of you that would thwart you from writing, even though a part of your mind wants it so very much…. Weird and trippy. Every day there is that psychological mountain to climb. I’m a plodding kind of writer, mostly. I have this sense that my modality of writing novels is influenced by my experiences of picking mushrooms on my parents’ farm.

The day spread out before you, still a child and the summer light on the other side of the cool concrete block walls. The only highlights of the day– trips to the washroom, lunch hour, and Cup-a-Noodle during the over-time break…. The mushrooms packed so tightly on the beds it will take you an hour to move onto the next. The beds stacked six high, and row after row, and then onto the next room…. Mushrooms to be picked, every day of the year, no fallow fields when the farming’s indoors.

Finally watched the Star Trek film. Had nostalgia entertainment factor, but the story itself was unremarkable, derivative (of earlier ST features) and the five hundred mile dangling rig from the sky was utterly ridiculous. Looking forward to District 9. Just finished reading The Carhullan Army. Appreciated it a great deal. Interesting take on feminist dystopic. Gotta go back and reread. It’s too bad the author avoided the complexities of race in the narrative, but I know all books cannot be all things at once.

The heat wave has long broken and scattered. We’ve fallen into rain. It’s time to bring out another blanket even as I pack up my things for the move to Edmonton at the end of the month. I’ll be at the University of Alberta for the writer-in-residence for the 2009-10 academic year. The long, hard winter is a good place to finish writing book-length projects!