Monday, December 31, 2012

Welcome 2013!

All the excitement of a new year dawning. How will it be different? How will it be the same? I don't have to even imagine I will be moving in 2013, having accomplished that massive undertaking (after over 40 years in the same house) early in 2012. And I can't lose a brother again as I only had one. That was the saddest moment in 2012, to lose a sibling. But I have such good memories of him and his gentle nature. Memories that I share with others in the family... my sister and sister-in-law, etc.

In 2013, I look forward to hearing from the agent that she has found a publisher for my mystery novel, WHITE RIBBON. It's time for another published book, however that happens. What would be most desirable would be a trade and e-book by a trade publisher. There, it's out there. My wish for this book. It's a good read, I'm told, set in a downtown Toronto church with a cast of characters from varied backgrounds.

I also look forward to a bit of travel now that I don't have a house to look after and my foot surgery is behind me. Indeed, I'm walking a lot and dancing again. And will dance in the new year shortly. With that lovely thought, all the best to anyone who happens to read these meanderings, including family and friends and colleagues, written on the cusp of 2013. And a happy and healthy new year to us/you all.

And oh yes, I'm reading at LitLive in Hamilton next Sunday evening, January 6th 2013.




Friday, December 7, 2012

Hamilton Reading. Lit Live. January 6, 2013


     
mldcos Mary Lou Dickinson shared a Tweet with you:


Mary Lou Dickinson
@mldcos
I'm reading at LitLive in Hamilton Sun. Jan 6, 2013, 7.30 p.m.at Homegrown Hamilton, Sky Dragon Centre, 27 King William St.
09:50 AM - 02 Dec 12











Thursday, November 15, 2012

What blog posts do you read?

Do you ever wonder what others read when they decide that a post on a blog interests them? With the wonder of statistics readily available for the blogger, I often indulge my curiosity and check. The all-time high so far on this blog is a photograph of an ibis. Recently the favourite was on how a writer wastes time. Perhaps the first appeals because of its beauty while the second makes others feel better. Either they waste more time than I do and feel some sense of satisfaction or they are not as lazy as yours truly and that makes some feel better. Just wondered!

Friday, November 9, 2012

Life of a Writer: #11. Prologue to a Mystery



After a reading at the Rowers' Pub Reading Series (November 5, 2012) in Toronto where I read the first chapter of the mystery I am working on, Todd Swift (who also read that evening) suggested I include a prologue before the first chapter. He thought I needed something to foreshadow the events that would occur after the first few chapters. Since I agreed with this suggestion, I proceeded to write a prologue (see below). A similar sequence occurs at some point into the mystery, except at that juncture the names of the characters are used. I also asked a colleague from my writing group (Moosemeat Writers Group) to look over the prologue (Isabel Matwawana) and make suggestions. Since her comments were all helpful, I looked over the areas she alluded to and edited further.

Todd Swift also felt the title (I had particularly asked for feedback on this from the audience at Rowers before I read), The White Ribbon, ought not to be used as such as there is a famous film of the same title. When he learned about the white ribbon campaign of men against violence against women, he suggested some variation. At the moment, I am calling it simply White Ribbon.

 As you can see, feedback is valuable/invaluable to a writer. I appreciate any comments anyone might care to make!

 

 

 

White Ribbon

Prologue


Mid November

The coordinator for this particular Sunday at a church in downtown Toronto had started to greet the people, but the service had not yet begun. At the sound of a scream in the distance, she stopped and looked around.  Although they had started many services with many kinds of distractions, she appeared unable to continue.
            After what seemed a long time, but was really only a few seconds, one of the parishioners jumped up and started across the wooden floor. He was followed by a woman, who was heavier and slower than he was. The minister was not far behind. They headed toward a staircase down into the basement where there was a washroom for women and, a little further along the corridor, one for men. Small washrooms, each with two cubicles. Between them in the hall was a water fountain. The stairs were of the same heavy wood that extended throughout the church, but the floor in the basement was tiled. The sound had stopped, but just as the male parishioner came down into the hall, a woman emerged from the women’s washroom.
            “On the floor,” she said in a quavering voice. “Feet… sticking out.” She was visibly shaken, her face contorted with horror at whatever she had seen.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

#10. Life of a Writer. No time to waste.

An interesting report, positive, from reader for my agent on my mystery, "Two Left Feet." The report points out strengths and also what might benefit from revision. So...no longer is there time to waste as the writer (yours truly) sinks her teeth into revising.

Some remarks lead to obvious solutions. An error can be corrected by doing a bit of research. Others require a lot of time and thought. How does one take someone's POV (point of view) out of a story/novel and yet have them visible and known through the eyes of others? Well, that's precisely it...through the eyes of others. Not so easy really. Thoughts can't be conveyed through others most of the time, unless there is something obvious occurring that suggests them.

At any rate, that is today's challenge. Likely next week's and next month's also. I will keep on working on it and possibly (probably) report back in further posts.

Luciana Ricciutelli (R), editor at Inanna, with two of her authors. Zoe Roy(L) and Mary Lou Dickinson (middle) at WOTS, Sept. 2012
Did I say there is no time to waste not only because this revision takes up a great deal of time, but also because I have a finite life span. At an advanced age already, getting things out there now may lead to publication while I am still alive to enjoy that.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

#9. Life of a Writer. How to Waste Time.

If I ever wondered about something I am good at, now I have found that talent. I can waste time like no one else on this planet. Maybe it is a characteristic of writers. Or maybe it is when I am incubating ideas. This morning I went to No Frills to buy unsalted butter that was on sale. It was an extra trip since they were out of it when I arrived yesterday. After coming home and putting the butter in the refrigerator, I decided it was such a beautiful day that I must be outside. So I walked over to Avenue Road (Toronto) to see an exhibition of paintings at the Ingram Gallery. When I came home, I did a load of laundry and had lunch. Soon I will leave for the Bloor Cinema to see the 9th film of 10 at TIFF. (Artifact) .

The reality is that between my activities of this past week, including some wonderful films (Amour, Quartet, The Gatekeepers, etc.), I have done a lot of writing. I never really know when I am wasting time and when what I do is productive. It may be necessary to my ongoing existence. But it may also be a way of easing into what I intend to do on a manuscript.

What I am working on now is a memoir. The title: Restless. That captures the life of someone who wastes time as well as all the other examples of restlessness in my life. I think. In any case, I am going to have a section critiqued by my colleagues at my writing group, Moosemeat, in ten days or so. So I have been looking for an extract that seems to be ready for their close inspection. And every time I sit down at the computer, I do something to prepare the excerpt I will send out a week before this critique.

View from my window this evening.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Creative Risk with a Blank Book. 1990.



Blank Book
(1990)

Yet another blank book. Who gave it to me this time? To draw? To write? That is the question. To take creative risks. My greatest risk may be to open this book and mar a blank page, to change the pristine quality of it. I can do as I please. Sky can appear overhead, visions of old women rocking in nursing homes, drooling over teddy bears. Anything at all. The flashing numbers of trades on the stock exchange I watched from the broker’s floor. The scallops I ate for dinner afterwards. All of it part of the flow of one life that I cannot seem to capture in a character or form to share with others. Today I do not mind. I have filled a page!
Some books are never published.
Some books should never have been published.
BEWARE!
It’s odd to think of inhabiting a womb. The one I inhabited had four occupants. One was born dead…

1/13/90
Dear Mikail Gorbachev,
abcdefghijklmnopqurstuvwxqz
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 l2 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
22 23 24 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 34 35
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
#+X
                        36 37 38 39 40
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53
Lithuania may be the downfall.
Or will you get a Nobel peace prize?
54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66
Nelson Mandela will soon be released
67 68 69 70. He is 71 now and has been
in prison in South Africa for 25 years.
Winnie has waited. 72 73 74 75 76
77 78 79 80 81 82 83 My mother is
83. She is paralyzed on one side after a
stroke. 84 85 86 87 88 89 90. It’s odd
to think my sister and I shared a womb.
91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99
Yours truly,
100
p.s. Blank books may turn out to be dangerous.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Labour Day. Toronto Island Escape. .

 Perhaps my last trip to the island now that September has come and summer is over. Or not. Although it felt as if it likely was the last trip for many folks on the ferry. School starts tomorrow. Harbinger of another season as is the fact that daylight gets shorter by a few minutes each day. I won't miss the humid heat, but even so I enjoyed the summer this year. There was so much to explore in the area of the city where I now live. Gradually I am doing so and feeling more at home each passing day.

On the island, I continued reading a thick book on Africa (The Fate of Africa) for a course in the fall. Although had I discovered this book myself, I would have read it anyway. Well written and very informative. I also found a bench in shade on Algonquin Island where I could see bits of the air show taking place at the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) today. And walked a bit.

So, fall is in the air and as well as continuing to write on various writing projects, short stories, the memoir, I will pick up my TI|FF tickets this week and go to my first of 10 films on Thursday.



Sunday, September 2, 2012

Mysterious Woman.

Who is the mysterious woman? Writing a memoir, I examine this woman's eyes. Her expression. She is sad, I think. At the very least, thoughtful. Or?

I wonder about her mood as she is me. Me in the 1970s. So long ago, but part of the thread that runs through my life till now. Telling stories of that decade when I was a young wife and mother and then a young single mother soon to be divorced.

Those were difficult, but good years. So perhaps thoughtful. 



Sunday, August 26, 2012

#8. Life of a Writer. Memoir Excerpt.


Graham's death in 1992 when he is only in his late thirties happens just three months before I go to the Banff Centre of the Arts to work on a novel. Later it feels like the harbinger of all the deaths that follow that year, although unlike most of them it’s sudden and unexpected. Yet when I awaken to news of a plane crash on the island that morning in January, I wait to hear his name. On the ferry the previous afternoon on a rare winter trip to the island, I'd watched the small planes take off and land. And I'd thought of him then. Was he in one of those planes? I'd had shivers sensing that indeed he was.

A fellow volunteer at the Distress Centre a few years earlier, Graham and I went through training together. He was the 992nd volunteer at the centre in downtown Toronto; my number was 994. I’m not sure I ever knew his surname. To me he will always be Graham 992. He had piercing blue eyes, red hair and a luminous wit. Much younger than I, we were nonetheless compatible and he once invited me to his apartment for coffee and showed me his aquarium full of colourful tropical fish. The previous summer, he took another volunteer and me up in his small Piper aircraft. Liz’s number was somewhere in the early thousands.

We flew out over Lake Ontario and Niagara Falls, wing tipped so we could see the drama below. Liz sat in the front and threw up in a brown paper bag as the plane righted itself. Graham was a careful pilot. How he could crash on a clear day is beyond me. Did he want to?

In the month or so after his death, I write a poem - Flying - and take it to Banff where I show it to Don Coles, the resident poet, and later to another participant who is also a poet, Patricia Young, both of whom make helpful comments.


Flying (for Graham)

The day your plane crashes
I am walking along the boardwalk
beside the lake. It's the first time
I've been on the island since you
took Liz and me out over
Lake Ontario to Niagara Falls.
Liz sat in the front and threw up
in a bag as you tipped the wings
over the falls. Today I don't know
you're careening above me
in the sky. Even so, my thoughts
keep turning to you--how often we run into
each other despite
the size of this city--at the corner
of Yonge and College, on the subway,
on my way to yoga. I think of
your red hair that recedes slightly,
your piercing blue eyes, luminous wit.
I won't know till tomorrow morning
when I awaken to my clock radio
about the crash, that you're
the pilot. On the ferry
back to the city I
stand by the rail, watch
small aircraft
land and take off, land
and take
off.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Food for thought. On writing a memoir

My intentions are to blog about once a week and I am not meeting that commitment. The time just slips away as I enjoy summer, look for one thing or another for my new home and struggle with a manuscript. Occasionally I take photos of pieces of furniture, but also of unusual sights. Although it isn't unusual to see a dog on the subway, yesterday was the first time I saw one so comfortably ensconced that I didn't notice it (him/her) at first. An excuse at least to blog and share the photo. And to talk about what I am writing. Figuring that my process is probably not so different from that of other writers. It likely isn't the least bit unusual that I go out and do various errands and come back with renewed energy, sometimes ideas. And when I do, am grateful it seems often to work that way.

The memoir mentioned in previous posts is what I am working on now. The first few chapters have been difficult as I attempt to capture my early years in a northern Quebec mining camp and some family history. Later on in the story, the words and images come more easily. But it is those early years that formed so much of my later journey. And as I realize what an urban creature I have become, I know nonetheless that the geography and camaraderie of that long ago childhood are never very far away from me.

What a treat it was to go north even a little way this summer and see the rocks on the sides of the highway as we approached a rustic retreat called the shack that my children visit every summer for part of their holiday. The rocks remind me of the further north I lived in for all the years I was growing up and inspire me to go on writing about that. Although now I have moved onto further chapters...that is the crucible in which my worldview was formed. I suppose everyone who attempts to write a memoir has to confront how both the inspiring and difficult moments of childhood impinge on us throughout our lives.


Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Morning on Toronto Island. Looking for inspiration!









Up early, quick trip to the ferry, across to Centre Island. Then a lovely walk toward Ward's Island along paths and the boardwalk. A muffin with these huge sunflowers beside the table, reading the morning paper. Not sure I found inspiration, but I did find the morning breeze blowing off the water, scads of kids in groups with leaders enjoying a beautiful day, tennis players cavorting on the courts, all this island just across the water from downtown has to offer harried and hot visitors who arrive all day by ferry and make their way back to the city when they are ready. For me, that didn't take long today. I came home and faced again the manuscript I am working on, one that was critiqued the other night at my writing group (Moosemeat). Dealing with the feedback always raises questions that when I deal with them improve on whatever work I am doing. The big challenge sometimes is to accept what is useful and reject what is not. In the end, each piece of work is the author's. Each ultimate decision belongs to that one person. Ah, the road of life, these analogies true of that as well.

Monday, July 16, 2012

#7. Life of a Writer. Galloping Along.

Time to start writing again and with the speed of a horse galloping along, I have picked up the reins of that horse and am trying to go with the energy released. Having a new and peaceful place to write (above) helps. Peace also because of going through all of what a move entails and being on the other side of it, especially challenging after living so long in one spot. But a great feeling of freedom comes from having downsized.


I have finished the mystery I'd been revising and submitted it to my agent at HSW Literary Agency.  Am now working on a sequence of short stories and a memoir. It has taken a long time to find the narrative arc of the memoir, but I think I have it and the disparate chapters are starting to hang together. Seems so obvious that it would be my own journey as a writer. When I started to write this, I was at a different stage of that journey and saw others things as the predominant theme. Ancestors. Travel. The North. As it turns out, they are all very important to my journey and their presence is not diminished. Just that they are linked by a spiritual and artistic journey that is mine, undoubtedly shared in many ways with other artists/writers.


Keep posted! The writer's work continues. And I will be pleased if you decide to share some part of your own story in a comment!

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Downtown Toronto. Outdoor Art and A Demonstation

I didn't get the artist's name
Work of Mei Zi
 


Save the children of Syria




Save the children of Syria





Walking downtown on Saturday, July 7, 2012 between plays at The Fringe. Art at Nathan Phillips Square, an annual outdoor show. Perhaps I will find something for my new condo, I thought, but came away only with a couple of ideas. It's a start. And I always enjoy seeing the range of work of the artists who show there.

Then walking back along Queen Street, passed the demonstration to Save the Children of Syria. Yes. So much happening in the world to protest, but what is happening in Syria defies all sense of social justice, human rights and democratic process. Would that the Assad regime will fall soon.

Monday, July 2, 2012

The Best of Summer in Ontario.

View from the Shack
The Swamp
The Shack



 A splendid retreat from the city. Memories of childhood on a remote lake in northern Quebec. Fodder for writing? Time will tell.



Sunday, July 1, 2012

Flowers for my Birthday!

Not talking about the age, but it was a pleasant, low key birthday even so! All the mail, email, FB greetings and telephone calls certainly something to appreciate and celebrate. Flowers from my sister and brother-in-law. As well as a trip to a so-called shack near Parry Sound with daughter and family to add to the celebration. And a shared birthday with my grandson. As well as Canada's 145th birthday and that's a lot older than either I am or my grandson is. Oh yes, and a utube video from the top of a mountain in Croatia from my son and his significant other. All in all, a very pleasant birthday! Many thanks to everyone who made it all happen.

Monday, June 11, 2012

West Coast Beauty. Seen between meetings at the Writers' Union AGM in Vancouver.

English Bay, Vancouver, B.C. May 2012
English Bay


Vancouver, B.C.

Vancouver, B.C. On a cruise with TWUC

It's a bit late to report on the AGM of the Writers' Union held in Vancouver at the end of May, 2012. Interesting workshops, meetings and a wonderful cruise to highlight the beauty of the conference city. Took a while to recover when I returned to Toronto, a cough taking over for a few days. Finally after the move and getting somewhat settled, I've begun to write again. Two pieces for the Moosemeat Writing Group launch of our annual chapbook, one piece of flash fiction included in the chapbook, the other read at the evening at the Arts and Letters Club hosted with humour and style by two of our members, Jerry Schafer and Sam Agro.

On with the writing, inspired by these two events and by the trees I see from my windows in my new home I've loved from the first moment.

Friday, May 4, 2012

Why My Brother Did Not Fly

My brother was in the air force in the late 1950s, wiring power stations on the DEW line. He reached points in the Arctic earlier than most of us knew they existed. He was in his late teens, trying, I suppose, to figure out what he would do with his life. While he wasn't a pilot, his responsibility was quite remarkable for his young years. Or so it seemed to us in his family, still 'at home' in Bourlamaque, Quebec, although away at school during the academic year.


It seems bizarre now that we did not know until years later that during this time, John was in a plane that crashed as it came in for a landing in Edmonton. He broke two legs. For years, before I knew this, I thought it quite odd that he would not go far afield, at least no further than he could drive or travel by bus or train. He would sit up through the days and nights en route from Winnipeg when he came to visit family in Toronto. I believe he did the same thing in the other direction when he went to see our sister in Vancouver.


When we were all adults and he came to Toronto to visit our mother on one occasion, he stayed with me that week and we talked more than we had in ages. It was then he told me the story of the air crash and I understood finally why he would not fly!