Category Archives: Writing

Project 366 – Week 34

232/366
summer running is
fleeting. too soon it will be
cold wet gray again.

233/366
laptops, tablets, phones
low hum of conversation
coffeeshop people

234/366
silly videos
(Bob Ross remixed!) distractions
I should be writing

235/366
dodge knot of people
on sidewalk for second time,
hear: “didn’t we just…?”

236/366
research + writing,
revise, revise, revise. push
to the finish line.

237/366
summer work goal: check!
up next on the agenda:
vacation. woohoo!

238/366
the ferry is packed
with tourists; it’s sunny and
summery. perfect.

Project 366 – Week 33

225/366
for the first time since
June I have no excuse to
wake in the wee hours

226/366
what is it about
grading that makes me want to
stuff food in my face?

227/366
waiting for so long
and finally, official
word. I guess it’s true!

228/366
stick a fork in it
I’m done! like dinner — all I
have left are cliches.

229/366
mini-vacay: booked.
I’ve earned a break. Time for rest
and relaxation.

230/366
humidity: high
like running in a sauna
and that is ok.

231/366
wake to filtered light
yesterday’s heat still lingers
temperature rising.

Project 366 – Week 32

218/366
when I was a kid
I’d spend all summer reading
outside just like this

219/366
a holiday, the
Olympics, summer weather,
+ confetti cake

220/366
dear writers, there are
many topics besides death—
please investigate

221/366
a week of silence
and on the last day: questions
so predictable

222/366
greatest invention
since sliced bread: the file box cart
wheeling my grading

223/366
Olympic viewing
interrupted by grading
of final exams

224/366
the grading motto:
faster, faster, faster! a
timed and judged event

Mini-Nano Challenge – Day 1

And we’re off!

The Mini-Nano Challenge is to write 5,000 words in 30 days (or 167 words per day). It’s 1/10th of NaNoWriMo. Easy-peasy, right? Well, word-count-wise, anyway. My personal goal is to actually write a complete story, as opposed to just writing 5,000 words of… something bigger… that I just abandon like an unfinished freeway on the 30th. Hmm, I just thought of that, but yes. That’s what my fiction writing is like. Unfinished freeways. I need to build more side-roads.

Anyway. Today’s word count: 180 words.

Project 366 – Week 31

211/366
Canada knows how
to cover the Olympics:
14 hours live #win

212/366
indignant walker
trails sidewalk bicyclist: “that’s
illegal, y’know.”

213/366
last day of July.
thinking: I made it. thinking:
what did I forget?

214/366
tangle of bodies.
“anybody got morphine?”
afternoon chaos.

215/366
stepping outside in
to the heat, one foot in front
of the other. run.

216/366
feels so good to be
almost caught up on reading
TC submissions

217/366
it’s a miracle!
an August long weekend with
real summer weather

Once I have a complete draft I know it’s going to happen

Pretty much every moment up until the completion of the first draft I am uncertain that there will be a finished book. But once I have a complete draft I know it’s going to happen. Even if it is radically rewritten. Even if I have to throw away large chunks. There will be a book.

I love this part. Because this is where I get in and get dirty. The real work of taking those words and turning them into an actual novel of goodness.

—Justine Larbalestier

The story has a shape, and that comes first

I have been writing about writers and their families so it is strange that the idea of rights versus responsibilities does not preoccupy me. I feel that I have only rights, and that my sole responsibility is to the reader, and is to make things work for someone I will never meet. I feel just fine about ignoring or bypassing the rights of people I have known and loved to be rendered faithfully, or to be left in peace, and out of novels. It is odd that the right these people have to be left alone, not transformed, seems so ludicrous.
…
The story has a shape, and that comes first, and then the story and its shape need substance and nourishment from the haunting past, clear memories or incidents suddenly remembered or invented, erased or enriched. Then the phrases and sentences begin, another day’s work. And if I am lucky, what comes into shape will, despite all the fragility and all the unease, seem more real and more true, be more affecting and enduring, than the news today, or the facts of the case, or the beams of Tuskar Rock Lighthouse as night falls and the real darkness comes.

—Colm Tóibín

Project 366 – Week 30

204/366
the highway is filled
with people on vacation
I am so jealous

205/366
it’s raining, raining
like the sky is weeping with joy
grading almost done

206/366
day starts with a run
along the seawall, ends with
platters of sushi

207/366
seen: just off main street
a scrawny coyote hope-
fully lingering

208/366
overheard: “I think
one of my ovaries is
broken.” TMI!

209/366
it’s Canadian
TV for the win… 2 weeks
of wacky sports— live!

210/366
daytime in London
is middle of the night here
so much for sleeping!

If you don’t know it’s impossible it’s easier to do

When you start out on a career in the arts you have no idea what you are doing.

This is great. People who know what they are doing know the rules, and know what is possible and impossible. You do not. And you should not. The rules on what is possible and impossible in the arts were made by people who had not tested the bounds of the possible by going beyond them. And you can.

If you don’t know it’s impossible it’s easier to do. And because nobody’s done it before, they haven’t made up rules to stop anyone doing that again, yet.

—Neil Gaiman