Woot!

Crescent told me to say that. Don't I sound young and hip?

It's been a busy week. Got the proofs off to Thistledown this week, which feels fabulous. Also got to see the complete coverspread for the first time, which was exciting. Well, maybe other people don't find this kind of thing exciting, but I do.

Wrapped up the draft of the story Diane looked over for me and sent it off. I did some work on another that I had abandoned before the book stuff started, but this one is going to need some major surgery. Don't know if I can do much to it right now. I need to prepare for this workshop, get some grant applications going, set up some out of town readings. Um, and we're going to the Island the first two weeks of August-ish. To relax, yeah.

Also got my tech support to update ye olde website. But I got him to show me how to do it (you know, the give a man a fish thing). And here was the test: I updated one of the links myself just now. And it worked! I am so up-to-the-minute. I am like FPS or something. Right, Crescent?

Proofs; Beer; July in the town of cows

Nothing Sacred galley proofs arrived from Thistledown late this afternoon. Good stuff. I'd just wrapped up a draft of a new story yesterday and sent it off to Diane Girard, my beloved first reader, so the timing is great. Sure I won't need all seven (7) days to read them, but I do want to take my time, be careful. And then that will be that. All done. Cool.

Had a beer with Rona tonight. Good to get out and talk in person to a grownup over an alcoholic beverage. As I entered the bar I called unto mind that it was Stampede, but this didn't seem to be a problem as far as getting a table and so forth went. Stampede seems rather subdued this year, we agreed. Is it the weather, the economy, who knows? But that's fine with me.

Speaking of cool -- whoa, it's freezing out there. Had to turn the heat on in the Westfalia on the way home. Dude! But that's Calgary for you. Now I have two sweaters on and am drinking herb chai. Yeeeeeehaw.

Punk rocker turned author at it again

Brief mention of me and Love Minus Zero in a piece by Eric Volmers on novels set in Calgary in today's Calgary Herald, here:

http://www.canada.com/News/Perfect+Setting/1760975/story.html

Eric has been doing a great job of spotlighting local authors and their books, and I really appreciate it. It's tough to compete with the big publishers and their big money. So thanks, Eric!

Cool; Cool; Cool

What made me think of this again? I don't know, but last winter when I was doing research for a story I was writing, I came across this information about the phonautograph. You can hear a recording (admittedly quite hard to make out) of the inventor singing "Au Clair de la Lune" that was made in 1860, the earliest known recording of the human voice. And it hadn't even been heard before until last year! You can read about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonautograph

Also cool -- I wrote this afternoon. For almost three hours. Wow, almost forgot what that was like. I'll have to do it again sometime.

And the final cool thing: my new phone. Well, not really the phone. It's not very fancy by modern standards (though it does have a camera in it). But the ringtone! Oh, I went crazy and bought a ringtone: an MP3 of Miles Davis playing "Summertime". That is definitely cool.

Life Into Story workshop

Got word on Saturday that the Alexandra Writers want to include the one-day workshop I am developing in their fall calendar. Life Into Story: Transforming Experiences Into Fiction will run 10 -- 3:30 on Saturday, September 26 at the Alexandra Centre, 922 - 9 Ave. SE. Which incidentally was the scene of a punk show held so long ago that CBC sent out a camera crew and my friends and I were on the news the next night. And no, I have no idea who played at it. But there you go, full circle, dramatic irony and all that jazz.

Anyway, the fall calendar is not up yet, but here is a link to the Alexandra Writers Centre. I will post details later in case anyone wants to register:

http://www.alexandrawriters.org/course.html

Stairway to Gilligan's Island

Had this baby on vinyl many years ago. Very happy to hear it again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTCYLbFxTpI

Apparently, Little Roger and The Goosebumps were sued by Page and Plant for this one. Dudes, lighten up!

Summer begins

School ended on Thursday, which also happened to be my 46th birthday. School often ends on my birthday; when I was a child I regarded this as a mark of favour from the gods. Now I see it for the curse that it really is. It just adds insult to injury, is all. Oh, well. This year's end was marked by Dan's traumatic and tear-filled goodbye to his beloved teacher. It was a pretty teary event all around, actually. Anyway, it's over now and he is soothing his soul with a new electric guitar. Sweet, eh? As for me, I'm still 46. That's the age my father was when he died and it's kind of freaky to think about that. Of course, perhaps I should just not spend so much time thinking. Or I should think about things that actually have a point more often.

Submitted an outline for a one-day workshop to the Alexandra Writers Centre yesterday, and hope they'll be interested in me giving it in the fall.

Now that the boys are a little older and tend to spend a lot of time on bikes with their buds, summer is not such a fallow time for me anymore. Which is good, because I have things I need to do, like get after setting up some readings. Finish those two stories I have apparently been working on the last few weeks and get them out there. And then get rewriting that novel. I'm thinking proofs should show up here before too long, as well. And then I guess we'll head out for some Island time at some point, though that's up in the air because of renos we're having done this summer. So summer looks a little chaotic at this point, but it's good to keep busy. Keeps you from thinking too much.