Here we go again

Have started now on edits for Nothing Sacred. It looks as though I have some work ahead of me, but nothing I can't get easily done by the end of March. Of course, it helps having done this last year, too; I have a better idea what's going to happen, and when. As much as you can in this business, anyway.

One mistake I made last year which I won't be repeating was sequestering myself from reality a little too much while I did the edits for Love Minus Zero. It was me and the manuscript, all alone and going crazy during the day, for those three dark winter months or so. This time, I'm keeping up my mending gig at the school library and have taken on a weekly reading project in Dan's class as well (some people could talk me into anything). Also making sure I get out for lunch / coffee dates at least once per week for the duration of this project. I have two lined up this week. It's all good, this getting out stuff.

Of course, tomorrow after spending the morning at school, I will tune in to the inauguration stuff on TV, at least for a little while. That'll be something to see.

2009 speeds past already!

Plunging headlong into this New Year, seems like it's going to be another crazy one. The holidays were spent doing the usual holiday things -- eating, drinking, visiting. It was very cold most of the time. We watched a lot of movies. My very talented friend Dallas gave me a framed photo she took in ye olden days of the National Hotel's neon sign. I love it! It's hanging in my office over my drawing table, which I have sworn to actually use this year (see below).

I'm rereading The Sun Also Rises right now, first read it when I was about seventeen. It's so good. I don't want it to end. Read lots of graphic stuff over the holidays, have The Best American Comics 2008 anthology which I'll get back to when I'm done Hemingway. Reading all these graphics made me wonder about reframing the second novel as a graphic. My drawing skills are very rusty, but my sister thinks I could get them up to speed. It's an idea I've been toying with a long time, years. Maybe I'm afraid to try, I don't know. I figure once I'm done the edits on the short story collection I can look into that.

Speaking of which, I have not yet started on the edits. But yesterday I got word that I have been conditionally approved for an Alberta Foundation for the Arts grant for my travel expenses for my tour. They're even giving me exactly what I asked for. Yay! I have to write up a report for them which is due February 1 and I need to get in touch with the writing program person at the AFA for some advice on what to include in this report. So that's going to keep me occupied for the next little while. I'll send my new editor an e-mail pretty soon, though, so we can get the ball rolling with edits.

Got back into the school library and did some mends this morning. That was good. I need to get out more, spend more time doing worthwhile stuff.

And right now I should get back to work.

Graphic novels, dreams

Read a fabulous graphic novel yesterday on the recommendation of Dan's teacher. The Left Bank Gang by Norwegian cartoonist (is this the right word? graphic novelist?) Jason is an imaginative tale set in 1920's Paris and featuring some of the most eminent writers of the 20th century rendered as anthropomorphic animals. Beautifully coloured panels, elements of film noir, Kurosawa, Tarantino. Fun! My one complaint: they should have shot Gertrude Stein, too.

Due to guilt and sentiment and other shadowy feelings, I spent more time in school this week than I have all year so far, volunteering Monday and then in for caroling Tuesday and today. Consequently have had a series of dreams that I can only describe as baroque in tone -- very long and detailed and bizarre, but not without their good points. It's best now that it's time for a break, time for that simple sugar (in all its myriad forms) festival we call Xmas.

Well, if I don't have time for another extremely interesting post like this one before 2009 rolls in, best of the season to all of us and here's to a peaceful and inspiring year.

Important message: Buy Books Now

Roy Blount has some advice for us: get out and buy books now. No bailouts for the book industry, so we have to get out there and support it. I'm so with him:

http://www.authorsguild.org/advocacy/articles/holiday-message-from-roy-blount-buy.html

Spread the word, eh?

Books Make Swell Gifts!

Oberon Press has updated their webpage. Love Minus Zero is right there under New Titles, and you can order directly from them if you'd like:

http://www.oberonpress.ca/titles/

Calgary, like much of the country, is a frozen wasteland at the moment. The cold weather moved in Friday, and naturally I had parties to go to both Friday and Saturday nights. But I drove carefully and enjoyed seeing former library colleagues on Friday and former bandmates and miscellaneous other friends Saturday. Lots of book chat and fine food and a little wine as well, which makes for a damn fine evening, if you ask me. Even sold a couple of books on Saturday, gotta like that.

This morning was helping Dan and his fourth grade classmates make cookies. Oh, my. What was I thinking when I said I'd help out? Well, all's well that ends well, and indeed, it was kind of fun at that. I spent most of the afternoon until now labouring away on my holiday playlist. Work, work, work. But I will actually start wrapping things tomorrow.

And now out into the cold to pick up those children. And bore them with stories of how I had to walk to and from school in freezing Regina.

Fiddlehead, Nothing Sacred, XMAS!

Just found out that an excerpt from Love Minus Zero has been accepted by The Fiddlehead. Yes! Very pleased to be appearing in their pages again, and pleased about the exposure the book will get from it. Mark Jarman also tells me that CBC radio is interviewing him next week about his Xmas reading and he's going to mention the book there as well. All very good!

In other news, I was interviewed yesterday by Avenue Magazine, who are running a brief piece on Love Minus Zero in their April issue. Looking forward to seeing it.

I also caught up with Thistledown Press about Nothing Sacred, my short story collection they're publishing next fall. They put me in touch with Joy Gugeler, who is editing. She's going to get an initial edit out to me next week, along with some development suggestions for some of the shorter pieces. I plan to read and start digesting this stuff when I get it, let it ferment in my mind over the holidays, and then get to work on it in earnest in the New Year. She figures we'll have plenty of time to do the necessary back and forth before the end of March, my deadline. Until yesterday, I'd been working on a new piece that I thought could possibly be included in the book, but now I can see there's no way I'm going to finish it in time, I don't think.

Because...Xmas! Oh my god! Looming. So this is Xmas, and what have I done? Not much. Um, well, I did get cards and parcels out...most of the shopping is done. Stop panicking, there's lots of time for all that other stuff. Xmas might just be a little simpler this year.

Me, I already got what I wanted. Thank you.

The Plague, The Globe, The Coalition

Awesome, I thought when I arrived home from my tour. Now I can get after some of that not-Writing stuff that I've been neglecting, stuff like unpacking...hanging pictures...oh, and Xmas. Yeah, that. Let's face it, the mother of two pre-teens has a bit to do before Xmas. But then all the gents got some kind of GI bug the weekend after I got back. Which they of course gave to me. And then we were all almost better, and the cold kicked in. And I was almost better, and then the largynitis part hit me Monday. Well, we really are almost better now, except for the nagging cough. I can talk, though I sound like Friar Tuck from Robin Hood.

We're definitely doing better than The Globe Books section, which Quill & Quire reported yesterday is -- surprise -- being scrapped and tucked into the Focus section somewhere. Oh, yes. Will they be just like all the other newspapers and review two books a week on their own and pick up the rest from syndicates? I'll give it a look, I guess, but it seems likely I'll just cancel my subscription. I certainly don't read the Saturday Globe for any other reason. Sigh.

On the other hand, this coalition thing is lifting my spirits. Get Steve outta there! I'd be very pleased to see my Honourable Member do a Joe Clark! That would make my year.

And, naturally, just when I start to get stuff under control, a story is making me work on it. I usually drop writing in December and concentrate on all that other stuff, but since I haven't actually written anything new in a long time, I want to keep after this before it goes cold. Speaking of which...