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June 25, 2008
Well, one of the very good agents very kindly, and perspicaciously, suggested some changes to The Disappearance of Walter Map. And of course she’s absolutely right. So I’m working on that now, whipping into shape what I thought was already well and truly whipped. I think that’s been the hardest thing so far about my apprenticeship as a writer: knowing when my second-guessing of my own work is just pointless anxiety, and knowing when it really does mean something’s not quite right. Yet.
Of course, this means Hold My Body Down will have to percolate away by itself for a few weeks, at least, while I struggle with Walter and Aideen. TDofWM is already better for the furious stint of work I put in after I spoke with said agent, during the second half of my vacation week. I sat in that darned chair so long, my hips hurt the next day. Wrote and re-wrote and the book was 2,500 words longer by that evening. The pace of work has now slowed considerably (vacation’s over, alas), and it’s the hardest and most finicky stuff that has to be dealt with now. And the great fear is that it won’t ever be good enough.
Hmm. If I keep venting this way, I’ll have to turn this into a proper blog.
Anyway, on a less introspective note, my fiction group’s delightful chapbook Departures looks fantastic. I’m happy with the little story, “152”, that I included. It’s a sort of surrealist satire about a man who waits for a bus for several years, which isn’t the kind of stuff I usually write, but it was tremendous fun. Proves that “what if...?” really is a door to story.
And this Friday, I’m reading at the Puritan’s double-issue launch and poetry throwdown, at the Babylon night club. I’m scheduled for around 8:30 pm, but come for the whole thing, which starts around 7. Haven’t decided what I’ll read yet; maybe “152”; maybe “Bleach”.
June 1, 2008
A couple of agents (and very good agents too) have asked to read the full manuscript of The Disappearance of Walter Map. So we’ll see what develops on that front.
Meanwhile, there are a few fun literary things happening in my life in June. First, my writing group (which is chock full of really good writers: Wes Smiderle, rob mclennan, Steve Zytveld, Amanda Earl, Emily Falvey and Spencer Gordon) is publishing a chapbook, called Departures. It’ll be ready for the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair on June 21. Pick one up there, or e-mail me and I’ll send you one.
We’re hoping to have a launch for Departures but haven’t organized ourselves sufficiently yet.
I’ll be reading on June 27 at Babylon in downtown Ottawa, as part of the Throwdown in O-Town hosted by The Puritan. The first half is short readings by contributors to the journal (such as me) and the second half is a debate/wrestling match between rob mclennan and Nathanial G. Moore. I don’t quite understand it but I’ll be there anyway.
The new book has a title: Hold My Body Down. It is turning out to be somewhat like my Manitoba tomato seedlings: quick to germinate, slow to flourish, hardy and tenacious.
April 28, 2008
The writers festival was lovely, as it always is. The moment that will stick, for me as a host, was the onstage chat with Elizabeth Hay, Ahmad Saidullah and Gale Zoe Garnett about character names. Hay, it turns out, has been inspired in her naming practices by Thomas Hardy.
I’m at that lovely sticky messy stage at the beginning of a new novel, when it is far enough along that I can sense the shape of the whole, but the parts won’t stay put when I try to look at them. That includes character names. And because I’m writing historical fiction, there’s a lot of research still to be done. So despite the fact that the new book is occupying some part of my mind every second of every day, I’m doing the actual writing in rare fits, which feels very uncomfortable, while I try to suss out the people and places and plot, not to mention the look and feel and smell of Victorian Ottawa. (As usual, my research is broad and weird. So on top of all the very straightforward factual stuff, including a trip to the city archives the other day, I’ve been reading Confessions of an English Opium Eater. And staring at two paintings in the National Gallery of Canada.) And I have to figure out what those ghosts are up to...
Meanwhile, I’m trying to find an agent for THE DISAPPEARANCE OF WALTER MAP. I wonder if there’s anyone who actually enjoys writing query letters.
And there’s all the regular life stuff, like painting the new house (yellow and green), digging the new garden, clearing dead cattails out of the new pond, etc. Oh yeah, and working for a living.
And my fiction group is working on a chapbook. More on that soon.
March 23, 2008
This page is where I plan to put news of a fiction-related nature, whether that means griping about a sticky plot point or celebrating publication news.
In the meantime, come see me at the Ottawa International Writers Festival, April 16 and 17.
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