A few weeks ago, my mother, who coordinates a programme for seniors in Ottawa called Creative Connections, held a reading of my work for the programme’s participants.
I wasn’t there.
My mum read for me: my short story A Treat (excerpt here), and two non-fiction pieces, Maman’s Hands and Sunborrowers and Watering Cans.
The positive response is humbling; « they want more! » shares my mum by email.
They meet once a week – I better get writing.
I happily began the year 2013 with three bits of good writing news:
– I won second place in Good News Toronto‘s True Story Contest. (more on that here)
– My short story Nelles (in French) will be published in the literary magazine Virages in March. (an excerpt can be found here)
– I will have a ten-minute play produced in this year’s Inspirato Festival, for which I must write a play from scratch.
As part of Inspirato Festival’s Playwrights’ Mentoring Project, I attended a day-long workshop during which I met my fellow playwrights and did short writing exercises before being assigned the subject matter of the play I am to write for the festival in June 2013.
One of the exercises included building a small sculpture and writing a free flow/stream of consciousness monologue from its point of view. The result:
We voyaged across the sea, but remain perched in precarious existence. If we photosynthesized, we’d be leaning toward the sun. As it is, we merely lean gravity-ward, which annoys us as we yearn to achieve more. We are both practical and whimsical; our career as a children’s entertainer didn’t last long. If we had the means, we’d bask in the collective glow of of super troupers and admiration. Sadly, the reflection of mere trinkets in the mirror remind us that inanimate life cannot hope, as Pinocchio did, to become real. And even if we fulfilled our dream of a grander, more productive life, it might be at the cost of a separation too painful to fathom. A diminutive pedestal therefore must suffice; hope of a melody at our centre remaining merely the lullaby of slumber, which, even that, escapes us.
It’s unlikely that this text makes it anywhere into the short play I need to write by next month, but it was fun playing with words and getting something down, pencil to paper. Now to write about rope…
In 2012, I participated in a local writing contest, held by Good News Toronto, called the True Story Contest. The challenge was to write about A Good Neighbour in 450 words or less.
I wrote about an unknown neighbour of mine who watered (and saved) my toddler’s bean plant this summer and about my parents’ neighbour, Colette, who does the same for my father’s tomato plants. My piece won second place in the contest and was published online this month.
An excerpt from Sunborrowers and Watering Cans:
Armed with a watering can, Colette makes her way across her neighbours’ lawn and down a small hill to the vegetable patch. She carefully removes the mesh wire fence, which ineffectively keeps rabbits out, and steps in to water the thirsty plants and their cherry-red fruit. Once that job is done, she fills the watering can with the bite-sized tomatoes, ensuring none goes to waste. There are always more when my parents return, as long as Colette waters them.
Later, Colette drags a lawn chair onto my parents’ property for a well-deserved rest. Papa jokes that it’s only fair: in the afternoon, Colette’s place is in shadow, “so we let her borrow our sun!” A little water for a little sun; it’s a pleasant, reciprocal relationship.
Colette blushed when I read her the story, right before it was published online. I could tell she was surprised, yet pleased, about her role in this story. Now, my task is to figure out which of my 600+ neighbours helped along our ‘garden’ this summer and offer my thanks in person.
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I am excited to share that I have been invited to participate in the Toronto French Book Fair this year, as an emerging writer. I will be participating in a roundtable discussion on « How I wrote my first book », with poets Sonia Lamontagne and Daniel Groleau Landry.
Details about the French Book Fair (le Salon du livre de Toronto), which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, can be found here (French only).
Additionally, a local paper mentions my participation at the Book Fair and names me one of « Franco-Ontario literary grassroots authors » (auteur du terroir littéraire franco-ontarien). The article is here (French only).
I’m looking forward to sharing both in person on December 8th and online afterwards, how this experience is colouring my writing process.
Having met new fellow authors on Twitter this month, I was inspired by the UnknownJim Writers Unite challenge to « write what you REALLY want to write about. »
This month, while I couldn’t choose between concentrating on my English writing or on my French writing, I’ve not quite finished either piece, but I can still share an excerpt. Here is the opening of my short story Ms. Perceval’s Lover:
Ms. Perceval had long considered Owain Montblanc her type, but accepting the position of vice-principal last year impeded matters slightly. Now his superior, she could no longer express interest – not that she ever would have, anyway – lest it be misconstrued as sexual harassment by an authority figure. Hardly the way to begin her management career.
So, when Owain collapsed while teaching history class, Ms. Perceval at first hesitated to give him mouth to mouth resuscitation. She could hear the students’ nervous whispers behind her as she kneeled next to her prone colleague with another second’s hesitation. Then, she went to work. Ms. Perceval thought she heard a shocked, stifled giggle and considered withdrawing, but the prospect of Owain expiring on her watch was more than she could bear. She took a breath and bent down, pressing her lips against his, in their first, unlikely kiss.
She had imagined this moment – well, not this moment, the moment when she’d kiss Owain – many times before. She made up romantic, clichéd scenarios: a beach at sunset, the Eiffel Tower under a light rainfall, by Victoria Falls… She didn’t waste time figuring out how she and Owain would end up in these places – she simply inserted herself there, and in her lover’s arms.
Ms. Perceval blushed. She felt the students’ intent gazes pierce the nape of her neck. Could they guess what she had in mind?
While I won’t be participating in NaNoWriMo this year, it will be to concentrate on my short stories, so I hope to be further along with this and other stories by the end of the year.
Writers Unite!
I was browsing through newly-discovered writers’ blogs such as this one and this one, and was taken with how often a writer must be reminded to stick with it and just write.
Don’t worry about getting the perfect words down on the page/screen right away – just write.
Don’t worry about the laundry, or the dishes, or the toys all over the floor – just write.
Don’t worry about the plausibility of a police officer wearing her hair that way, or the kind of tomatoes that grow in Ontario in September – just write.
The extra research, the editing, the rewriting will come soon enough. Just enjoy the now and write.
(I should add that I shouldn’t worry about making it to the Twitter chats I’ve also recently discovered – ‘sup #writestuff – and just write, but tweeting counts as writing, right?)
Today, we celebrate girls and young women everywhere; their resilience, their determination, and the hope they represent.
Therefore, I post here an excerpt of my short story « A Treat », starring 7-year-old Naya:
… A passer-by got too close to Naya and shoved her onto her hands and knees, the purse she had omitted to secure shut spilling its contents onto the well-traveled pavement. Tears sprang into Naya’s eyes, less for the pain of the tiny stones that lodged themselves into her right knee than for the lost money she desperately tried to gather up between people’s feet.
“Oh, you’re such a klutz,” Naya heard from up behind her, both relieved and terribly disappointed to hear her sister’s voice.
She picked up the last stray dime she spotted and began counting her coins again.
“Tie your shoe,” Midge commanded.
Used to obeying her big sister, Naya tossed her money back into her purse, made sure it was fastened, and bent over to knot the shoelace that never managed to stay tied. She then wiped her hands on her shorts and stood up, ready to surprise Midge with her offer of ice cream.
“Ok, let’s go,” snapped Midge, indelicately grabbing Naya by the arm.
“But…” spluttered Naya. “Ice cream…”
“Forget it. I’m not standing in a stupid line to get you ice cream. I don’t care what dad said. The deal was, if I take you to the aquarium, I can go to Colin’s cottage with his family next weekend.”
Naya’s shoulders sank. She hadn’t heard of any “deal”. She suspected her father hadn’t meant her to find out, either.
“I wanted to buy you ice cream…” she replied, barely audibly over the swarm of happy families around them.
“You want to buy me ice cream? Yeah, right,” Midge laughed, readily dismissing her sister’s generosity before reconsidering. “Do you have enough money?”
“I have four dollars and forty-two cents. I lost one of my pennies.”
“Great. I’ll have a butterscotch sundae.”
Naya grinned, pleased her big sister was allowing her to treat her. They headed for the ice cream stand, Midge as usual bulldozing her way there, leaving Naya to scamper after her. As they stood in line, Naya clutched her purse in anticipation at being the one to hand the clerk the payment. …
« A Treat » is part of a short story collection on which I am currently working.
To read a short story about another powerful girl, click to read Son of Sun.
Three blank pages remain in my current notebook and I’m eagerly writing all I can in order to break out my already-selected, crisp, new notebook.
I love paper, and notebooks, and notepads. I have to exercise control in the vicinity of paper shops lest I forget myself in the presence of pretty letterhead and envelopes, sniffing and cajoling the cardboard- or plastic-bound notebooks (I can’t afford leather).
I have collected notebooks for years, lining them up on a bookshelf, the ink-filled ones on one side, the virgin ones on the other. They include notebooks gifted to me nearly twenty years back (I finally filled that one half a year ago – thanks, Maman!), notebooks bought at discount for other people that I then couldn’t give away, and notebooks given away as swag by various companies (thanks, Collège Boréal and Telus!). My current and next notebooks fall in the later category, and include matching pens. Score.
In my notebooks go story ideas, character sketches, name lists, notable quotes, memorable dreams and passages of my current works. Those eventually get transcribed into my computer. Other than that, I prefer handwritten notes, whether in ballpoint pen, pencil or gel pen; re-reading my notes, in hard copy, often inspires me to write more. A virtuous cycle.
What’s in your notebook?
Simply taking this opportunity to wish my husband a lovely anniversary and to thank him for his staunch support of my work.
Not only does he read and comment on my writing, he also takes our son to the Ontario Science Centre when I need to hunker down and write a few thousand words.
Merci mon chou!