Tornlake

SCARY

If I had brown hair, I'd definitely be Sarah Palin for Halloween. I can't think of anyone more terrifying.

Instead my friends and I are going as 'Oakville Moms', that special breed of women, chiefly residing in affluent, insulated communities like Oakville, Ontario, who spend their days playing tennis, doing Yoga, doing Lunch, and shopping. Sometimes they own stationery stores their husbands finance for them. Sometimes they walk the dog. And no matter what they do, they look good doing it -- perfect hair, perfect make-up, and expensive clothes more appropriate for their teenaged daughters. Since they exercise obsessively, they might look okay in them, except for those protruding clavicles, and cheekbones that could slice cheese.

We're going to wear fangs too. It just seems appropriate.

Now don't get up in arms about the politically incorrectness of these costumes, or the unfairness of the stereotype. I may be making fun of these women, but that doesn't mean I'd turn down the opportunity to become one for a few years. I like yoga. I could get into tennis. Stationery isn't really my passion, but how about a store full of antique books? Or pens. I like pens. Cashmere and pearls I could also do, but I'd skip the low-rise jeans and J-Lo hats. They just look silly.

A Room of One's Own

This is the best diversion I've found in a while: a Guardian blog about writers' rooms (via Bookninja). There are photos and descriptions written by the writers themselves or by their loved ones.

Roald Dahl kept odds and sods on a table by his writing chair. They included things children had sent him, and a ball of foil paper made from the candy-bar foils he'd collected over the years and mashed together. How perfect.

I write in a few different places depending on my mood and which room in my apartment is brightest at that time of day. I have a small white desk that I've owned since I was ten, and my small white Macbook looks kind of cute sitting on it, though I'm often making notes in longhand.

There's a terra cotta pot on the corner of the desk filled with 'important' pieces of paper, elastics, a bouquet of fake flowers and other essential junk. One of my best friends decoupaged it with pictures of our friends from high school.

There's a bulletin board above the desk with pictures of my family and friends, years-old postcards, buttons (including an ancient Montreal Manic button from a gift basket I received when I was born - my Dad was involved with the team back in the early 80s), and a green origami butterfly Wayson Choy made for me last year when he visited our writing program.

He spent an hour in the graduate lounge folding butterflies for each student. They're supposed to remind us of what we'll some day turn into as writers. Right now we're still wriggling around on leaves, chomping away I guess.

In the summer I wrote often on my back patio, stopping every now and then to look at my fledgling garden. Someday I hope to have a study with lots of light, a lock on the door, and a daybed for napping. It wouldn't hurt if it was in a house that sat on the shore of a lake somewhere, with the sounds of leaves and birds and my kids playing outside drifting in the open window.

My Muse -- that Elusive Bitch

Yesterday I sat down at noon with my computer, and when I got up again at 2:30 I'd puked a 3000 word story on to my hard-drive.

And it really is mostly undigested. I rarely write this way. Usually a story comes four or five hundred words at a time, and many of those are hard-won from my distracted brain. The story I wrote yesterday will still need lots of shaping, cutting, re-imagining and polishing before I can show it around and not mind that my name's attached to it.

My mentor told me in the summer that some stories are gifts. They just come out, largely intact. Others take months to realize themselves. Does it depend on the subject matter, I wonder? The story I wrote yesterday is drawn from autobiographical events. And yet, another story that came out just as easily a few months ago was entirely invented. It even had a male narrator, which isn't easy for me to pull off (what does it feel like to be in a male body?).

Maybe it's the time of day (early afternoon), what I ate for breakfast (raisin bran and grapes), whether I'm alone in the house (I was), the weather (damp and breezy), my state of mind (mildly cluttered) or my state of dress (sweat pants). 

Maybe it's the creative energy in the air. My landlords are theatre people. They live above me, and I could hear someone singing to themselves for about an hour as they walked around tidying or doing whatever it is they do on a Saturday afternoon. 

I wish I could pin it down. If I could distill and bottle it, I'd make a nice buck. Maybe I could afford to send myself on the kind of shopping trip I went on last week more than once a year.

What a Rush

I was gripped by an addiction yesterday. To spending money. On clothes, specifically. And boots.

This is hard for me to admit, because I've been known to say I hate shopping. I've been known to wear the same sweaters for six or seven years. I own clothes from high-school still, and I wear them.

Something just came over for me. I had planned to go after class and look for a pair of boots at Winners at the Dufferin Mall, and maybe pop into H&M while I was there. An hour browse, tops.

Two and a half hours later, I left the mall with three large bags. I bought not just a pair of brown boots, but black ankle boots and tweed pumps. I bought two sweaters and two tops. I bought pants. I bought a skirt. I bought a pair of gloves and some patterned tights. I bought socks. And at the cash in H&M, just to keep the adrenaline flowing, I made an impulse purchase of a hair clip.

Yes, you heard me right. I needed a hair clip. That hair clip. Ring it up.

Now these items were all selling at bargain prices (except for the hair clip). I didn't lose my mind so entirely that I was purchasing upscale, well-made pieces. No, no. Just the cheap knock-offs and poor imitations.

And I'm not going to lie to you. Yesterday evening, leaving the mall, I felt like I'd just climbed Everest. Like I was on E (not that I know what that's like...). Like I'd just published a book and read from it at IFOA wearing my new brown boots and cowl-neck sweater. And people were taking pictures!

I attempted to justify these purchases to myself by remembering that if one looks put-together, one's publisher might be more willing to set up promo gigs for one, than if one were to wear the sweats and over-sized sweater one writes in everywhere.

But I'll being honest. It's the act of spending that feels so good. In the face of a sinking economy, my credit-card bill, and the fact that I barely make enough to live on, I had the audacity to drop a bunch of cash. It was risky. It was reckless. And I loved it.

Now in case my mother or father happens to read this post I must point out that I haven't bought a piece of clothing in six months. So I was due. Rather than spend a little money here and a little money there, I just spent it all in one go. Kinda like how I've always been a three-square-meal a day girl. I don't snack. Give me a steak.

This used to be healthy back when I was a kid. Now everyone's saying 'six small meals', 'graze', 'nosh' -- it's good for your metabolism. But, look, it's just not a satisfying as stuffing myself. Apply this satisfaction-seeking to shopping and you can see where I'm coming from.

But I've decided tomorrow, I'll take back the black pumps. Maybe.

The Safest Neighbourhood in the City

On Sunday evening I locked myself out of my apartment. I'd gone to my parent's house for the day and neglected to bring my keys or my cell phone. I suffered a little decellation, but I made it through okay.

Upon realizing I was locked out I had a moment of panic, until I remembered that there were at least four different houses within a three kilometre radius of my apartment that I could show up at unannounced. Couches to crash on and food to pillage are never farther than a fifteen minute walk away. I wonder how many lucky people can say they have so many best friends so close by?

A lot of us grew up in the same town, but I think we all lived further from each other within that town than we do now in the city. Community can be measured in footsteps to and from the homes of the people you love. And the fewer the better, I say.

Too Perfect

Yesterday I saw a man walking down Harbord Street with his nose in a book. Just before I drew level with him on the sidewalk, he walked into a wooden telephone pole, the kind with a million old staples sticking out of it. As I passed him, I was able to catch a glimpse of the jacket of this dangerously engrossing book: Blindness, by Jose Saramago.

True Story.

Eat Ossington

Walking up Ossington Ave. between Queen and Dundas St. at about noon today, I passed a few Portuguese watering holes. The scent of garlic and the sound of sports-casts and Portuguese pop wafted onto the pavement. Outside old men smoked, chatted and looked a little too closely at each gal passing by.

Then came the Chinese grocer, the hardware store that stocks icons of the Madonna, and an Italian bakery. This stretch of pavement is a welcome reminder of all the different cultures that blend and meld and brush up against each other in this city. I now take for granted that I can have Thai, Brazilian barbecue, middle-eastern, Greek, Italian, Japanese and French food all within three blocks of my house.

And even though I usually hurry past the none-too-subtle oglers at the tavern, it would never cross my mind to consider those men 'outsiders', or in any way lesser citizens of this city (and country) than myself. On the contrary -- this is their city. I'm the suburban outsider. But occasionally I'm reminded that not everyone feels this way.

I asked a new client of mine a couple of days ago if he was suffering some culture shock from moving back to Toronto after living in Tel Aviv for three years. He said, "One thing I've noticed is there are so many more immigrants. They're taking over. I mean my neighbourhood used to have none and now they're everywhere, taking all the jobs."

I was aghast at this comment, but since I'd have to endure several hours of this client's company over the next month, I decided against giving him a right hook to the temple. Instead I said, "Isn't it awesome? There's so much great food to choose from!"

Of course there are more important reasons to appreciate the increasing diversity of this city (the expansion of our minds and experiences, the enrichment of our culture, the sheer enjoyment of hearing other languages spoken on the subway, in the gym, on the street, not to mention the talent, skill and expertise immigrants bring to our workforce), but I was betting the way to his heart was through his stomach.

The Day of Thanks

Besides the obvious and most important blessings I am so lucky to enjoy - my health, a wonderful family, amazing friends, a sweater-wearing automaton for a prime minister - here are some other things I am thankful for this year:

- So You Think You Can Dance Canada
- hair product
- almond butter
- my vacuum
- The Walrus magazine
- Breece D'J Pancake
- Snapple Peach Iced Tea
- bicycles
- old sweaters
- that single bar of sunlight that falls on my desk
- streetcars
- my iPod
- socks
- neck pillows
- oak-leaf hydrangeas
- squash
- flagstone
- my new raincoat
- soccer
- fall-blooming anemones
- gmail chat
- Book City
- large mugs
- English tea
- hiking boots
- trees
- canoes

What about you folks?

Happy Thanksgiving!

In a Blaze of Glory

If you're an astute observer, you'll notice something different about the blog today.

The title specifically.

No?

Well then your spelling is as mediocre as mine. My Dad pointed out that I probably meant 'leeches' when I had originally typed 'leaches'. Embarassing. Funny, then, that I choose to share my inadequacy with all of you. Except isn't it just possible that there was some meaning in that phonetic slip-up? That using 'leaches' gave the title more signification and not less?

This is the kind of question English majors ponder and normal people poo-poo. But poetry is everywhere. Irony, the absurd, the hidden meaning, the resonant gesture -- all can be found on any given day in any given city by any given person.

Fall is so rich in overtones of loss, ending, reaping, decay, regeneration, etc. that you'd have to walk around completely oblivious to miss the reverberations pulsing from a single scarlet leaf pressed into the pavement. But I see so many people do just that. They have their cell-phones glued to their ears while walking their dogs in the park. They drown out the sound of wind and passing cars and kids on the jungle gym with their personalized playlists. They look at their feet or their Blackberries, but never at the last few roses putting on a final, brave show.

Fall makes me think of my mortality; the closeness and quickness of death and the intensification of beauty that comes before it -- trees are most spectacular in the firey show that heralds their own withdrawal. It's an important reminder not to put off what needs doing in my life and in the world. This is self-important, maybe, but I think it's the attention to detail, the acute observation, that often yields the most essential and truthful pieces of knowledge.

Constance Rooke, the founding director of the Guelph MFA in Creative Writing, past president of PEN Canada, writer, critic, co-founder of the Eden Mills Writers' Festival and fearless champion of literature, died of ovarian cancer on Saturday. I was priveleged to have known her for much too brief a time.

"I have had a profoundly satisfying career in part because I believe (with both the prose and the passion in me) in the power of literature to connect us, to teach us empathy, to help us walk in another person's shoes, to see with another person's eyes. I believe – despite our ongoing, manifold, terrible failures to connect, to understand, to change our ways – that literature does great good in the world, and that without it we would be truly lost."
                                                                                                                             -Constance Rooke

The Eleven Commandments

Yesterday I learned some very important truths about the publishing world thanks to literary agent Denise Bukowski. Because I am generous of heart, I'm going to share these secrets with all of you, and also because I know most of you are not writers anyway and won't be competing with me for a book deal. Otherwise you better believe I'd keep my mouth shut.

If you want to make some semblance of a living writing fiction, and you want your books to sell to international houses, pay attention to the following:

1. Don't write poetry.
2. Don't write short-fiction unless you're already a bestselling novelist.
   
3. Don't write novels set in Churchill, Manitoba, about the unique experience of growing up in Churchill, Manitoba. Also, don't write novels about being a Vietnamese immigrant to Vancouver. Make sure to change it to a Vietnamese immigrant to San Francisco.
4. Do write novels set in India.
   
5. Don't push for a big advance, because if you don't make it back for the publisher, your career is toast. No one will want to publish you again.
6. Don't publish with a small house who doesn't have the money to market your book well, and therefore will guarantee you sell no more than a couple hundred books. Your sales figures will be so low no one will want to publish you again but more small houses and your annual income will be $300.
7. Get your work in American and British literary journals. Canadian journals are optional.
   
8. Make sure your first novel is knock-your-socks-off amazing, because if it tanks your career is over before it started.
9. Buy as many first novels as you can so you up the figures for first-novel sales, thereby increasing the likelihood of publishers picking up more first-time novelists like you (serious!).
10. Get an agent as soon as you can. A bad publishing deal is worse than no publishing deal at all, so you want someone in your corner.
11. The only way to get an agent is to have one of their clients recommend you.

Paints a bleak picture, doesn't it?

How about this little tidbit: no one on the international publishing stage had even heard of McClelland & Stewart, the biggest publisher in Canada, until ten years ago.

You'd think after all this I might be discouraged. But in fact Denise's talk had the opposite effect on me. I am absolutely determined to do everything I can to start my career off right. And if I tank, I'll be happy that I did all I could, and I'll get another job and publish with small presses in relative obscurity for the rest of my life.

I might as well go for broke - on the art side and the business side. It's no harder to write a novel about a topic the rest of the world might be interested in than to write a novel about growing up in Churchill, Manitoba. I'm taking this goddamn bull by the horns.