Friday, Sep 5, 2014 | Big Thoughts, Reading, Teaching |
Eleanor Catton, the 28-year-old writer who won the Booker last fall for her novel The Luminaries, continues to win further prizes too, and recently declared her intent to set up a grant with her earnings that would give writers time to read. Yes, you read that right. Time to read. Click here to read the entire article in The Guardian.
“My idea is that if a writer is awarded a grant, they will be given the money with no strings attached except that after three months they will be expected to write a short piece of non-fiction about their reading …
“We’re very lucky in New Zealand to have a lot of public funding available for writers, but they generally require the writer to have a good idea about what they want to write, and how, before they apply. I think that this often doesn’t understand or serve the creative process, which is organic and dialectic; I also think it tends to reward people who are good at writing applications rather than, necessarily, people who are curious about and ambitious for the form in which they are writing. I’m also uncomfortable with the focus that it places on writing as production, with publication as the end goal, rather than on writing as enlightenment, with the reading as the first step.”
I’m making several connections as I read this.
I’m thinking about generosity, creativity, and the many reasons a person may feel compelled both to read and to write. I’m thinking about teaching creative writing again this fall, and agonizing over how best to encourage in my students a love of reading and words and ideas and stylistic play and leaps of connection and openness and generosity, yes, creativity, yes. It’s the necessity of marking that troubles me, not because it takes time and effort, but because aiming for a particular grade is not necessarily conducive to developing a love of writing and reading.
Which leads me back to Eleanor Catton’s idea for a grant that does not require of the writer a full-fledged project at the end or the beginning, but rather openness, curiosity, patience.
(And she’s coming to the Eden Mills Writers Festival on Sunday, Sept. 14, where I do hope we’ll get the chance to meet.)
xo, Carrie
Thursday, Sep 4, 2014 | Uncategorized |
Have I reached peak busyness? I’m not sure. After all, I start teaching next week. But with the book officially launching in Canada on Saturday, I feel sure that I’ve reached peak anticipatory activity in advance of launching book. I’ve also got a headache. And I could barely keep up with my running partner this morning. It felt like I was running on empty, thank you running metaphor. (There are so many running metaphors. Very popular with headline writers. How could they resist?)
To avoid spamming you with perhaps an unsavoury amount of self-promotion, let me direct you to the “News” page on this web site, where I’m trying to keep track of such things: there’s been an excellent profile in the National Post newspaper this week, for example.
It’s time to meet kids coming home from school. I shall therefore sign off abruptly.
xo, Carrie
Tuesday, Sep 2, 2014 | Family, Fun, Parenting, Play, Summer |
I should be posting about back-to-school. But we only just arrived home last night from our brief family holiday, and my mind hasn’t caught up with end-of-summer quite yet. So this will be my holiday post. Yes, we had a holiday. We had a holiday! From everything! (Except each other.)
Somehow the summer had slipped by without all of us spending some downtime together. Sure, we got lots of projects done, including, while the big kids were away, painting the back porch, and varnishing the wood floors downstairs, which were starting to splinter.
There was the trip to the beach with the kids (but not Kevin), and the trip to Toronto with Fooey (just us), and Kevin and I dashed over to Stratford not once but twice to see plays. There were soccer tournaments and swim lessons, my sister got married, we hosted cousins, invited friends for a few meals, and the kids attended various day camps and overnight camps that fed their various interests. You know, we did a lot of stuff, and we’re fortunate that we could and can. None of this would I change.
But we also worked, Kevin and me. We worked pretty much straight through summer, both of us being self-employed and therefore loathe step away from any opportunity. Suddenly August was nearly gone, and we were nearly out of time.
And then, my dad and stepmother offered their cottage for a family getaway. Just us. (Plus dogs.) At 5AM on Thursday morning, Kevin discovered that our new vehicle (new last fall) doesn’t have a roof rack. “Um, we have a problem,” were his exact words. How to fit six people, two dogs, all our stuff, plus food for five days inside one relatively small SUV? It was 5AM and the kids were soooo excited (which is why we it was 5AM; no one could wait to go). So we just did it. Ditched the non-essentials, squashed bags under children’s feet, bought perishables close to our destination.
We really did nothing when we got to the cottage. Nothing but swim, play, eat, drink, sleep, read. I didn’t even swim, in truth, because the lake was really cold, and, besides, forget excuses, all I wanted to do was nothing. By day four of doing nothing, I felt like I’d forgotten how to do anything, which was a bit unnerving. But not so unnerving that I turned down the offer of a grapefruit beer in the afternoon. I needed the nothing. I needed to be somewhere that wasn’t our house, with its innumerable potential projects calling. I needed a few days of not pushing myself onward, nor being pulled onward. I needed to sink in. Stop. Watch my kids play.
The best part was watching the kids play. They had so much fun together.
Sometimes I think even if I’m able to give them nothing else, they have riches, because they have each other. That’s what I hope, anyway. Or maybe it’s the other way round. Maybe even if they give me nothing else, if they love each other and look out for each other, I have riches.
And I do.
Monday, Aug 25, 2014 | Family, Holidays, Kids, Organizing, Summer |
After a quiet week, I was so looking forward to having everyone home. And they’re back, and all’s well with my world. But I’m glad they got to be away, free and independent and outside in a way that can’t be duplicated at home. I’m too tired just now to reflect more deeply on all that’s happened this summer, but I know the memories that seem to be sticking are located outside. Walking the dogs with the little kids in the evening, running in the early morning light or on shaded trails, sitting in sand beside water, swimming at noon, doing annoying running commentary beside children’s soccer fields (can’t seem to stop myself; sorry, everyone nearby!). I have no idea how to gear up for the fall, for back-to-school, back-to-teaching, travel, soccer tryouts, swim meets, music lessons & practice & homework, other than putting absolutely every little thing on the calendar, and then doing my best to show up.
But I don’t know how to put be still, outside on the calendar. Anyone figured that out?
xo, Carrie
Wednesday, Aug 20, 2014 | Girl Runner, Good News, Organizing, Parenting, Spirit, Work |
My book! She is here!
So, this arrived yesterday. It’s the finished book, freshly arrived at the Anansi offices this week, and sent directly on to me, so, no, it’s not quite in stores yet, but will be soon; and for sure by Sept. 6th, the official pub date in Canada (other countries coming next year). This will be my reading copy. I’m going to write that on the inside cover. Actually, I’m going to do that now, while I’m thinking about it, because that is how I’m approaching life, that is my survival strategy: think of it, do it, done.
My motto (for real): I don’t procrastinate. Oddly, this can cause problems.
But it solves more problems than it causes, and it’s been working for me for years, so I’m sticking with it.
“Reading copy. Aug. 19, 2014.” GIRL RUNNER
See? Thought it, did it, done. (And yes that is yesterday’s date, because yesterday is when I received the book, and that’s what I want to remember.)
This fall is already knocking down my door, and I want to welcome what’s coming, not greet it with anxiety or worry over all that I can’t control. Here is the visual that’s keeping me grounded these days. I am a still point in a fast-moving river. I’m not drowning. I’m not even swimming. I’m simply being pulled along, like a leaf or a branch, floating through all that is happening and trying to take it all in.
It’s going to be busy.
It’s already busy.
My strategy: stay very organized, and don’t get pushed ahead of exactly where I’m at — stay with what’s happening, here, present in the moment.
This morning, walking through the kitchen, I had a flash of memory that made me laugh. I was remembering standing at the counter stirring up a batch of biscuits for supper, a baby strapped to my chest in a sling, a toddler lying at my feet crying that she wanted to “help,” and the older two freshly home from school and in that state of exhausted, hungry, miserable transition. Chaos, noise, demands, needs abounded. The radio was on too. I grabbed the camera and took a video to preserve the moment, because it seemed very comical to me. And I thought to myself this morning: if I could be the still point in that storm, I can be the still point anywhere, anytime, but most especially, most easily, in this storm of my own creation, that I’ve been working toward for years now. It’s here. And I’m being pulled along.
