publicity planning for Girl Runner, Anansi offices, Toronto, May 8th
Bryan Prince Bookseller, Hamilton, with Kerry Clare and others from The M Word, May 7th
with daughter at Kiwanis Festival, Waterloo, May 7th & 4th
first prize! (piano)
outside
waiting for spring to spring forth
I sponsored the two older kids’ rep soccer teams this season by “buying a sleeve.” We decided to add “A NOVEL” to the title GIRL RUNNER, thinking that a team of 13-year-old boys might not appreciate having to wear that label during games.
This was our dining-room table, Monday afternoon. Two sets of page proofs, one galley, one sharp red pencil, and one mother announcing to all who entered after school, “There will be no eating or drinking on or near this table until I AM DONE!”
I am done.
All may eat and drink here again.
Last night’s reading at DVLB was really fun. I even indulged in a scotch, thanks to the kindness of a friend who treated. Imbibe ye scotches while ye may. Life’s too short not to enjoy the pleasures that arrive. Even if that happens to be on a Tuesday night and you’re running the next morning. And so I did. (And I ran this morning too: Run ye many kilometres while ye may.)
No scotches tonight, however. I’ll be driving to and from Hamilton, where I’m reading at Bryan Price Bookseller, 7pm, with other M Word contributors. (Note to self: look up directions!)
Tomorrow I’ll be at the Anansi offices working on publicity plans for Girl Runner. (Note to self: more directions! Look up!)
Can you read the above? I can’t. File this under Strange Opportunities that Arrive via the Internet. Last month I was contacted by an editor at Unitas, a Chinese-language literary magazine in Taiwan, who wanted to interview me for a special issue they were planning on Alice Munro. (They’d found and loved my review of Alice Munro’s Dear Love in the National Post.) I agreed. And this month, two copies of the beautifully produced magazine arrived in my mailbox, in an envelope covered in fancy stamps. Sometimes the world seems very very small.
I’ve never met Alice Munro, and can’t imagine what I would say to her if we were to meet. It’s an entirely one-sided relationship based purely on my reading of her stories over many years. I’m immersed in MY LIFE IN MIDDLEMARCH right now, a truly wonderful book that combines biography with memoir, and in some way I feel like my relationship with Alice Munro is similar to Rebecca Mead’s with George Eliot; but Mead has the benefit of distance and I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable exploring Alice Munro’s life and work in quite the same way, given that she’s still living, and that our worlds literally overlap in time and space. It wouldn’t be historical exploration. There’s a freedom to digging back into the past, way back. I’m aiming to do it now, in my next novel. Nothing can be perfectly recovered from the deep past, and so one may imagine quite freely.
Yet I’m so admiring and relishing this memoir/biography mash-up on George Eliot — I would do it, if I could figure out my relationship with non-fiction, a form I’m still learning. I’m thinking out loud here, brainstorming as I type. Perhaps not the best way to compose a blog post on which one is about to press “publish.” But if I could figure out how, yes, I would write about Alice Munro.
I think the NMA nomination was especially thrilling (and perhaps seductive) because it was earned for “personal journalism,” aka non-fiction. It’s a form that interests me more and more, that I find myself devouring more and more, and that I want to learn how to master.
We were very tired, we were very merry–
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable–
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on the hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
We were very tired, we were very merry–
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind went cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.
We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, “Good morning, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and the pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
(first published in 1919)
The refrain of this poem keeps running through my head. We were very tired, we were very merry.
I drove my swim child to Windsor and home again all in one day, yesterday. “Did you have a good day, Mom?” she asked me. The stoplight turned green ahead of us, and I checked the rearview mirror. “There were many good things about this day,” I allowed, thinking more of the long dark drive ahead, and the lateness of the hour, the responsibility of getting us safely home heavy on me. “Did you have a good day?” I asked her.
“Yes! I had a really good day.” I wish you could hear her voice. The sigh of deep satisfaction.
“Well, then I had a really good day too.”
run, Kevin, run
This week has been run, Carrie, run. Next up we have shine, Carrie, shine, as I’ve got a variety of upcoming work-related events and appearances.
Tonight, I’m visiting a friend’s book club to talk about The Juliet Stories.
On Tuesday, I’ll be at DVLB in uptown Waterloo @ 7PM as a “special guest” (that’s what the invite says) at the book launch for new story collections from Greg Bechtel and Tom Cho. I think I’m going to read a Juliet story I haven’t before.
On Wednesday, I’ll be in Hamilton at Bryan Prince Bookseller @ 7PM with The M Word’s editor Kerry Clare, and others. I’ll be reading from my essay in The M Word, but of course.
On Thursday, I’m headed to Toronto to meet with my publicist at Anansi to make plans for launch of Girl Runner here in Canada (Sept. 6th).
On Saturday, I’ve been invited to be a guest bookseller at Words Worth Books in uptown Waterloo. Words Worth is celebrating its 30th year in the business. (!!) I’ll be there around 11AM, if you want to drop by. (Apparently, working the cash register is not a requirement, for which we can all be truly grateful. I hope no one ever asks me to work as a guest waitress. Or guest latte-maker. Both jobs which I tried and at which I failed spectacularly. I would make a pretty decent guest stable-girl, or guest copy-editor, or guest babysitter, however.)
Finally, yesterday I found out that an essay of mine, “Delivery,” which was published last year in The New Quarterly, and also in the anthology How to Expect What You’re Not Expecting, has been nominated for a National Magazine Award. The New Quarterly has invited me to be their guest at the gala, which happens in June. The word gala kind of paralyzes me, I confess. But I’ve never been nominated before, and I would like to go and be a fly on the wall. Maybe in a nice dress? Maybe not. We’ll see.
I think that covers it for now in the shine, Carrie, shine category. But it’s more than enough to keep me running.
focus
Yesterday was devoted to running.
I started by running 10.5 km early in the morning, before and then during the rain. My Tuesday running partner couldn’t meet up, so I headed out alone. It was very dark and extra-early, because I’d taken swim girl to the pool first. On early dark mornings I stick to neighbourhood streets, when what I really want is to run out toward the open sky. But on early dark mornings that path feels isolated and unlit; I err on the side of caution. I’d gone a dull 4 km when I saw a familiar jacket ahead. I ran faster to catch up. A friend! (Not my usual running partner.) Running with her livened up my route immensely.
Basically, aside from the odd evening out, my social life is anchored by early morning exercise with friends. And texting. And threshold conversations, such as when dropping a kid off, or waiting on the sidelines/poolside/at music lessons. Does this sound familiar to anyone else?
I spent the day reading through the Girl Runner galley, sharpened pencil in hand. This is gruelling work, I’ll admit. Because I’m still reading as the writer, still working to improve (not to say perfect) the words on the page, I can’t read as a reader. After many hours of this, all I wanted to do was run.
Maybe I was inspired by Aganetha.
Kev and I were tag-teaming supper prep, but it wasn’t ready in time for soccer girl to eat before soccer practice. I was taking her. I grabbed a handful of almonds, dashed upstairs and came back down in running gear.
Kevin, in the kitchen, puzzled: “Didn’t you already run this morning?”
Yes, but. That seemed ages ago, like it belonged to another day, another season. Plus, at soccer practice I can run out under an open sky. And it had stopped raining.
So I went, and I ran. And as I ran, I didn’t think about anything in particular. I didn’t think about punctuation or trimming words from sentences. I didn’t think about publicity planning. I thought about running. I repeated a few key phrases that remind me to improve my form, or push harder, or to relax. Quick feet. Tuck in. Shoulders down. I decided I would complete a half-marathon distance in one day, this run being the second stage. And so I did. And that’s what I thought about, really. That’s all.
change of focus
Daily life is a mixture of noise and quiet, connection and interiority, an ongoing attempt to stay focused on whatever is the priority at the moment. To not get distracted. I spend a lot of my daily life trying not to let myself get distracted. Maybe I need a few key phrases, like those I use while running. If I’m with someone, I want to be with them. If I’m working on something, I want to be working on it. It’s where squeezing everything in breaks down, attempting to do too many things all at once, splitting one’s focus. Am I tuning out the right things? Tuning in to the things I mean to? Our brains seem wired to get off on distraction. Quick hits of excitement. But really it’s focus that’s deeply satisfying. It’s running and emptying the mind. It’s reading a stack of picture books to a kid before bed. It’s listening to what a friend is saying, not jumping ahead to what you’ll say next.