Around the house
Around the house, today …
**The phone has rung about 16 times today for one child or another. The busy social lives of the ten-and-under crowd. CJ wanted in on the action and has been looking for a friend to come over. Problem is, he’s three and so are his friends; so far we’ve struck out. “Would you be scared to go by yourself to [friend’s name] house?” “Yes.” “Well, he probably feels the same way.” “But he’s not scared at nursery school.”
**I can’t go for my long run due to injury (see my triathlon blog for the painful details). In fact, I can’t even go for a short run just to blow off steam. This has made for a jumpy grumpy woman. Alternatives? What would you do if you couldn’t run? Running has become such a huge part of my life, a major tool in my mental health kit; it isn’t easy to replace, even temporarily. I’m planning to hit a yoga class this afternoon. But yoga lacks the adventure of running. Yoga happens indoors, as does swimming and spinning. Running outside in all weathers has changed my experience of the outdoor world and made winter a friendly place, for me.
**I am baking bread, doing laundry, picking up toys, and vacuuming. None of these activities are helping with my restlessness.
**It’s a beautiful, cold, sunny winter’s day. I am trying to convince my two youngest to go outside and build something in the snow. Hey — looks like the promise of hot chocolate afterward did the trick!
**While vacuuming I finally swept up all of the white feathers on AppleApple’s floor. When questioned about the provenance of the feathers, she posited that they were coming from her duvet. So I checked. And discovered a hole that had been patched with a scrap of cloth and pink thread. The child had attempted to fix the problem herself! Without ever mentioning it to me! I felt both proud and dismayed. What else is she attempting to fix by herself, without telling me? I had to rip out the stitches and sew the torn cloth together; no patch job was going to fix the problem. Oh dear, I am seeing nothing but metaphor.
**Speaking of metaphor, my poetry book club meets tonight. And now I can’t even find the book. Last seen a week ago at soccer practice where, unable to go for my usual run, I was attempting to read and take notes by the side of the field; and failing pretty miserably. It all circles back to the running!
**Finally, if you haven’t signed up for The New Quarterly giveaway, please consider it. My goal right now is to get at least ten people’s names in the hat.
Friday giveaway: The New Quarterly, winter, 2012
The latest issue of The New Quarterly (winter, 2012) featuring one of the chapters from The Juliet Stories. ie. your chance to get a sneak preview
Okay, friends, let’s give the giveaway a shot. So, I’ll offer up a prize, interested readers comment below, and a week from today (Jan. 27) we’ll have a draw and announce a winner. Sound like a plan?
Yesterday I visited The New Quarterly’s office and picked up copies of their latest issue. The New Quarterly is a local literary magazine with pedigree and staying power. They’ve published award-winning Canadian talent like Annabel Lyon, Erin Noteboom Bow, Douglas Glover, Stephen Heighton, Russell Smith, Diane Schoemperlen, Rebecca Rosenblum, and Andrew Pyper, to name just a few. A recent issue offered an interview with one of my favourite writers, ever, Alice Munro. Their issues frequently sell out.
Over the years, I’ve been blessed to be a part of the magazine, starting in 1991 when they published two poems that I wrote as a sixteen-year-old angst-ridden word-happy big-dreaming high school student. That kind of encouragement makes a huge difference in a developing writer’s life, let me tell you. It was the beginning of a long relationship. And their winter 2012 issue, freshly mailed and on its way to bookstores, includes a chapter from The Juliet Stories. Here is your chance to get a sneak preview of the book, which won’t be available until March.
The New Quarterly has offered me a copy of this latest issue to give away on my blog. Now, I’m a newbie at giving things away, but I like the idea. Heck, I’ll throw in a copy of my first book Hair Hat for good measure. Why not.
(Speaking of giveaways, Goodreads is giving away ten advance reading copies of The Juliet Stories. And my husband has launched a website called “Help Make Carrie’s Book a Bestseller,” (hey, we can hope!), which will also be giving away prizes to participants. Consider joining.)
Aaaaand. Enough with the giveaways. To sum up: Prizes — The New Quarterly’s winter 2012 issue and a signed copy of Hair Hat. Comment below to enter. Deadline Friday, January 27th, noon.
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It’s Friday, the kids are home from school, the sun is shining, there is snow on the ground, and here I am. Wondering: will I write more of The Big Fat Juicy Belly Worm today? My kids are wondering too. AppleApple keeps asking for chapter four. Truth is, it’s been a scrambled week crammed with conversations and variety and plans and a whole lot of dashing thoughts and activities. Amidst the scramble I’ve yet to find a way to settle and sit and focus my mind and find words. But I still have all afternoon.
This is today’s happy post
My brother Los in his studio
Today was a good day. I want to remember that despite the grousing contained my previous post. Sometimes I need a grumble — just get it out of my system.
But today was a good day.
Today I recorded two new songs. And for the second song, I played the French horn. My brother just happened to have a horn sitting there in his studio (you can see the case on the couch behind him). A loan from a friend’s parents. It’s a nice horn, too, a double horn in good working condition. I haven’t played horn since I was 18. That was, oh, awhile ago. Could I still make it make music? Well, yes and no. I’m no professional musician and never was. But the fingering came right back and I was playing a scale before I knew it. It didn’t sound half bad.
I was fooling around on the horn while Karl (“Los” is his nickname) was playing back my piano for the second song, and the horn was well-suited to the key I’d used, so I started playing along. Then we thought we’d record a bit and see if any could be used. So that was really fun. Really out of the ordinary. A treat. Music is sweet.
Also sweet: it looks like two or three of these songs are going to be made available on The Juliet Stories e-book, or as part of the e-book purchase. But that means we’ve got a deadline. Hence, today’s studio session, smack-dab in the middle of a whirling snowstorm.
This is today’s grumpy post
My brother Los at his studio
It’s only been a day, but I’ve missed tapping away at my blog. Yesterday, I had a sick kid home and was operating on interrupted sleep. In the afternoon, I looked after an extra child. There were piano lessons. Supper was prepped and eaten somewhere in there. I can’t recall having lunch.
This week at Tuesday evening gym-time soccer (remember that?) I only had one extra child, so I took along my notebook and desk calendar and got busy. Topic: TIME ALLOTMENT. A friend had sent me a useful article earlier in the day (skimmed on my BB during swim lessons) that made me ask: How am I choosing to spend my hours? What if this crazy squeezed schedule is not a blip, but the new norm? If that happens to be the case, I need to set some boundaries and get some organizational strategies in order. Case in point: zero time this week for The Big Fat Juicy Belly Worm. Which I happen to think is an exciting project on which I should be spending some significant proportion of my writing time.
Do I still have writing time? Or is it all getting lumped into “work,” with writing getting lost amidst the jumble.
So I sat in the noisy gym and made a list. Partly, I attempted to understand how much time I’m spending on Facebook, Twitter and email, and how much these are interrupting my work versus being useful tools. I also attempted to get a grasp on my projects currently underway, and which are one-offs versus those that are ongoing. I consider my blog ongoing. I don’t write it because I have to write it. I write it because I want to write it, and it’s now part of my writing life. Ergo, time for blogging/photos-related-to-blogging ideally happens every day.
Same with the long-term book projects, like The Big Fat Juicy Belly Worm. Every day work. If not every day, then two full days a week set aside to work on it.
That’s a lot of time. Yesterday slipped away without doing either of the above long-term projects. Instead, I played and sang in preparation for this morning’s studio session, and I ticked items off my to-do list. One-off items, you might say. Useful, but there was no time for anything else.
Today feels much the same, if for different reasons. Necessary errands. And studio time. And now school is almost out and children will be coming home, and supper needs to be made, plus several phone calls, and there’s soccer tonight, and I’ve got an event to attend this evening at which I will attempt to look professional and not in the least bit scrambled. Good luck, Mama. Or, more like it: breathe, Mama. Breathe. Breathe.
Listen up y’all
Yesterday, I pretended to be a commuter: so this is what it would be like, dressing appropriately, brushing one’s hair, and slogging down the highway to the big city. Yesterday, I met with my publisher, the House of Anansi, one of the last free-standing Canadian independent publishing houses. Their office is large and bright and the hallways are lined with–you guessed it–bookshelves. I enjoyed imagining Juliet occupying space beside other Anansi authors like Rawi Hage and Lynn Coady.
Anansi publisher Sarah MacLachlan and publicist Kate McQuaid (yes, I took my camera along too)
The meeting was to discuss publicity plans for The Juliet Stories. Ah, the many stages of making a book. So I wrote a book, so I found a publisher, so it’s going to print. What now? Indeed. What now is publicizing the book’s existence and asking people to read it, and the next few months will find me absorbed in that pursuit. It’s a real change of pace, that’s for sure. And one hopes it will be a positive change of pace, as my book and I head out into the (largely indifferent) world to make connections. The glass-half-empty part of me made me add the paranthetical aside. Yes, that parenthetical voice hangs out in my head, mostly around 3 o’clock in the morning, but I’m working on suppressing her. Except part of me thinks a hairline of cynicism can be useful too; keeps me honest.
My publicist, Kate, says she hopes this stage will be a happy time, a celebration of all the work that’s gone into making the book what it is; the glass-half-full part of me agrees. Here’s the thing: Writers are not generally outgoing extroverts. That’s why we’re good at sitting for many longs hours with only our thoughts for company. Once upon a time, the mere idea of meeting new people overwhelmed me with conversational paralysis. But I’ve got a decade of motherhood under my belt, a decade of meeting a whole lot of new people–and learning how to ask for things on behalf of my kids, how to demand space and attention when needed, how to listen, how to assess situations quickly, how to problem solve on the fly, how to communicate clearly, how to pinpoint the crux of an issue, how to juggle different needs at the same time, how to be okay with not pleasing everyone. It’s been eight years since my first book came out. Eight years. I’m ready to meet and greet and talk and throw a party or two. Thank you parenthood. I think I can handle this.
Out of our meeting emerged a few things I can share with you right away.
News, news, news
**Goodreads is giving away 10 advance reading copies of The Juliet Stories. All you have to do is visit here, and click on “enter to win”; (you probably need to be a Goodreads member too). Please spread the word.
**Also spread the word about the new Facebook page dedicated to all things Juliet. If you are a Facebook user, you can “like” the page and let your friends know about it too. (I always put Facebook “like”s into quotation marks, which basically gives it the opposite meaning, but you know, you’re welcome to actually like the page too).
**If you’re in Toronto, I will be reading at the Harbourfront reading series on March 7.
**News on the local launch party coming soon.
What else?
**Oh, yes, another reminder about Thursday night’s launch of Storywell at Whole Lotta Gelata in uptown Waterloo, 7-9. This is a free event for writers, interested writers, editors, etc. I will be there. Being all extroverted and talking to my cup of gelato. Or possibly to you, if you come too.