Reflections on This Week
This is going to be a long post, because it’s been a full week in the news already, and it’s only Thursday, and I’ve got a lot on my mind. This American Thanksgiving, I imagine there are a lot of conversations going on at a lot of family dinners about the decision of the Grand Jury not to indict Darren Wilson for the fatal shooting of Michael Brown and the subsequent protests in cities all over North America and the world. I know we’ve been having those conversations at our own dinner table. Whatever your views on this particular case, the fact is that black Americans are statistically far more likely to be killed by police in the USA than white Americans, and that’s a big societal problem that goes far deeper than any one case. (Here’s one look at the numbers, thanks to Jim C. Hines.) I sincerely hope the heightened awareness of the problems that has come out of this leads to positive change. I’ve been feeling for the parents particularly this week. As a parent myself, my biggest worry is keeping my child safe. I’ve been thinking a lot about the parents of teens and young adults of colour in the States, whose base level of fear for their kids has to be so much higher than mine is. I don’t have to raise my child to understand that she might be seen as a threat because of her colour or that the default position of the world around her is to see her as a risk and that that puts her at risk. Parenting is difficult enough without that extra worry, and I wish no one had to suffer it. If you’re struggling to understand what it is to live with that heightened sense of danger, and you have any knowledge at all of Star Trek, Mary Robinette Kowal offers a useful analogy on her blog. *** In other news, former CBC host Jian Ghomeshi has been arrested and charged with sexual assault and is out on bail, ordered to live with his mother. The women who came forward to tell their stories about Jian deserve our thanks. Without their voices, this would not have happened, and Jian could still be working at the CBC, a public figure with access to young women anytime he wanted. It’s extraordinarily brave to speak up about a crime for which our society seems unable to avoid blaming the victim, and I’m proud of all women who voluntarily put themselves on trial on the public stage by doing so. *** Finally, I was very saddened this week by the death of Pat Quinn, former player, coach, president, and GM of the Vancouver Canucks. I’ve often thought that one of the reasons so many people are drawn to their local sports teams, apart from the sport itself, is because of the sense of community they provide. The teams are like our local gladiators, someone to root for, for a community to get behind, when our modern world provides so little opportunity for that kind of large-scale connection with our neighbours. Pat Quinn pretty much single-handedly brought that back to Vancouver in the late eighties and early nineties, an era when hockey was as close to dead as it ever has been in this city, and the echoes of his influence are still heard in the city today. My thoughts are with his family, friends, colleagues, and all the people whose lives he touched through hockey and otherwise. Share...
Day Job Gratitude
Around this time every year, after a couple of months of having every waking minute – and lots of sleeping ones – taken up with my work for the Surrey International Writers’ Conference, the to-do list associated with this year’s event dwindles to a manageable level, and I lift my head and look at the world outside the SiWC box, breathe a little fresh air, get some good sleep, and feel the niggling, aching need to write gathering in my soul. I’m excited to see what comes. But leaping back in the writing pool after a long hiatus is a little scary. Somehow, even though I’ve been here many times before and it always turns out fine, there’s a tiny bit of fear that I’ve forgotten how to swim. So I thought I’d start here with a nice, easy blog post. Besides, I have a giant well of gratitude I need to share. Coordinating SiWC is an amazing privilege. I have made life-long friends doing it, and every October, I get to visit with some of them, meet new ones, and watch all the work I’ve put in for the whole year culminate in four days of learning and connections, camaraderie and inspiration. I love it. It’s exhausting and exhilarating, and I am so very lucky to have it in my life. I’m also uniquely fortunate to be in a position where I get a great deal of feedback about what kind of a job I’m doing. I’ve spent the last few days reading every single one of the evaluation forms turned in by attendees and presenters at this year’s conference, as well as all the emails and blog posts and tweets people have sent or posted. Literally hundreds of people took the time to tell us how the conference was for them, what they loved, which sessions and blue pencils got their wheels turning, what moved them and inspired them, what they’d love to see in future, and more. What an incredible gift that is when you’re trying to do a good job. This year in particular, a huge number of people stopped me while they were still at the conference to say thank you for all the hard work. Isn’t that something? Most of us work alone most of the time. Even if we work in offices or among other people, how often does anyone stop to say, “Thank you. You’re doing a great job”? it’s not something that’s happened to me very often in other jobs I’ve worked, that’s for sure. It’s not that people don’t notice, but it’s not often part of our work culture to express it frequently or even, in some jobs, at all. But the amazing people of SiWC do. They make the effort to say it when they think it. And if they have suggestions for making something better, they tell me that, too. What a gift that is. So to all of you who took the time to say thank you, to share your thoughts, to spread the word about the conference, I say thank you. You make all the hard work worthwhile. In fact, you make me want to work even harder to make SiWC even better for you every year. Sometimes the thank yous I get make me teary-eyed because they’re so touching. That happened more than a couple of times reading the evaluation forms. Some of those comments weren’t meant for public consumption, so I can’t share them here, but two things that made my cry were posted publicly, and I hope you won’t mind me indulging myself by sharing them here. The first was a tweet, posted after the conference by Michele Fogal, who was an awesome volunteer for us this year: The second was this wonderful blog post, written by attendee Amanda Hagarty, whose experience at SiWC was exactly what I hope for when we set to work planning for the year. You can read it here: http://www.amandajunehagarty.com/2014/10/siwc-quite-possibly-best-writers.html Pretty wonderful stuff, at least for me. Thank you again, everyone who attended, volunteered for, talked about, presented at, or was otherwise part of the SiWC community this year. I appreciate you. Share...
Bodies at the Pool
The changing room at my local pool is a busy place. Mums scrub toddlers dry with faded, worn towels, the sort we all hesitate to throw away because they come in so handy for times like these. Little girls stand under forced-air hand dryers mounted high enough on the wall to act as hair dryers, their faces scrunched up against the warm rush of air. They remind me of when I was a kid and would wait my turn to do the same after swimming lessons, reaching up when my turn came to push the big, silver button to start the machine. When it stopped, I’d always wonder if I could get away with pushing it one more time before I relinquished my spot to the next kid in line, my head hot but my hair still wet. Teenagers shower quickly in their suits and disappear into the handful of private cubicles to change behind locked doors. Women my age, having long ago perfected the junior high gym strip dance, manage to change from clothes to bathing suit and back again afterwards without ever revealing much skin. By unspoken agreement, we ignore each other, girls and women, except for the occasional smile exchanged when the little kids do something funny. We are mindful of some of the patrons’ need for privacy where it is scarce. This is not the hockey locker room of my husband’s experience, guys showering naked without giving it a thought, laughing, ribbing each other, and talking while they change. Except for the old ladies. There are a lot of them at my pool. Always have been, my whole life. I have never been to the pool when they have not been there, unselfconsciously walking around naked in the changing room. I am new again to swimming lengths after years away from it, and some of these ladies pass me in the slow lane, their muscles well accustomed to swimming several times a week. They shower joyfully, letting the warm water run freely over their soap-lathered skin, while the rest of us hold our bathing suit tops a little away from our bodies to allow some water in to rinse us off. And then they stand around naked, gossiping with friends. Most of them speak in languages I don’t understand, but I have learned that girl talk sounds much the same in any tongue. They never rush, unwilling to interrupt their conversation by getting dressed. What is most noticeable about them is not their loose skin or sagging breasts, not their wrinkles or soft bellies. In fact, I had to think about the appearance aspect of their nudity when I sat down to write this. What is most noticeable about them is their laughter. They exercise their bodies and then they stand, utterly comfortable in their own skins, and laugh. They are wise. Share...
Sunday afternoon Twitter talk
I don’t purport to be an expert on social media. But I do pay attention, and I think I’ve learned a few things along the way, one of the fringe benefits of knowing a lot of very smart people. Today, I received twitter spam from an author I’ve never met or heard of, linking to his short story available on Amazon. Like pretty much every writer I know (every person, for that matter), I hate spam. Nothing is better designed to keep me from buying any product than the uninvited attempts of a stranger to sell it to me. But it’s a lazy, sunny Sunday here, and I’m sitting on my patio drinking tea, and it appeared he was an actual human being, so I decided, knowing it was likely unwise, to reply. I said pretty much what I’ve already described here: “Twitter spam? Great way to alienate potential readers.” I expected to either get no response or to get slammed for the comment. What I didn’t expect was for the writer to come back and ask me what he should do to attract readers. I told him what I know, even if I fail as often as I succeed in keeping up with the first two: engage. Be interesting. Talk about things other than your work. Build relationships. The conversation that followed showed he’s become frustrated enough with that approach to decide the pay-off for the spam is worth the cost to his reputation. Fair enough. For him, annoying those of us who hate spam enough to write off anyone who sends it is worth the reader engagement that comes from those who click through and buy his story.(He claims it’s connecting with readers, not sales, that drives him. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.) Building a following can be a frustrating, time-consuming, and sometimes disheartening exercise. So I wonder: other than what I said, what else would you have told him to do, assuming he’s genuinely interested in attracting readers without spam? How do you keep pushing through when it seems like nothing is working? Please share in the comments. Apart from encountering a spammer who was actually willing to have a reasonable conversation about what he was doing, the best part of it for me was meeting a fellow writer who joined in and was on the same page as I am. One of my favourite things about social media is the chance to connect with colleagues while I’m working alone on my back patio. What’re yours? Happy Sunday! Share...
The Weight of Disorganization
Awhile back, I had great intentions of writing a blog post about the weight of disorganization. The irony of the fact that I still haven’t posted it hasn’t escaped me. It was a day when the accumulation of receipts, notes, meeting agendas, tickets to events, and whatever other random detritus had taken up residence on my desk had me overwhelmed, and my goal was to clear it all off, piece by piece, until I had a clean, clear surface to work with. But first, I decided to take a “before” picture to use in this blog post. And IT BROKE MY PHONE. You may think I’m kidding, but no sooner had it taken the picture than it crashed, first to the standard “oops, I’ve crashed” black screen with the white apple, and then to a solid blue screen (Apple’s own BSOD?). Apparently I’m not the only one who finds the disorganization too much to take. Maybe it’s a coincidence that my not-quite-two-year-old iPhone died – truly dead; it had to be replaced – at that particular moment, the instant I snapped that picture, but I tend to think not. If I’d needed a sign other than my own stress level that it was time for clean surfaces, surely that was it. By the end of the day, after I’d spent a couple of hours at the Apple store dealing with the phone replacement, I sorted through and dealt with every bit of paper on the desk, dusted the surfaces, including the top edges of the books, and even sorted and tidied the desk drawers. It was glorious when it was done. I’m not a stickler for tidiness. I would far rather write or read or spend time with people I love than clean. I’m not going to look back on my life and regret that I didn’t spend time I could have been doing the things I love cleaning my house instead. As long as it’s hygienic and not too piled up, I’m fine with it. But every once in awhile, I’m reminded of how much more clearly I can think when my space is truly tidy. It’s like the neat spaces allow my mind to get busy creating instead of being slowed down by the visual clutter from a mess. Or something. Whatever the reason, I like the result. Maybe not enough to tidy instead of doing other things I love every time. But maybe once in awhile. I’ll just be sure to avoid taking a before picture first. Share...
Of Officers and Blogs and Books that Make Me Cry
A few random things for a Monday… I grew up with cops. My mum worked as a public servant for the RCMP for twenty-six years, so her co-worker friends included police officers and other people whose work lives, like hers, involved behind-the-scenes stuff that made police work possible. These were the people by whom I was surrounded, and all of them, every single one I knew, was in it for the right reasons. And now, we have our own friends who are cops, and they, too, go to work every day to try to make the world a little safer, a little better, sometimes at the expense of their own safety. And I know that when one of their number is killed in the line of duty, it’s like losing a family member, whether that person sits next to you at coffee or is a stranger from across the country. My thoughts are with the entire police family and everyone else affected by the senseless deaths of Const. Fabrice Georges Gevaudan, Const. Dave Joseph Ross and Const. Douglas James Larche in Moncton last week. I’m not sure who linked to this post, but it’s a good list of things it’s far too easy for most of us to end up regretting in our writing careers, easily avoided if we’re aware and willing: http://thewriteconversation.blogspot.ca/2014/05/9-things-youll-regret-when-you-look.html I just read Maddie Dawson’s The Opposite of Maybe. I was delighted to stumble across it on the shelf at my local bookstore, because I enjoyed what I thought was her first book, The Stuff That Never Happened, and I didn’t know she had a newer one. I’ve since found out (to my great delight), that she has earlier books under a different name, which I intend to check out. I like that Maddie explores territory I love exploring in my own work: the shades of grey between the absolutes of right and wrong, black and white, in which most of life seems to happen, and the nature of relationships of all sorts. Her characters are real and flawed and they make mistakes and don’t always know what’s right for them. There’d be spoilers in the bits that made me cry, so I won’t tell you what they are, but they made me cry not only for the characters, but for the way they resonated with me and spoke to truths and things – love, family, our history and stories, connections – that are important in my own life. If you like introspective women’s fiction, as I do, I recommend it. Share...
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