This is late again, for which I apologize. I thought that going back to the store two days a week would once again return a sense of the passage of time to me. This has not been proved true, sadly; I still lose track of what day it is, I just do it in bigger chunks (I thought Monday was Friday because I knew it was a workday and it … didn’t feel like a Monday). Today’s story, Turn of The Card, was written only twenty-four years ago (and published 23 years ago). I had forgotten a lot of it, and therefore found it surprising. Also: I cried. This is probably not something to admit about one’s own work — but… it almost doesn’t feel like it is mine, this far from the writing of … Continue reading
Author
Category Archives: writing
Posted in writing.
This is not Monday, but — Monday was the first day the bookstore was open for customers. It was a partial opening, and will remain so for a while; while we’re allowed to open, the list of conditions for safe opening require a lot of social distancing, sterilizing of things people touch, and face masks. And people :). Our store is not physically large, so at the moment we’re taking appointments in 30 minute blocks, for a max of 3 people in the store. Also: hand sanitizer is used on entry to the store, and face masks are necessary. Having said all that, it was nice to see people in the store again :) I was hot and surprisingly tired and came home and fell over, so I missed Monday. … Continue reading
Posted in writing.
I started seriously writing about six years ago. I finished the first draft of my first novel last summer. In the middle of revising it, I was inspired and wrote a second novel in six months flat. With two novels’ first drafts done, the logical next step was revision & editing — and this is where the rug was pulled out from under me in a way I did not expect. I’ve read plenty of advice that one should ignore that negative inner voice during the first draft and then utilize it for editing in subsequent drafts. For me, I found I could tune that voice out during the 1st draft — it’s the subsequent revision/editing drafts I’m massively struggling with because of that inner voice. … I haven’t been able to make anything gel in months at this point, … Continue reading
Posted in writing.
Well. It’s been a long week. I… missed some of the events because I spent three days doing taxes (federal and GST/HST) and had to ignore the Internet because anything is more compelling than doing taxes. I discovered – and of course this makes perfect legal sense – that I can’t contribute to USian political campaigns. US charities will take money. I have read So. Much. News. So much. I feel somewhat helpless, and I’m wavering between hope and despair, and the despair is the 2016 election all over again. Which, oddly enough, stopped me from getting a single useful word written for three months. (Little whispers: is this enough? Is this finally enough? Will things change? And I remember my mother not understanding my 2016 reaction because… it was America. Surely the … Continue reading
Posted in writing.
There was no post on Saturday, because on Friday, for the first time in over two months, I went into the bookstore. I therefore did not write on Friday, which meant I wrote on Saturday instead. I was asked to come in because “the shelves are a disaster”, and as there’s only been two people in the store — the owner and the full-timer — for the two weeks, I considered it relatively safe, and on Fridays, there’s only one person in the store otherwise. Two of our distributors are sending only full cartons of books, which works for some new releases, but means we’re not getting backlist for those two distributors. They are doing this to cut down on actual handling of books; in order to send us … Continue reading
