The wonderful Trudy Morgan Cole tagged me when she posted a link to an article on facebook. The article was from Elizabeth Gilbert, she of Eat, Pray, Love and took a poke at Philip Roth for trying to discourage a young writer from his profession. Trudy knew I’d love what Gilbert said and I did. I really did. Because I’d said it so many times before. To Trudy, had heard it from Trudy, ranted to others about it. Gilbert said it much better than I ever could but that won’t stop me. Because I like to rant, especially about something I rant about so often.

Pity the poor writer, slaving away in her basement or chained to his keyboard. Hunched over, fingers aching, brain reeling. I often hear, or read about, writers complaining how tough it is to write. How they agonize over a paragraph for hours and then finally, fretfully, after wrestling with their commas and periods and which synonym of the word ‘bend’ they should use, get that paragraph done. Only to cut it out in a couple of months when they revise the work again. How they torture over each syllable and every word.

Bah, humbug. Continue reading →

Best opening ever. Favourite quotes that had me literally laughing out loud:

“Meryl Streep is not here tonight, she has the flu. I hear she’s AMAZING in it.” – Amy Poehler.

About Kathryn Bigelow “…when it comes to torture, I trust a woman who spent three years married to James Cameron…” – Amy Poehler

Talking to Anne Hathaway, about her “Les Mis” performance: “I have not seen someone alone and abandoned like that since you were on the stage with James Franco at the Oscars.” – Tina Fey
Continue reading →

Okay, perhaps it is a teeny bit hypocritical of me to post about how excited I am about the Golden Globes tonight after my recent rant against celebrating celebrity. But, in my defense, the Golden Globe awards is an award show and not the news that I ranted about. And the hyping of celebrity that drives me nuts is not celebrating excellence in film and television, like in the Globes, but the obsession with talentless, ego-maniacal reality “stars” who are famous because of bad behaviour, stupid behaviour, ignorant behaviour or for the fact that they are rich and beautiful. But I digress again.

I love the Golden Globe Awards. This has been noted on my blog before but, to refresh your memories, it’s a ceremony that celebrates the best in TV and movies. The stars are free to drink and are very relaxed and something unusual usually happens. Ricky Gervais was the most recent host and I loved him as host but this year, it’s going to be even better because the hosts are two fabulous, brilliant comediennes, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey.

Amy Poehler and Tina Fey

Continue reading →

The power is back on for us right now. But now there’s the task of getting the snow blower out that’s buried under there except for a bit of the cover peeking out.

One of the things I’d like to do in the new year (note, I didn’t say ‘resolve’ or resolution’) is to try to not read the news so much. It makes me sad. Makes me feel hopeless about the world. But then I decided I would read more news but would try to make sure it’s good news. I subscribe to the good news network and get regular emails that fill me in on good news but when I googled, I found that many news sites have good news sections. So, along with the link to the good news network, maybe you might like to check some of them out in the links at the bottom of this post (some of them are Canadian but the news is from around the world). Wouldn’t it be great to focus on the good being done in the world and the little good things people are doing for each other than, say, which two media whores have just conceived a little bundle of publicity for themselves? Yes, of course it would.

When you’re on a news site that provides other news that might not be good news, you may want to not look at the sidebars or footers on the page since that’s where you can find out which reality TV star just got a 3 million dollar advance on her book. Or why news organizations think it’s more important that you know what Honey Boo Boo had for supper last night than Continue reading →

Happy New Year! As always, friends, I hope that in 2013, through all the noise, hustle, bustle, triumphs and adversities, you find a way to be overjoyed. In the brilliant words of Christine Kane,

“All of the world is designed to remind you
All of the light you could find is inside
Under all of the noise
Here’s your chance to be overjoyed”

I know. I must be the only person who procrastinates posting that I won something, especially after posting that I was doing NaNoWriMo but, you know how life can get in the way. When you’re doing NaNo, all the less important things in your life get pushed to the back burner and they’re all waiting in December for you. Christmas is still barrelling toward us and all the social engagements of the season seem to start earlier every year. But I did it. 50,000 words in November and a story with a beginning, middle and end. 50,199 to be exact.
Continue reading →

On Dec. 6, 1989, a gunman opened fire in the the École Polytechnique. He entered a classroom of 60 engineering students, separated the men and the women then told the men to leave. He called the women “une gang de féministes” and said “J’haïs les féministes [I hate feminists].” Then he started shooting. He killed 14 women that day, eventually moving to other parts of the school and other classrooms. 27 people were shot. 13 survived. While looking for more people to shoot he yelled “I want women.”

Last year I watched a movie made about that day called Polytechnique. Continue reading →

Okay so I know I said I might not do it again but I never said ‘never.’ And I know my made up TiNoWriMo of a couple of years ago was a fail. But I’m going to do NaNoWriMo again this year. So, as a refresher, NaNoWriMo means National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write a novel of 50,000 words in the month of November. That works out to 1667 words a day. I won’t do that. I’ll most likely write in chunks of three or four thousand words every couple of days but I’ll try to write every day.

Why would I want to do NaNo again? Especially after last time when the universe (and the H1N1 virus) seemed to conspire against me getting it done. Well, the truth is that I have had a story in my head since I was six or seven years old and I want to try to write it. It’s for a younger audience, maybe a middle grade or young adult. Not quite sure yet. And I think NaNo is a good, concentrated way to try to write it. I’ve been trying to write a middle grade novel for my two boys now for some time and am having trouble with it. Writing for the younger set is not as easy as people seem to think it is, although I always figured that. Writing anything different than what you’re used to is always hard. Anyway, that middle grade novel is something I’m still working on, having started and restarted it at least a half dozen times. I’ve written well over 50,000 words of it in different versions. But that’s not the one I’m going to work on for NaNoWriMo. Nope, that’s going to be something completely new.

Like I said, it’s a story I’ve had in my head since I was six or seven and lived in an imaginary world. Now I’m going to bring that world to life. Kind of. I’ve been making notes and I kind of know where the book is going to go. I have some solid ideas. And I’m eager to get started. So tomorrow is the day I start. Let NaNoWriMo begin. I’ll be updating you.

Well, I’ve had the rest too, haven’t I? Ah yes, it’s been too long and the posts have been too infrequent of late. So I changed the look of the website and I hope that will give me the kick in the blogger’s butt (sounds like a ghastly illness) that I need. But I’ve been writing and revising and rewriting and living and raising the kids and doing some renos on the house. (If people do something awful to you, the thing to wish on them is that they have to paint their kitchen cupboards–seriously. Or completely redo a bedroom in one weekend.)

I think I’ve said it before–but it was without a change in the look of the blog and you know that will make the difference–but I’m going to try shorter posts here. More like a facebook update or tweet. They are the things most of my thoughts go into these days so if I try to add some short things here, the hope is that I’ll get back into blogging. In the meantime, you can follow me on twitter or check out my tweets over on the sidebar there.