Author: ginny200

Sunday Morning Thoughts

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

The deadline for the Ontario Arts Council works-in-progress awards is June 17th. My prose selection is finished, read by knowledgable people— an art director and a writer, both of whom gave generously  of their time and expertise— and the final polishing done. The application allows for up to two pages of supplemental material, synopses, table of contents and so forth, if I choose to include it. I don’t. I doubt a synopsis of an unfinished novel, even one that is complete in first draft would help my case. No, the work must stand on its own.

Now, I’m not the best form-filler in the world. There is something about all those little squares. If the instructions say “mark with an X”, I’m sure to use a checkmark. Indeed, I have to remind myself of that every time I vote.

Even my own address can bring on a sudden episode of panic—what did I print? It may be an old address from Toronto, or the first one here in Lindsay, but not the one the computer—it does know where I live—wants.

“Ah, poor soul,” I hear you say. “Her age is starting to show.” Not at all. I’ve always been this way. I have trouble staying within the signature box on the passport application.

I think it must be some subliminal resistance to the rule-makers.

Speaking of the rule-makers, the ones in Ottawa seem to be in a spot of trouble. Apparently the holier-than-thou Tories aren’t so. According to Margaret Wente in the Globe on Saturday, that’s just how it’s done in the Senate—perks, thousands of dollars of them, all round. http://tinyurl.com/m7pgjsb

I’ve always thought we needed the two houses in Parliament, hoping the Senate would be the source of sober second looks at legislation. I wasn’t all that bothered by the appointed rather than elected basis either, until recently. I do think that, whatever way we decide to choose them, the senators must be more accountable for their actions, their decisions and their budgets. If that means elected, so be it, but let’s look at countries other than the USA as a model. However much our PM admires their system, it’s in worse gridlock than Toronto’s roads.

Australia has a bicameral system. The upper house comprises 76 senators, elected for 6 year terms, 2 from each state and territory. The senators are elected under a proportional representation form of voting.

According to Wikipedia: Unlike most upper houses in parliamentary systems, the Senate is vested with significant power, including the capacity to block legislation initiated by the government in the House of Representatives, making it a distinctive hybrid of British Westminster bicameralism and US-style bicameralism.

New Zealand has a unicameral system. it abolished its Senate in 1950.

What we do need to do is make sure the “hands-in-the-cookie-jar” sense of entitlement goes.

Elora Writers Festival

/ ginny200 / 1 Comment

On Sunday, May 26, I attended the Elora Writers Festival, an afternoon of readings by six authors, several of them local to Elora-Fergus. One of the readers commented that the day’s readings had taken the audience on a journey from the sexy inhabitants of  Sonia Day’s garden to the streets of Budapest with Ailsa Kay. Andrew Westoll’s The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary  left some of us with hearts broken by the sadness of their fate  while laughing at the hapless author’s first day among them. Mystery writer Robert Rotenberg is  very much a Toronto man. Indeed the city plays as important a role in his books as some of his characters. Carrie Synder took us to war in Nicaragua and Terry Fallis brought us back to Canada and Northern British Columbia.

I spoke and read at two events so far this year and wanted to learn some of the methods other writers used to keep an audience engaged. Of course the methods used were as diverse as the writers themselves: Sonia Day’s funny, erotic reading, Robert Rotenberg’s engagement of his listeners as a sort of cheering section for a candidate for Mayor of Toronto, Terry Fallis’s sharing of his personal experiences in Northern B.C.

Ailsa Kay: Under Budapest http://gooselane.com/books.php?ean=9780864926814

Carrie Snyder: The Juliet Stories http://www.houseofanansi.com/The-Juliet-Stories-P1302.aspx

Robert Rotenberg: Strangle Hold  http://www.robertrotenberg.com

Sonia Day: The Untamed Garden, A Revealing Look At Our Love Affair with Plants http://www.soniaday.com

Andrew Westoll: The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary http://www.andrewwestoll.com

Terry Fallis: Up and Down http://terryfallis.com

What did I learn? The audience seemed to respond best to writers who shared parts of their lives as well as their writing.

I’m looking forward to reading Robert Rotenberg’s latest. He inscribed it for me and when I told him I also wrote,  encouraged me to “write every day”.

A fun, interesting afternoon. Don’t miss it in 2014.

Otherwise, we had  a terrific weekend staying with our friends at The Gardeners Cottage. http://gardenerscottage.ca

Spring and Writing

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Spring. Planted three roses today, deadheaded the daffodils, revised my talk for tomorrow night at the City of Kawartha Lakes Library, Lindsay branch, and continued revision of my work in progress.

On Saturday I attended the Ontario Writers Conference, and I must say the workshops and lectures were very useful. I especially appreciated the session on grammar by Cathy Witlox, who teaches at Ryerson and is the only grammar enthusiast I’ve ever met. She discussed an error I’d been making for years(unbeknownst to me) and how to correct it. I had been creating run-on sentences such as this. “He braked, then skidded off the road.” instead of He braked and then skidded off the road.” I didn’t always leave out the conjunction, but often enough.

I also appreciated a talk by Annette McLeod on characters and the role of archetypes in fiction.

I’ve sent a book out to be considered by a traditional publisher, without an agent, but after listening to Kobo executive and novelist Mark Lefebvre on self-publishing, I’m giving that more thought.

A great conference—lots to learn, old friends to meet and new ones to make. I’ll be going next year.

What’s next in the garden? I have hardy cyclamen to plant and one hundred summer bulbs that came free with my cyclamen order and a gift of a dinner plate dahlia. I haven’t grown dahlias, but I’ll give it a try. Haven’t even looked at annuals yet.

It’s difficult to focus on writing in the mornings, with the birds singing outside the window and the bulbs yelling from the garage that they want to go in the ground, but I keep trying.

Bermuda Railway Trail

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Bermuda

If you’ve never been to this jewel of an island, you’re missing one of nature’s loveliest destinations. Walkers, divers, shoppers, beach lovers and birders can all find something wonderful here.

The Bermuda Railway trail http://www.bermudarailway.net/now/trail.html, is one of those wonders. Converted from the right-of-way of the little train that carried passengers for the 22 mile length of the islands, it now allows walkers an intimate view of Bermuda. Evocative names like Khyber Pass and Coney Island, identify various sections.

It’s a romantic walk, befitting Bermuda’s history as a destination for honeymooners, so romantic that I chose Khyber Pass as the setting for one of the characters in my recent novel No Motive For Murder propose to propose to his girl.

I found the perfect site for one of the murders in a pedestrian tunnel along a different stretch. When your rambles take you into Somerset, check out the nature reserves that thanks to concerned citizens and the National Trust, are saving wetland and habitat for birds and other creatures.

Put Bermuda on your must-see list, and not just for Elbow Beach, one of the world’s best.

Check out http://www.gotobermuda.com/default for information on visiting Bermuda

http://preview.tinyurl.com/camyphx for information of No Motive for Murder or click the link to the right.

Closing ELA: An international disgrace.

/ ginny200 / 1 Comment

Scientists, both national and international, politicians inside and outside the House of Commons, patriotic organizations and ordinary concerned citizens like me line up to defend the importance of the Experimental Lakes Area. Who works there? The people who told us about acid rain and the dangers of detergents in our waterways, among other facts.

Who doesn’t want them to work there? The Harper government in the shape of the Fisheries minister Keith Ashfield. Read about it i todays Globe and Mail: http://tinyurl.com/csrz2lr

We are saving money, the Harper government cries. It costs 2 million dollars a year, folks. The new Office of Religious Freedom(Whose?) costs 5 million. How much did they squander on those jets. How much are they spending to promote the history of a war no one cares about? And what about those ads about the Action Plan that isn’t there any more.

They aren’t saving money, but I wonder who’s going to make some. Who has those logging contracts?

Replace the ELA with cleacut! What a disgrace.

Harper Government and Science: Time for a change

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

So it’s the Harper government, not the Government of Canada, now. A comment on Facebook suggests today that Harper is emulating the George W. Bush attitude and behaviour towards science. The muzzling of science, supporting business at all costs, the money for religion but not for research, all of it suggests that the discredited neocon attitude is behind all of it. Now the government is tearing down the buildings of the Experimental Lakes Area. How will we know what is happening to our water if we don’t let the scientists investigate and tell us? What will we do when it is too late? 

It’s time to change the government.

Books about Writing

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Long ago I took one English course at University. At the time, I was so intent on medicine and my science courses that I failed to take advantage of an opportunity. The teacher was Tom Marshall, Canadian poet. He was working on his MA that year and I think we were one of the first classes he had to teach. What an ordeal that must have been— bored medical students and engineers, most of us.

I remember being terrified most of that first year, felt unprepared and well out of my depth. I produced nothing good enough even for a B. I’d closed my mind to writing.

Now, I’m trying to catch up, to learn what I should have then, and so, I read books about writing.

Sol Stein: On Writing, St. Martin’s Griffin, New York.

I didn’t know his name when I found him on a list of writing teachers. He has written several books including On Writing, How to Grow a Novel, and Sol Stein’s Reference Book for Writers. He worked as an editor and publisher and playwright and successful novelist.

He also has developed a computer programme to teach the writers craft: the new Write Pro.

I haven’t bought the programme, but I have read the books, and tried to use his techniques in my writing. His lessons about revision, what he calls his triage method, focus on plot and character, major areas that always need work. When he does get to the front to back revision, he suggests scene by scene decision. Does it work? If not, out it goes.

Nancy Kress: Characters, Emotion and Viewpoint, Writer’s Digest Books.

I took a brief on-line course at Writer’s Digest some years ago, on character development and recently read the book that accompanied it again. Or rather, am  reading it, because I’m in the process of revision and need to understand characterization more than I do. Nancy Kress taught the course and the characters I developed with her and their conflict form the nucleus of the book that I’m revising.

Theses are just two of the books on my shelf. Useful additions to any writer’s library.

Writing contests

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

I entered the New Kindle Book Review contest today. My last book, The Facepainter Murders, made it to the semi-finals last year, and I have hope for No Motive for Murder, this time around.

Some years ago writer Louise Penny suggested entering contests as a way to jump-start a career. I took her advice and have entered quite a few, achieving success in the first one entered, at Wynterblue Publishing in North Bay. I have continued to enter, both to add new achievements to my cv, but also for the increase in confidence that comes from the praise that so often accompanies the awards.

My most recent success was coming first in the September contest of the Sentinel Literary Quarterly, published in London, England. Its first prize is 150 pounds sterling and publication in the April edition. The judge’s comments were gratifying.  I have included them below.

http://www.sentinelquarterly.com/competitions/results.htm

The Decision

Beautifully written, technically assured, The Decision tells a painful story in language that is sharp, precise, pared to the bone.  Not a word is wasted here, every sentence, phrase and word playing its part in the achievement of an artfully achieved whole.  This is one of those stories you know will haunt you.  A very worthy winner.

Very encouraging, indeed.

What’s with Fantino?

/ ginny200 / 1 Comment

Fantino’s CIDA letters cause a stir – The Globe and Mail.

First Julian Fantino decides that he can to cut off future aid to an impoverished nation, devastated by years of corruption, without a word of warning and without asking us, his employers, if we are the kind of people who demand some sort of quid pro quo to help the poor. One trip to Haiti and he was an expert. Even the United States and the UN regretted his remarks.

“Canada’s foreign aid agency should play an active role in promoting the country’s economic interests abroad rather than limiting its scope to poverty reduction alone, International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino says.” Globe and Mail, Dec.3/2012.

And here all the time I thought the purpose of aid was first to save lives and then to help a country improve to the point that it could feed and care for its people itself.

I wonder how the Prime Minister liked getting rapped on the knuckles by both the United States and the United Nations. Or was this a trial balloon, the Prime Minister’s plan, floated by yet another minister who took the heat for the boss.

Now Fantino, or someone in his organization is using a government web-site to post letters that the Globe and Mail calls vitriolic and partisan. Perhaps, like Mayor Ford in Toronto, he hasn’t read the playbook, in his case for Ministers of the Crown, who are held to a higher standard than a candidate for election in an affluent suburb of Toronto.

If the letters were indeed posted by staff, without his knowledge, than he has an even bigger problem, that of having lost the respect of the civil servants who work for the department of which he is, currently, head.

New Year Goals

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Do you set New Year goals? I fight against it but somehow they sneak in suggesting I continue learning Italian, or take my photography to a level beyond snapshots, or redo parts of the garden in the spring which of course requires planning now.  What about the books I received for Christmas: Richard Ford’s Canada and Ross King’s Leonardo and the Last Supper, among others?
And what about my new book, not the one just published, No Motive for Murder, but the one I’ve been working on this winter. I’m excited about being close to the end of the first draft. It’s not in my usual genre, not in my Dangerous Journeys series, and I hope will be my best.

I’ve been asked to speak to the Canadian Club, here in Lindsay, so polishing my talk is on the New Year agenda as well.

So in spite of resolving not to make New Year’s resolutions, I seem to have made them after all.