I'm Not Boring You, Am I?

Split Decision

2012-01-31T08:39:00.004-07:00

I am eligible for one of the 2012 Aurora Awards --Canada's top awards for Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy--in the category, "Best Short Form Work in English," for my short story, "Split Decision" in Tesseracts 15: A case of Quite Curious Tales

The deadline for nominations is March 31, 2012, and the five works with the most nominations will be on the ballot. Only members of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association can nominate or vote ($10 fee). You can nominate 3 works in each category. For a list of all eligible entries, check out 2011 Canadian SF or the Canadian SF Works Database.

If you liked "Split Decision" please consider nominating it. (Though with that title, you just know the best it could do is a tie!)

Zebras and Giraffes

2012-01-26T22:32:00.006-07:00

Like this photo I took at Honolulu Zoo last month.

Engine of Recall

2012-01-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

The Engine of Recall by Karl Schroeder

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Schroeder makes my list of top ten authors, so I've been meaning to read this collection for some time. I tend to prefer novels to short stories for bed time reading, and I'd already read several of these when they first came out, including one I'd published myself as co-editor of Tesseracts 5 (and was subsequently reprinted in David Hartwell's anthology The Hard SF Renaissance) -- I like to think I was one of the editors that 'discovered' Schroeder, though that's pure pretension on my part--so hadn't got around to the collection. For one thing, I knew that they would be more downbeat than the novels, and that turned out to be true. His novels all have (relatively) happy endings. And I guess that is sort of true of the stories in the collection, though its the 'get-to=live-another=day,-not-quite-as-bad-as-it-could-have-been' Canadian-style endings here, rather than the 'achieved-our-goals' American-style happy endings. But for all that the stories tend towards the somber, I really enjoyed the book. The writing is excellent, his ideas are original, and its refreshing to read the Canadian version of the genre. And it's interesting to look at the evolution of Schroeder's writing: the man is a genius, one of the best hard SF writers around, so well worth reading his entire cannon. I look forward to his next collection.

View all my reviews

Donald Barr

2012-01-08T09:01:00.003-07:00

Donald Barr was a significant figure in American post-secondary education, having been a professor, Dean, and author of Who Pushed Humpty Dumpty? Dilemmas in American Education (1971) a major book in the 1970s. He also wrote two SF novels near the end of his career, so he's a bit of a role model for me.

His first novel, Space Relations: A Slightly Gothic Interplanetary Tale is one of my favorites. I've just finished rereading it for the third time, and I almost never re-read novels. But his is one of the novels that comes closest to the one I'm trying to write myself. Having re-read my way through the Miles Vorkosigan series (which stands up very well to rereading) and as much of the Retief and Stainless Steel Rat and Agent of Vega books as I could stand (not nearly as good as my 15-year-old self remembered them), Space Relations was the last of the novels that heavily influenced my own first attempt at novel-writing.

Space Relations is the story of a very minor diplomat who is kidnapped and sold into slavery, but ultimately thinks his way through to escape. But it's way better than that summary makes it sound. It's clever and funny and sexy; an adult version of The Stainless Steel Rat or Retief, and the spy stuff is a lot better because, did I mention, Barr was also a former intelligence officer in the OSS.

What I learned from Space Relations is the importance of not explaining everything at the moment it happens. There's one rather clever bit of action early on in which the hero initiates a bit of a scene: the other characters (and the reader) assume he is just being a bit of a wise-ass out to annoy his captors, but about 15 chapters later the hero explains that this was a key turning point for him because it gave him the information he needed to escape. I've remembered that scene ever since I first read it 25 years ago. And I have therefore resisted the temptation to explain everything as it happens in my own novel, and I'm quite proud of a couple of bits where the reader doesn't get to know what's going on until later. Connie Willis is the other master of the same technique.

In contrast, I've had three manuscripts across my desk in the last three months in which the first-time novelists have answered the protagoists' questions within pages -- sometimes within paragraphs -- of their having posed them. How mysterious is a mystery that lasts three paragraphs? In each case I have had to point out to the authors that there is no tension in a puzzle that is solved the instant it is introduced. The contrast between these newbies and Barr's first novel made a very strong impression on me.

Unfortunately, Barr's second novel, A Planet in Arms is nowhere as good. I re-read it again too, in my enthusiasm for Space Relations, but now wish I hadn't. A Planet in Arms is much darker: the characters are less sympathetic, much of the action is unpleasantly gruesome, and Barr projects his American cold war politics a 1000 years into the future which is just embarrassing. Large portions of the novel drag as the 'action' slows to debates in the legislature -- more projection of American politics and stereotypical communist villians. In contrast to Space Relations' careful development of a single protagonist, the pov in Planet in Arms is fragmented between a half dozen characters -- the characters serve to tell the story of the revolution rather than allowing the revolution to motivate the actions of some character. I don't feel revolution makes for a good character. To be fair, there are still some (albeit dark) comedic bits, and the spy action is informative, so the book isn't awful...but no Space Relations.

Space Relations: worth seeking out, but it's a one-off.

Three Little Pigs Retold

2011-12-23T22:46:00.003-07:00

Hilarious comedy routine by John Branyan on difference between Shakespeare's vocabulary and typical American's today. Worth a couple of minutes of your time. (Thanks to Lorina Stephens of Five River Books for the tip.)

Interview with me

2011-11-15T22:45:00.000-07:00

Interview with me and two other authors from the Tesseracts 15 anthology at Totally Tesseracts blog as part of Tess 15 launch.

Couple of good YouTubes

2011-11-05T18:10:00.004-06:00

Morning Dew is unbelievably good photography of morning dew. Worth a look!

Murmuration of Starlings is astounding bit of nature photography.

What is kind of interesting about this last one is this is what happens when you give millions of people digital cameras. Murmuration of starlings is one of those things that you'd used to hear about but you couldn't really get because, okay, it's a bunch of birds flying around, but so? But you see it and you go, "what the heck is that?! Zowie!" and it knocks you over. It's like watching something from an SF movie. But catching that on camera is one of those rare things because you can't really predict it and you can't have a camera crew sitting around for a year waiting. But with 200 million digital cameras out there, sooner or later, some lucky amateur gets something like this.

The first video shows you what someone can do with talent and a really good camera.

Word on the Street (Lethbridge)

2011-09-25T21:19:00.006-06:00

Today was the Word on the Street Festival, the first iteration for Lethbridge. On the upside, it was nice to see some version of this national event in the city; on the downside, organization left something to be desired.

My primary complaint is that the contracted organizer seemed to miss that this was supposed to be about the written word. Three quarters of the booths and activities had some other focus: ethnic food, a roller derby booth, blood donors, jazz and country musicians, ethnic dancers, face painting, and so on. I get that the organizer was trying for a festive atmosphere with lots of interesting things happening, but it did rather end up feeling more like the random collection of tables/tents one gets at the weekly farmer's market than anything remotely related to the written word.

Furthermore, the logic of setting up a bandstand and installing a country singer at one end of the block while setting up poetry readings and meet-the-author events downwind along the same block of his city-blasting sound system escapes me. At one point Tigana and I walked past a choir of 20 or more singers whose lips appeared to be moving but from whom we could detect no sound, given the banshee wail of the country performer. What was the point of this arrangement? If I were the choir, I would have been supremely pissed to have been asked to perform under such inappropriate conditions. I know that we certainly didn't bother even trying to listen to the various author readings, for it was clearly a hopeless endeavour. Giving priority to the bandstand over the authors seems to rather severely miss the whole point of the exercise! Why weren't the authors given the bandstand sound system, and the musicians off in the corners, instead of the other way around?

And where were the literary activities? Face paint for the kids is all well and good, but where is the instant poetry booth, the magnetic poetry board, the graffiti wall, the improve group, the word-oriented kids activities? Or adult activities, for that matter? There was nothing to involve, engage the passerby that had anything to do with writing or reading -- clearly, the organizer didn't believe words would be enough and opted for Festival Filler instead.

And Tigana burst into laughter at the sight of the heavily advertized 'bouncy house for the kids' -- it was smaller by half than our own family's backyard version, purchased from Costco; it wasn't even the size of the entrance to the bouncy house at the house party we had attended the night before. For a city-wide event, advertizing a bouncy house as the main attraction for the kids, I think we imagined something bigger than a toddler's wading pool. It was embarrassing.

I have to give some credit for organizing skype conferences with various authors; but I know it embarrassed Mary to live in a community with so few writers we had to skype in speakers. And when I talked to a couple of writers I knew forlornly manning the autograph table and asked how sales of their books had been, one Edmonton author confessed she'd only sold one book, and that to the out of town author sitting next to her.

The University bookstore did an excellent job of profiling itself as somewhere to buy books other than texts, and they were good to have copies of all the featured authors available for sale. But I can't help wondering if they broke even on the deal....

I hope the event goes again next year...but I hope the organization is a little better.

Interview on Editing

2011-09-08T10:35:00.002-06:00

Interview with me on editing by Mike Plested on his regular Get Published podcast.

Quote of the Week

2011-09-06T11:44:00.000-06:00

If I rave about a book I love and I have it with me, I am absolutely not going to give it to you. If I love it that much, I am going to keep it. And if I love it even more than that, the thought of you even borrowing it and maybe smudging up the dust jacket and cracking the spine makes me throw up a little in my mouth. So buy your own copy. Or pirate it.

-Sandra Kasturi, publisher, editor, poet.

Nut Allergies

2011-08-31T10:31:00.003-06:00

Life is good.

Went to the specialist in Calgary, after an 18 month wait, and was cleared of suspicion of nut allergies. I had been suffering from hives for several months, and correlation with consumption of almonds/marzipan was sufficiently compelling for my doctor to order me to stop eating all nuts and to carry an epipen with me at all times. The hives vanished the second I stopped eating nuts; the one episode of hives I had after that, when I went back through every thing I had eaten that day, I found a "may contain traces of almonds" label, so that freaked me out a little -- if mere traces of almonds could now trigger the reaction, strongly suggested that problem was escalating. So I went 18 months without eating any tree nuts. Which I discovered are in everything everywhere. Indeed, "almonds are the new peanuts", peanut allergies being sufficiently widespread and scary that a lot of places (schools, cruise ships, many restaurants) have simply banded them, often replacing them in recipes with almonds.

Besides having to avoid a lot of my favorite dishes, I was constantly annoyed by packaged foods with the "may contain traces of" warning labels, since the legal department insists on putting that warning on everything, whether or not there is actually any chance of contamination. A colleague passed me a research article on a study into what the variations in the wording of these warnings meant (did "processed on the same equipment that processes peanuts and tree nuts" imply more or less danger than "may contain traces of", etc.) and the researchers concluded that all the warnings were meaningless legalese. Basically, if you have allergies, you shouldn't eat processed foods.

But tests proved I'm good to go. I'm not allergic to anything I was tested for. The hives were just random outbreaks caused by underlying thyroid issue, which I already knew about and which is not serious.

So life is good!

Tesseracts 15 Launched

2011-08-19T08:27:00.004-06:00

Robert Runté reading from "Split Decision" at Edge book launch, When Words Collide Festival, August 14, 2011 (Photo John Archer)

I was at the When Words Collide Festival in Calgary last weekend, where Edge publications launched their Tesseracts 15: A Case of Quite Curious Tales collection. As one of the contributors in attendance, I was asked to read a brief excerpt (the first 1/3) from my story. The readings were a wild success -- I can hardly wait to read the stories by the other authors who read excerpts, they were all exceptional -- and I was completely overwhelmed by the reaction to my own reading. I had hoped that my story was amusing, but had no idea that it could generate the gales of laughter with which it was greeted by the live audience. The publisher was apparently surprised too, because they approached me to do a second reading at their multiple book launch again the next day. I read the second 1/3 of my story, again generating a much stronger audience reaction than I would have ever believed possible. The audience for the Edge multiple launches was much bigger than that for the first reading, so the impact of having that many people 'getting' my humor was overwhelming for me. I have never done a public reading of anything I'd written before, so always thought of writing as a solitary and introspective act. You send stuff out there, but you never really know how people are reacting, even if they comment that they liked your story. Hearing their laughter live, is an entirely different experience. Equally gratifying are the tweets and emails I received following the festival telling me how much people had enjoyed the story, a couple even going so far as to say my reading was the highlight of the convention for them. Talk about validation! I could see public readings becoming quite addictive!

The avalanche of positive feedback for that story contrasts sharply with the invisibility of my role as editor. The books I edit for Five Rivers do acknowledge my role in the colophon, but I doubt that many people notice or care -- I can't imagine getting a congratulatory email saying "nice job editing on that book!" since it is by definition an invisible role. Audiences never get to see the before and after manuscripts, or alternate versions of the novel by a different editor (as one gets with directors and plays), so there is no basis upon which readers can judge what editors do. And it is even worse in the case of my growing freelance business (wwwSFeditor.ca), since most of the writers who come to me for coaching do not want anyone else to ever find out that they sought the help of a development editor. I feel I have had a major impact on the success of at least a couple of authors, but no one will ever know because the advice is always given in strictest confidence.

Given how much I enjoyed the positive public feedback I received this weekend, I may have to reconsider how much time I am devoting to editorial work verses my own writing. Though, editing does pay better, and I am really good at it. Hmm, maybe it's my day job I'll have to give up....

Though professoring is a pretty good gig too. Indeed, I've just received confirmation that I have been given the 2012-2013 year off teaching to write a textbook on student evaluation, so there is one book I will be writing for sure (and getting paid for). Now, to see if I can write a textbook that generates the same sort of positive feedback. (Well, I do intend to use a lot of humor -- god knows, the field could definitely use it. The other texts are all so uniformly boring!) Much as I enjoy teaching (comes with a live, captive audience) it will be wonderful to have time to write without feeling like I am stealing time from my family, students, or etc.

Anyway, can't wait to read the reviews of Tesseracts 15 when they come out...I just got my author's copy at the convention, so I haven't read it yet myself, but if the author readings this weekend were any indication, its one of the best YA collections in years, so should do extremely well. The publisher's table sold out of all the copies they had brought to the convention, so that is probably a good sign. The editor told me they had over 300 submissions, and that they just took the best of the best, so I am really looking forward to reading it. I am definitely in good company with this one!

On Publishing

2011-07-14T09:10:00.001-06:00

Blog entry on publishingby Edmonton author Krista D. Ball reads as if it were written by me, so might as well include it here.

Tigana Spring Recital

2011-07-09T16:57:00.003-06:00

Tigana sings "Who Has Seen the Wind" (by Christina Rossetti and Douglas E. Wagner) and

"Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again"(by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart) at Spring Recital June 22, 2011.

Beware the Wrath of Kasia

2011-06-30T16:12:00.005-06:00

Yesterday being the first day after the end of school, I took Kasia to the park. She chose to go to her school playground, having outgrown the baby swings at our local park and presumably missing the school playground already. Unfortunately, when we arrived, this is what we found:

Kasia was not amused. She couldn't believe the vandalism she was seeing, even though she known for sometime that the old playground had been slated for demolition and replacement with a more modern one. To her, the existing wooden playground was a magical place, not only for her and her grade 1 peers, but for her older sister, Tigana, who had spent 5 years at this school ahead of her.

So Kasia started complaining bitterly, while I tried to calm and reassure her that there would soon be a brand new playground in its place. But Kasia was having none of that and started screaming, "I hate them, I hate them!"

I tried to suggest that what she meant was she hated the necessity of tearing down her old and familiar playground, but that 'hate' was a very strong word that should only be directed against people one something bad to happen to.
Kasia's face turned red, and she exploded at me: "No, Dad! I literally hate them!" and I could feel Kasia's anger projecting out and forming this metaphoric black cloud above our heads.

It was kind of freaky seeing the intensity of Kasia's emotion, the blast of pure malevolence aimed at the hapless demolition workers. And a Harlan Ellison short story -- wherein the protagonist gets so obsessively pissed that the negative karma focused on the target effectively curses the object of his hatred -- flashed across my mind.

And as I am thinking Kasia's hate looks very much like that kind of elemental force, I hear a crash from behind me, and turn to see that the rear window of the Caterpillar tractor working on the demolition has been smashed in. The driver stops, gets out to survey the damage, and then grabs a two by four from the park wreckage to smash out the remaining shards -- dangerous, scary pieces of glass waiting to stab the operator in the back, where he not to finish the job of destroying the window.

You can just make out the top half of 'Caterpillar" brand name on the rear of the tractor, the bottom half having been written on the now missing glass.

When I turned around again, Kasia had calmed down considerably; she was now merely muttering about the waste of lumber and her annoyance that they weren't even recycling the wood to make another park somewhere else...her usual green rant. But um....bolt of psychic energy, definitely dissipated.

The next day, they had posted the plans for the new playground (above), but I have to agree with Kasia that I don't immediately see how the new one is an improvement. The old one was wood, which is kind of nifto in and of itself, and had lots of places to hide and to contest the high ground, and so on, whereas the new one seems to be entirely see-through. But perhaps that's the point from a playground supervision/safety pov. Anyway, we'll see what Kasia thinks when the new one is completed in late August (just in time for start of the new school year).

But forget about the playground. When I got home, I took Tigana aside and said, "Word to the wise: don't ever really, I mean really, piss off your little sister, okay?"

Father's Day 2011

2011-06-17T15:54:00.003-06:00

Kasia's portrait of me for Father's day. Not sure if the lack of beard reflects her forgetting I had one or just that beards are hard to draw. Line across my forehead represents glasses, and two extra eyes are ears. Careful examination reveals my bald spot.

Portrait of Her Mom

2011-05-20T07:21:00.005-06:00

Kasia's (age 7) portrait of her mom for Mother's Day.

Eight....

2011-04-20T20:04:00.004-06:00

is the number of times I'm mentioned in Wikipedia. But no page devoted to me yet. Rosanne Runte, Alfred Runte and Fritz von Runte have their own pages; Dan Runte doesn't get his own page, but his truck (Big Foot) does; and Kurt Max Runte (the actor) gets eight mentions, just like me.

April in Lethbridge

2011-04-16T23:23:00.005-06:00

The morning of April 14th, in Lethbridge.

See applicable Zach Hill commentary here

Mary appointed Director Social Responsibility

2011-04-13T13:47:00.003-06:00

Monday saw the official announcement of Mary's appointment as Director of Social Responsibility and Not-for-Profit programs, for the Management Faculty at the UofL. She's been doing a lot of the ground work off the corner of her desk for the last couple of years to develop these two areas within the Faculty, so it is nice to see her not only being acknowledged for these efforts, but that the Faculty agrees that these are important foci for any Management Faculty these days, and is developing the structures necessary to support them.

It has been fascinating to watch how the management field has changed over the last decade. When Mary and I started attending the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada Conference ten years ago, there was no division within the ASAC for Social Responsibility; Mary had to found it. It became the fastest growing division, and is now (I believe) the largest division with the ASAC. (Mary was honoured with an ASAC Service Award for her efforts in founding and Chairing the division.) Similarly, ten years ago I could count on my fingers the number of Universities that had courses, let alone majors or minors, in CSR. Now, I'd estimate that the majority do -- including UofL.

Similarly, I remember the reaction way back when Mary started her MBA and went to York because she wanted to specialize in Ethics, and it was one of the few management programs with any ethics component -- her peers would ask her, "why would you want to study ethics? What has that got to do with business?" It was astounding to me how often she was asked that throughout her MBA and PhD programs -- and so a lot less astounding for me when various business scandals broke, e.g., Enron, or the more recent collapse of the American financial system and subsequent world recession. Well, gee, maybe corporate social responsibility deserves a little more prominence in faculties of management!

But we are seeing that change... CSR has become a more significant part of management training.

Now, if they would just get the message that the NonProfit sector is huge, growing, and in need of better, more broadly trained managers...I think we're beginning to see the realization that management training is about developing leadership rather than strictly staffing the for-profit sector. It will be interesting to see where that goes in the next ten years.

Of course, the one drawback with Mary's promotion is that she now outranks me! Fortunately, I'm in another faculty so I can pretend that I too am a leading faculty member in my own sphere-- though recently I've begun to suspect that when my colleagues refer to me as 'a senior faculty member' they are referring to my age rather than my influence....

New Ambassador Appointed to Babylon 5

2011-04-11T13:25:00.004-06:00

Centauri ambassadors recalled, new younger ambassador appointed:

Okay, that probably doesn't really work since hair is pointing in the wrong direction, but Kasia was having a really bad hair day, so when I said the words, "Centauri ambassador" to Mary, she bent over laughing -- which left poor innocent Kasia hopelessly confused....

Short Story Published

2011-03-23T10:33:00.007-06:00

Was pleased to learn that my short story, "Split Decision" has been accepted for publication in Tesseracts Fifteen: A Case of Quite Curious Tales, edited by Julie Czerneda and Susan MacGregor, (from EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, ISBN 978-1-894063-58-6; $15.95 -- available for pre-order from Amazon.ca for $11.48.) Official release is set for September.

I am trying to find time for more fiction writing, but most of that energy has gone into my novel, and it is pretty slow going, so when the call for submissions for Tesseracts 15 opened, I decided to write something for it. The last short story I wrote was "The Luck of Charles Harcourt", which was printed in the first issue of On Spec magazine, summer of 1989, so it had been a while!

The theme for this issue was Young Adult SF. I had an idea for a short story kicking around for some time that might suit, but before I could put pen to paper, my daughter rushed in and started telling me about some incident at school. Making sense of an excited 13 year-old's stream-of-consciousness narrative is often quite challenging, because without knowing the context of her many self-referential allusions, it is often difficult to follow how the various bits of the story connect to each other. Like a detective, one has to use interview probes to slow and direct the initial rush of verbiage, and then deconstruct what is being said to tease out the unstated assumptions and the missing pieces that provide the logical connections between the various bits bulletting past. Standing there listening to this fascinating web of seemingly irrelevant detail, I asked myself, what would it sound like if my daughter were trying to tell me something completely outside my experience, where I had no chance to figure out the missing context? So I took Tigana and her friends and dumped them into an SF scenario, and the first draft was finished in about six hours. After some helpful input from my wife ("kids don't call it that any more -- my god, you're old") and Lorina Stevens (Shadow Song and From Mountains of Ice), I was done. Couple months later, I'm in. That's a little faster turn around than one gets with a novel!

Living SF

2011-03-02T21:14:00.002-07:00

Two current examples of living in an SF age:

Invisibility cloaks and living in a glass world.

Gender Gap in Book Reviewing

2011-02-05T13:02:00.001-07:00

Interesting post today at Society Pages (a sociological site) on gender gap in book reviewing -- major review outlets feature more book reviews by males, and more reviews of books written by males.

Of course, the larger question must be how big a role these print format reviews still play as arbiter's of taste, in a world shifting to eformat books and online reviews. Anyone up for doing a gender analysis of Amazon's or Indigo's or Goodread's reviews?

A cautionary tale for all...

2011-01-08T19:53:00.003-07:00

As I was working on my computer this evening -- editing a book on organic gardening for Five Rivers Press, as it happens -- I became aware of a burning pain in my right thigh. I wondered vaguely what kind of muscular problem would cause a burning sensation in that particular spot, and why it was so much worse this evening, when I couldn't actually remember it being among the catalog of minor aches and pains that seem to be slowly multiplying as I age. This train of thought was still in the process of forming, however, not really even out of the station, when a more urgent message arrived from my leg to my brain: Your pants are on fire!

I jumped up out of my seat, confused, and grabbed my leg through my pants, hand instantly confirming that this was no false report from a misfiring leg nerve -- my hand too detected intense heat.

I plunged my hand into my pocket, and yanked out as best I could -- my fingers complaining that they did not want to touch the stove-hot item, but my leg urging them on with equally great need to get away from the pain, and less flexibility to act -- first my car keys, then a handful of inexplicably sizzling coins, and at last a too- hot-to-touch metal cylinder. I had to work that last item out toward the pocket opening by pushing through the fabric of my pants, it being far too hot to handle. What eventually plopped onto the table was a c-battery.

Close examination of the offending battery revealed that it had started to melt around the top edges. It took about 10 minutes of cooling before I could pick it up to examine, during which time both kids came over to tentatively touch keys, coins and battery with squeals of delighted horror. My 12 yr old looks at me and says, "Dad, really? You put a battery in a pocket filled with metal coins and keys? What were you thinking? Even I know better than that!"

Thinking back, I vaguely remembered temporarily stuffing it my pocket as I was trying to fit one too many D cells into my battery rack in the garage. I had stuffed the new Ds in the nearly empty C row while I tested some of the old Ds with the built-in battery tester. The one C had no where to go but my pocket while I borrowed the C row. And then forgot about it. It must have been in my pocket for five or six hours without issue. Then, sitting to edit, it must have just have scrunched up against keys and coins in just the right combination to short circuit.

Okay, not a mistake I am likely to make again any time soon! But in the past I have routinely carried pairs of AAs in my pants pockets as standbys for my camera, and nothing like this ever happened. I often have half a dozen AAs and AAAs in my computer case for various peripherals, mixed in the usual tangle of cables, coins, and pens and spare keys. I'm surprised, in retrospect, that I haven't been caught out by a short circuit before. Know better now.

Runte Christmas 2010

2011-01-06T10:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know the tie doesn't go, but it is a Xmas tie from my 7 year old, so what could I do?

We had a quiet xmas at home this year: no travel.

Tigana mostly got cool clothes and is old enough, and enough of a clothes horse, to think that was fabulous. I gave mary a necklace from the museum of modern art catalog and a dress and shawl from Fairmount boutique; and I got a meteorite from Kasia (WAY cool), various fossils, a joystick driven etchasketch, a book on useless Japanese inventions (which Tigana also fell in love with), and a good winter coat.

Mostly Mary and I wrap up whatever we buy ourselves in Nov/Dec (e.g., dvds) and put those under the tree so it looks like a lot of stuff, but we do try to keep the materialistic orgy down to our usual quarterly purchases. The big present, though, was a Disney cruise for Reading Week in February. We usually need a break in Feb, both from campus and from winter in Lethbridge, and Mary got an unbelievable deal on the cruise -- much less than we'd pay for any other holiday -- about what it costs my brother-in-law for his annual stay in Jasper. Jasper's nice and all, but, you know -- Disney cruise!

Ghost Dancer's Shadow

The other memorable gift this year was that Tigana "adopted" a pony in a wild horse preserve and gave that to her sister, pony-mad Kasia. So Kasia got a photo and adoption package for 'her' pony, Ghost Dancer's Shadow, for Christmas. (Kasia is, of course, only one of many sponsors for the horses, but in her mind, she now has her own pony!)

Writer's Retreat Part II

2010-12-29T08:35:00.004-07:00

Having done the Queen Mary, I moved across the street to the Carnival Cruise Line's port and boarded the Paradise for a four day cruise. The decor of the Paradise is pretty gaudy (especially in contrast to the magnificent taste of the Queen Mary), the entertainment painfully-excessive patriotic American musical tributes, and the passengers mostly out for a four-day drunken 'lost weekend', so not at all my crowd.

But the food was good and I was only interested in the cheap cabin and the chance to write. Indeed, I didn't even bother to disembark at either of the ports visited.
I mostly stuck to my cabin, emerging only for meals or to give the steward the opportunity to clean. I had brought my Neo2 with me, a wonderful portable writing tool, so would go to the library or an unoccupied corner to continue writing pretty much nonstop.

(The library on the Paradise is as tacky as the rest of the ship, with only a fraction of the bookcases of, say, NCL's Pride of America, and even half of that was given over to the storage of games or hymnals. The four tiny bookcases left for actual books contained nothing but trash -- the best I could find were two books by J.D. Robb and a Stuart Woods -- not exactly heavy-hitting literature. Clearly, "beach read" would be too challenging for the typical Paradise patron, interested only in gambling and duty free liquor.)

Unfortunately, I was mostly blocked. Under considerable pressure to put my retreat to good use, I ground away on the next chapter but without making much progress. The truth is, I had already written everything covered in my outline except for the final two scenes, but still have about 25,000 words of action between here and the end to fill in. Normally that wouldn't be a problem: I just start writing and see what happens. But I had stopped on a slightly complicated bit of business where the characters have to talk through who is going to trust whom, and I just kept getting bogged down in the problem that the basic premise of my hero winning over the others is completely ludicrous. Well, okay, that's largely the point of the novel, but there is only so much clever dialog a reader can wade through before somebody has to shoot somebody for the action to keep moving, and it just wasn't coming together for me. I'd try to speed things up and have one or other character cut through the chaff and say something to move things forward, but they kept balking and telling me they wouldn't say that until this or that condition had been met, which I couldn't get to without another 20 pages of dialog that was frankly beginning to bore even me.

Long experience has taught me that writer's block is largely a question of momentum, so rather than stare blankly at the keyboard, the trick is to get the juices flowing by writing something. (See anything by Natlie Goldberg for details on the technique.) So I switched to a short story I had wanted to submit to Tess14, though the deadline for that had already expired, but that wouldn't come either. So, I went further down the writing ladder to 'editor mode' and began work on a nonfiction manuscript that had been sitting on my desk, nagging me, for a month. That seemed to work, and I was able to bang through that in about a day (freeing up a day or two of writing time from my post-retreat schedule). Feeling better having accomplished something I turned again to the short story, and that started coming. As I got a bit of the story working, I switched back to the novel and made a bit of progress, though nothing like I had hoped. (But then, I always set unrealistic expectations for myself....) By the end of the cruise I still hadn't dug myself out of the corner I had written myself into, but I was starting to see a couple of possibilities -- when in doubt, you can always blow something up, and I had a couple of characters waiting in the wings I could drop in on the conversation prematurely....I just had to decide which one because each would take the story in very different directions.

Getting off the Paradise, I went to the Sheraton across the street from LAX for the day, wasted time bogging and emailing (Internet time on a cruise ship is too expensive for much of either of those) but did make some progress on the short story. Next day took off for Missoula, where I spent the night awaiting the bus to White Fish. Once again, the Neo2 came in very handy as I kept writing non-stop.

The view at the Lodge at Whitefish Lake

Mary booked me into the Lodge at Whitefish Lake, which was very nice indeed. The room they gave me was fabulous, with a spectacular view of the forest, and the dinning room was superb. We will definitely be returning there. Sitting with the Neo2 on my lap, looking out at that view was perhaps the most productive portion of the retreat, though it is fairly typical that I hit my most productive at the exact moment the retreat is over. Though in this case, I actually had the train from Whitefish to Shelby to go and was able to edit the first draft of the short story. The train back was even better than the first trip because of course during the day I had the benefit of the spectacular mountain views I hadn't been able to see going the other way. And the dinning car had real china this time.

So, all in all a successful trip, even though I did not complete my novel. The key, I hope, is that I was able to reconnect with the novel (I always re-read and re-edit what I have so far, before starting the next bit) which keeps the project alive. I have several colleagues who have half-finished manuscripts in their drawers, some as long as 100,000 words, that they just lost momentum on and stopped. I used to think that was crazy, but I'm starting to understand that a bit better now that mine has dragged on over three years with no end in sight, and with dozens of other writing projects jockeying for my attention. But devoting the week to the novel was enough to refocus me on the project, to get the enthusiasm back up, and to get me thinking about the characters whenever I have a moment. I've more or less figured out what happens next and can work on the details in my head until the next opportunity to get it down on paper.

And although I can already see that I will have to rewrite the short story before it can be sent off, I know what I have to do to make it work, so it is just a matter of squeezing a day out of my schedule somewhere to finish that up. I am quite pleased with it because it is entirely different from what I normally write -- it's good to push to the edges of

So, mission accomplished.

Home Movies

2010-12-14T14:26:00.002-07:00

One problem with going on retreat is that my daughter's music teacher (Joanne Collier) scheduled Tigana's concert for the weekend I was away, after all my travel plans had been made (and largely paid for), so I ended up missing her concert. Using her pocket camcorder, however, Mary was able to make a crude recording of Tigana singing so I could have some idea of what I had missed.

So here is Tigana singing "Think of Me" (from Phantom of the Opera)and "The Christmas Song" (i.e., "Chestnuts roasting over an open fire...")

Tigana had a killer cold, but the show must go on. Still, gives a fair approximation of what Tigana is capable of. If this is her at 12, can't imagine where she'll be at 16. Canadian Idol?

(The first voice you hear on The Christmas Song video is Tigana's sister, Kasia, encouraging her as she approaches the stage.)

As long as I'm sharing home movies, here's some footage of Kasia's riding lessons, her number 1 obsession.

The compilation starts with her getting on the horse her first lesson, going from being led on the horse to trotting all in that one lesson; and then getting off the horse (ouch -- the horse is so much taller than Kasia!); riding a couple of different horses for different lessons; and finally going to get a horse from the paddock. The lessons include not just riding, but getting the horse, brushing it down, tacking it up, riding, untacking (right term?) brushing it down again, and returning it to its right paddock. Note near the end of the video as Kasia is putting halter on a unicorn-white horse, her intense wishing makes a pink horse suddenly appear!

Queen Mary (1)

2010-12-12T17:12:00.000-07:00

I arrive at LAX at 8:30 PM, but it takes me till nearly 10 to get to Long Beach and the Queen Mary Hotel, 11PM my time. I'm fairly beat, but check-in is efficient and after marching down an impressively long ship's corridor, I arrive at A161. I am surprised at how large the room is, and at the spectacular harbour view of city skyline out my twin portholes. Mary had clearly outdone herself this time.

Above: bedroom portion of A181; note porthole style heating/air conditioning vents over bed. Below: Living room portion of the cabin; note electric heater on the right (directly below TV)

Extremely pleased, I start to unpack when there is this really strange / disturbing sound. I eventually figure out that it is a dog whimpering next door. I open the closet door to hang my coat, and the noise sets the dog off barking. I wait for it to subside, but no such luck. So after half a hour of this, I reluctantly call down to the desk to complain. The clerk is appropriately apologetic and asks which room it is, says he will phone them right away, and hangs up. I am doubtful this will help, because I do not anticipate the dog answering the phone.

So I wait through another fifteen minutes or so and then go down to the desk to ask if I can move because it's been a long day and I really need to sleep. The clerk courteously moves me into another room (B484) on the other side of the ship and a deck down. This room, it turns out, is half the size, has only one porthole, and no view out of that. (It looks out on a geodesic dome, the former hangar of Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose and current Carnival terminus, but this is in no way equivalent to the cityscape on the other side.)

Cityscape of Long Beach as seen from starboard side of Queen Mary

I return to the desk, point out that the room is not really equivalent, but that it will do for tonight if I can have my original room back the next night, assuming the dog is gone. The clerk assures me that the dog will be leaving the next morning, now that the dog show is over. (This admission that management had knowingly booked an entire dog show worth of dogs into the hotel somewhat upped their culpability in my view.) The clerk offers me a free breakfast to compensate me for my inconvenience, but since Mary had already bought breakfast vouchers for me, I decline. And I'm not the sort of guy who complains in hopes of caging a free breakfast.

So I go to bed in my diminished but still quite nice room. It is also a bit noisy, but the noise is human, and I figure since by now it is past midnight, the humans will eventually quiet down, which the dog clearly had no intention of doing. It is a bit chilly, so I look around for the thermostat, eventually find it, see it has been turned down to 0, and crank it up to 70.

I wake up hours later shivering. I get up and discover the vent directly over the bed is spewing out icy cold air. I check the thermostat again, crank it up as high as it will go but with no change. I try fiddling with various settings (having on previous occasions encountered systems where turning up the thermostat turned down the heat down), but my experimentation is to no avail. I try to huddle under the covers and go back to sleep, but it is too cold. I get up, put on my hoodie, and try again. It is still shivering-cold, so I start to put on my winter coat, but it is too bulky to sleep in. This, I think, is crazy. If I wanted to freeze, I could have done that for free in Canada; the whole point of going to California in December is to get warm.

I try to phone the desk again, but pressing the "front desk" button on the phone only gets me a 'beep', so after several tries, I once again hike all the way back to the desk to point out I am freezing.

I may have looked a bit pissed, because the clerk turned me over to the night manager before I even reached the desk. The manager smoothly apologizes, explains that the heat must be turned off for the area, picks up the phone, calls for the engineering section, puts a 'rush' on fixing the heat in my room and asks who is ever on the other end to let him know when it's been done. He assures me this is routine, will be fixed momentarily and tells me to go back to my room and to phone the desk again if my room is not toasty within the next fifteen minutes or so. I point out that the phone doesn't seem to be working. Taken aback, he offers me breakfast, which I decline again, and he tells me to try the 'zero' on the phone next time, because sometimes the 'front desk' speed dial button is broken but zero will always get through to the operator who can connect me to him.

I get back to my room read for another half hour, shivering. I go to the phone and press zero. I hear a 'beep'.

I go back down the mile long corridor to the front desk. I tell my story to a new desk clerk who says, yeah, well its the original heating system and very ancient. The manager comes back in, sees me, and phones the head of engineering to meet him at my room. The manager is polite and professional but clearly pissed that he was told it was fixed when it wasn't. He steps into my room and says, "This is really cold!" and I say, "Yeah, so it is not just my imagination." and he says, "Not your imagination at all sir!" and offers to take 50% off my bill. The engineer shows up with the tech. The tech explains that he turned off the fan, thinking that that would stop the cold air coming in, but agreed that the room was unacceptably cold. He starts going through a set of keys trying to find the one to open the access panel. The chief of engineering -- who positively radiates authority, expertise and professionalism; the man looks like he should be the engineer on the Queen Mary, or maybe the Enterprise -- also tries to solve the problem. He is clearly about to rip the panel open, key or no key, when he figures out it's probably not the right access panel for my room anyway. Eventually they establish that the panel they need to access is inside another occupied room. The manager pronounces the situation ridiculous, and phones the desk (once he gets the phone working again!) to move me to yet another room in another corridor.

Which is an inside cabin (B513) with no porthole at all.

And freezing cold.

The manager fiddles with the thermostat, establishes that nothing is coming through the vents. More frenzied conferencing between all parties. To abbreviate a much longer story, the tech eventually finds a way to turn on the heat to this room. By this time the manager has volunteered not to charge for the night, which is probably only fair since I have been up for most of it. It takes another hour for the room to warm up enough for me to take off my coat and go to bed, so it is now about 8:30AM (9:30 AM my time) so I go have my breakfast before turning in, lest I now oversleep and miss the hours for which my voucher is valid.

Breakfast at the Promenade cafe is excellent. And a real bargain at the $9 Mary paid for the voucher.

Mary phones and I explain why I am about to go to bed, and she worries I might then miss the tours she has pre-booked for me. So I stay up until 10AM when the tour office opens to book a time for my tours. I then go back to bed and get two hours sleep before I have to get up and showered etc for the first tour at 1:15

So...having in one night experienced three different cabins in the Queen Mary, I'd have to say there are a few potential problems to watch out for. But on the whole, I was pretty satisfied with the response from the staff. Admittedly, it took quite a while to get the problems fixed, but everybody was unfailingly polite, appropriately apologetic and more importantly, focused on solving the problem as quickly as possible. I have to say I was really struck by the expertise and professionalism of everyone involved, particularly given that this was largely middle of the night, or very early morning at end of shift, when one is usually not seeing people at their best. I became aware, watching these guys, that trying to run a major hotel to modern standards based on an infrastructure from the 1930s may not be the easiest task. Had the staff not reacted as they did, I would have written scathing reviews on travelocity/expedia etc., because it was not a good night! Given what I saw, however, I am inclined to the opposite view: The Queen Mary has one of the best trained, best organized staffs I have yet encountered. (I've been in lots of 5 star hotels where staff screwed up royally, and my wife's travel column is entitled "It's a Training Issue", so I definitely see good staff as a key to a satisfying stay.)

And it was fascinating to see the different cabins. A161 was definitely the best of the deluxe cabins: spacious, good view, and with more of the original features, though none of those actually worked. For example, the bathtub had three sets of taps: one for hot and cold fresh water, one for hot and cold sea water, and the modern rotary tap bath/shower tap that actually worked. (Salt water mineral baths were apparently considered healthy back in the day.)

Similarly, the original porthole style heating/cooling vents (insert below) were left in the room, though the actual heat (worked fine) came through modern style ceiling vent.

There was also a fixture I mistook for a 1930s floor cabinet radio, but on closer examination turned out to be an electric heater. What looked like a speaker grill was actually the heating element, just the right height to brand any toddler who wandered too close or passing adult surprised by the movement of the ship.

The "original artwork" was great, though I later recognized it to be framed posters of the large pieces around the ship, rather than the original stateroom paintings. The inside cabin B513 was almost the same square footage, but the two beds instead of one meant less of the other furniture, and the lack of window might bother some. I would have probably been fine with it if I hadn't been grieving the loss of A161 and Mary's efforts to get me a great view. B484 was also nice enough, though much smaller. I believe they were all categorized as the same price as upgraded deluxe rooms, but I am unclear if they would have been different rates back in the day? I certainly would have felt ripped if I was in one of the smaller rooms for a two week crossing and had paid the same price as the good one.

Of course, my little two-room (room and bathroom) cabin would not compare with any of the first class suites. Those would have been something to see. The tour guide mentioned suites of up to 14 rooms, including two rooms for luggage. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor apparently traveled with 84 pieces of luggage in their suite, and another 70 in cargo. Those were the days when people knew really knew how to dress for dinner! Imagine trying that on today's airlines!

The other issue that has to be mentioned is the complete lack of soundproofing. I could hear every word the couple next door was saying as if they were standing next to me in my own room. I found it hilarious that said couple went on at length about the antics of the couple on the other side of them, once that couple had departed for the dining room, but appeared completely unreflective about their own conversation and, um, activities. So I'm not sure about bringing the family to stay at the Queen Mary, not only because our kids would likely be annoyingly loud for our neighbours, but also because I'm not sure how I would have explained to my 7 year old why we were not rushing to assist the people in the next cabin when they, uh, cried out for help to the good lord.

I kept wondering what it would have been like back in the day to be trapped on the ship for weeks at a time facing such a complete lack of privacy. Everybody must have known everybody else's story by the end of the voyage.

That all said, I'd still have to pronounce myself well satisfied, and to argue that it is well worth the risk of some inconvenience to stay in a living museum, to feel part of all that history. The Queen Mary is an awe inspiring feat of engineering, the hotel continues to evoke the atmosphere of a more elegant age, and I ended up thoroughly enjoying myself. Undoubtedly the highlight of my trip.

Queen Mary (2)

2010-12-12T17:05:00.004-07:00

Mary had signed me up for two of the available tours: "The Behind the Scenes" tour, and the WWII tour. There is also a self-guided audio tour available, but the staffer at the tour desk assured me that the overlap between the other two tours made the audio component redundant; and that the audio was more about directing people to the relevant locations rather than providing in depth discussion. She handed me a map of the key locations, should I wish to pursue those myself later (your room card is your ticket to the museum areas). (There is also a ghost tour, in which I had no interest -- because I'm writing space opera, here, not fantasy. Ahem.)

The two guides had very different styles. The WWII guide, himself ex-navy, was very respectful, soft-spoken, and a fountain of information. We had a smaller group, so we could ask more questions, and the really interesting bits came out in answer to queries. The guide's underlying passion for the Queen Mary and for her history came through very strongly, particularly in his asides in response to queries about the various changes made to the ship when permanently docked at Long Beach. Although the guide was extremely professional in his remarks, and clearly understood the need for the adaptations, it was clear that a lot of the alterations struck him as acts of near vandalism. For example, I was shocked to realize that each of the windows on the upper decks were framed in these thick bronze plates, because the bronze had been -- painted over with brown paint. What? There's bronze under there? But why wouldn't you leave the bronze, because that would be spectacular! But of course the answer is that, unlike the original Queen Mary, there is no longer a staff of thousands to go around polishing the brass every night. It would simply be unmanageable. So, management did what it had to and painted over all the brass. Similarly, the guide pointed out the hardwood decking we were walking on was a (now extinct) white teak. But lacking the staff to sand down the floors each night to remove scuff marks, they had been stained a deep brown. There is a lot like that. But, as the guide explained, it is absurdly expensive to maintain the Queen Mary, completely out of scale for what any other hotel has to cope with. He cites the example that it cost $40,000 to paint just one of the ships funnels; that to repaint her exterior in the Queen Mary colors next year will cost 1/4 million dollars -- because of course it has to be special rust resistant ship paint, and they have to sand down the surface first, and so on. Madness, from a purely economic perspective.

On the other hand, the guide would lovingly caress the banister of one of the original wood staircases on the deck, commenting on the workmanship, the fine detailing, and the fact that it was still in fabulous shape 75 years later. So then one of the tourist would say, what about that metal staircase over there, and the guide would answer that it was added when the Queen Mary was permanently docked -- because when she was on the ocean, you couldn't have a staircase so close to the edge, because the waves would simply come up and wash you away. Hard to remember how different things were in those days, before modern stabilizers and so on.

At her peak as a WWII troop carrier, QM transported 16,000 troops at a go (moved a total of over 800,000) but carried enough lifeboats for about only 3500 people (the number of passengers and crew of pre-war configuration).(After the Titanic, law said you had to have sufficient lifeboats for everyone on board, so they did -- for prewar numbers. They added stacks of rafts, but even with these, they still only had a total capacity of about 8000.

Bunks were stacked four deep, with only 18 inch clearance; soldiers talked about how you couldn't roll over in bed, but had to get out and back in to turnover.

The soldiers had 45 minutes to line up, get their food, find a spot to sit, eat their food, and get out before the next shift was rotated in. Given the numbers, the result was that many soldiers simply missed meals because they were unable to get through the lines in time.

The best stories were stories the guide had collected from veterans taking his tour. There were a number of these, but my personal favorite is this one:

The guide brought us to one door near the bow of the ship, showed where the gunnery crews were housed, kept separate from the troops being transported. The gunner had felt cooped up for days and couldn't stand it any longer, stepped out the door to take some air. As he stepped out, the entire contingent of troops on deck turned and bowed to him. "Wow," he thought, "they treat me like a god!" This did not entirely strike him as unepxected, because the gunners conducted daily drills, not so much to hone their skills as to keep troop morale up, since they all knew themselves to be ridiculously vulnerable. (See above re lifeboars) As the entire deck of soldiers bows down to him, it occurs to the gunner to wonder why they are all in their life jackets. Looks up to see an enormous wave coming over the bow, smashing into everyone. Of course, they aren't bowing, they're ducking, and he gets completely drenched. He retreats inside, never to venture out again.

(That anecdote goes straight into my novel -- I can so see my hero misunderstanding a similar situation and getting his comeuppance.)

Guide tells us that the soldiers rotated, 6 hours inside, 6 out. Given the story of waves breaking over the soldiers, outside may not always represent the advantage of fresh air over stale that I might otherwise have assumed...

The guide lovingly points out all the different veneers as we pass through the ship. There are 53 different veneers used on the Queen Mary, one for/from each of the British colonies of the time. Somewhat nervous making was the constant refrain, "of course, that wood is extinct now."

Soldiers were told not to touch any of the ship's precious wood, and for the most part they didn't. Anyone caught carving their initials in or similar were brigged and put on bread and water. It was a different age, the guide complains, when people actually listened to orders, and discipline enforced.

As we were going about the ship, an Englishman approaches the tour, mentions that he had gone aboard the Queen Mary when we was nine, to say goodbye to an aunt who was sailing across the Atlantic. "No security in those days," the guide remarked. "Not at all", the man agreed. "You just went on and off as you wished, and nobody questioned you."

Bumps installed on banisters for the expressed purpose of discouraging sliding

In addition to lecturing on the details of Queen Mary as a troop carrier (and subsequent to the war, the ship that carried war brides and their children back to America), the guide also provided other insights as they came up. He pointed to the little bumps placed on the banisters of one of the ornate staircases. "They're to stop children from sliding down them. Didn't work though: they'd take the cushions and pillows from their staterooms, and slide down anyway." He point to a art deco light fixture, mention in passing that it is made of leaded glass. The main fixture in the room weights over 450 lbs. (I try to comprehend the scale of the ship, the cost of fuel, the feat of staying afloat, when each item of the decor weights so much! He draws our attention to a set of metal screens, copied exactly for the Queen Mary II -- only their replica is made out of plastic, not bronze.) On the other hand, he points to the posts holding up the railings, made of Bakelite, the first completely synthetic plastic. (I'm instantly alert, because this must be when plastic finally came of age -- new materials always ape previous ones, so for a long time Bakelite would pretend to be wood (you still see fake wood veneers in a lot of plastic products to this day), so the fact that the Queen Mary used Bakelite as Bakelite must have marked the turning point where it stopped being a cheap substitute and became instead 'modern' -- because there was nothing cheap about anything on the QM, but 'modern' was very chic.

American-style Bar: note the wide foot rest provided at the bottom of the bar almost matches the counter for width (the bar window is closed in this photo)

Another aside that stuck with me: as we tour the men's smoking room, the guide points to "The American Bar". What made it an American style bar was the footrest. The guide demonstrated how leaning on the bar with your feet on the floor is untenable, and can only be sustained for a couple of minutes; but with the addition of the footrest, your posture changes completely, and you can stand like that, chatting at the bar, for hours. I never knew that.

It was a completely fascinating tour. Highly recommended.

The guide for the behind the scenes tour was James. Whereas the first guide felt constrained by his topic and the frequent sprinkling of veterans among his audience, James felt no such restraints. He was highly animated, and over EE-nun-CI-ATEd each word, partly to project to the rear of his much larger crowd, but mostly to keep everyone's attention RIV-A-TED on him. The tour wasn't really 'behind the scenes', just a tour of the public spaces, so a bit of a misnomer, but entertaining nonetheless.

From James we learned that there were 315 first class cabins, which are now the hotel section of the Queen Mary. The second and third class areas are now either conference rooms or house the museum displays. First class on the Queen Mary was the middle section, top to bottom; second class was the rear of the ship; third class the bow. The sectioning reflected the smoothness of the ride; the bow going up and DOWN and up and DOWN (James repeated this mantra about 30 times on the tour, accompanied by appropriate hand motions) and the middle being smoothest. First class passengers could go anywhere on the ship, but second and third had to stay where they were. Unlike the scene from the Titanic, there were no bars separating classes on the QM, but as the guide pointed out, in an age where the servers took pride in knowing everyone's name, likes and dislikes, it was impossible for someone to be out of place without being spotted at once.

In the main first class ballroom/cinema/theater etc were two huge peach plate mirrors. they looked like ordinary mirrors, but have a slight pinkish tinge to them, so that when I looked in one, I looked quite red. The point, we are told, is that as the North Atlantic tossed you about, and you started to go a bit green, when you looked into these mirrors, it canceled the green out, you looked normal, and therefore (theory was) you felt better.

The ship curves in what the guide referred to as a banana shape, to increase flexibility and strength. At one point in the tour, he opened all the doors on a ship's corridor, and you could actually see the curve ("sheer to deck") over the distance. So, humorous story, when the ship was brought to Long Beach, it had to go around South America (being too large for the Panama Canal) and a number of windows had been destroyed in the storms off the tip of South America. So the guy sent to replace the windows measured a window, placed the order, and when the mountain of glass showed up, only one pane fit -- the one window he had measured -- each other window being slightly different to account for the sheer to deck.

The Queen Mary had an Anglican chapel on one side of what is now shops; a Catholic chapel on the other side; and was the first ship to have a synagogue.

Again, fascinating tour, with lots of art deco and a gracious lifestyle no longer available (not that it was ever actually available to the average citizen -- my cabin cost $1500 in 1934, which the banker next to me said worked out to about $20,000 in today's money.) Again, highly recommended.

Finally, I spent the next morning doing the self-tour (sans audio) by simply finding my way to the bridge (fascinating retro technology); the officer's quarters (roomier than I expected); and poking around some general areas. I watched a crew working on restoring a lifeboat, was surprised to discover they were metal, not wood as I had previously assumed. (The lifeboats on the QM, the guide informed us, were the first to have diesel engines, and if those failed, levers that could be pulled to turn the propeller, rather than oars.)

Restoration work on lifeboat clearly reveals metal plating

The amount of information available is overwhelming; I barely scratched the surface. tucked away in corners are plagues and videos on every aspect of the ship. I didn't make it to the engine room on this trip, though I had had a glance in on our previous cruise out of that port. Fabulous exhibit in every way. I could have happily spent a whole week there and not run out of things to see.

Next door is a Russian submarine, complete with self-guided audio tour. Personally, I think placing a submarine next to the Queen Mary might make the old girl a little nervous, given her WWII service, but I applaud the city of Long Beach for establishing these living museums.

Trains, Planes, Boats and Buses

2010-12-12T13:33:00.006-07:00

For this year's writing retreat, Mary booked me onto the Carnival Paradise for a four-night Mexican excursion. We had previously done this exact cruise, tacked on to a trip to Disneyland, so I had no interest in actually getting off the ship.

Thinking that was a bit short for my needs, Mary started adding stuff on. The Carnival line docks at Long Beach, and adjacent to their facility is the Queen Mary hotel. Mary booked me for a two night stay, partly to ensure I didn't have to worry about missing connections (which sometimes be a bit tricky in December from Alberta) partly to gear up for the writing cruise, but mostly because the Queen Mary is way cool. Then, as the trip approached, and the weather deteriorated, Mary started having second thoughts about my making the five hour drive to Missoula on icy roads. The flight from Missoula to Long Beech was a fraction of the cost from Lethbridge or Calgary, and only twice the drive to Calgary, so that's how she'd booked it. Coming back from a Banff conference in late November, however, we encountered ice fog for much of the trip, and after two hours of white knuckle driving, Mary went on line to see what alternatives there were to my driving to Missoula.

Thus, I found myself booked on Amtrak from Shelby to Whitefish, and by bus from Whitefish to Missoula, turning my four day cruise into a ten day round trip.

The drive from Lethbridge to Shelby was only a couple of hours on a good divided highway, so no worse than driving to the Calgary airport. I had the GPS with me, and Mary's detailed directions, but they were hardly necessary, the road going straight from the Lethbridge Canadian Tire to the Shelby Wal-Mart without so much as a single turn.

On the other hand, I am an idiot, so still managed to get bit lost in Shelby on the way to the train station. I must have missed a turn, because I found myself driving along a highway with no sign of the street Mary's directions told me to turn on. So I pulled over at a service station and asked for directions, rather than fiddle with the GPS. "Oh" said the woman, "just turn left at the lights." Not convinced that this was sufficiently detailed, I pressed for more information. She starred at me for a moment, then gently reached over and turned me around so I was facing the other way -- and looking at an immense rail yard, filled with mile after mile of boxcars. "Train station," she said very slowly, "where they keep -- the trains-- has to be somewhere next to the train tracks, right? So if that's the track, all you really need to know is, should you follow to your left, or to your right. I'm telling you, to your left."

Okay, maybe looking for street signs hadn't been the best approach given I must have driven passed four straight miles of freight trains to arrive at the service station. Retracing my steps did make me wonder if I should be allowed out on my own, Mary usually managing the logistics on our family trips; but once I was paying proper attention I found the Amtrak office no problem.

And was amazed. The train station was tiny, just a single room in a wooden structure I'm guessing was first built in 1880s, but my god, do American's get trains. Lethbridge may boast the longest and highest railway bridge of it's kind, but seeing a train actually crossing the bridge is an occasion for pointing out the car window and saying, "Hey kids, look, a train!" Sitting in the waiting room in Shelby, trains were constantly roaring past. And they were huge -- when Mary phoned to check in with me, I told her a couple of times I was having a little trouble hearing her over the passing train, and she said, "what still? We've been talking for like 10 minutes!" Yes, still. I could not get over how much freight passed through in the few hours I was there. Mind boggling.

The (easy to miss) Shelby train station, and 2 story Amtrak train.
The Amtrak was a couple of hours late due to weather further up the tracks, but that's no different than air travel, and like modern air travel, their computer phoned me to keep me posted on the delay. The train, when it arrived, took me aback. I've been on trains in Canada and Europe, but this was a completely new style of car to me: two stories tall, it loomed above us in the dark. Mary had booked me onto the lower level, which I discovered held the washrooms and wheelchair access. I'll opt for upstairs in future. I headed off at once to the dining car where I had a decent enough meal at a reasonable price; something no longer available with air travel. The paper plates looked like railway china, but I take it from the waiter's comments that they normally do still use china in the dining car, and had just run out on this occasion. [There were china plates and real flatware on the return journey.] After supper, I made my way back to my seat, made myself comfortable, took out my book and read. [On the return journey I discovered that all but the seat I happened to take on the trip out had tray tables and electrical outlets suitable for laptop use. If anything, the problem was there was so much leg room, it was hard to reach the tray table, though I assume that was because I was in the handicap section.]

The most amazing thing about the train was the price -- a mere $20, to avoid white knuckle driving over snow covered roads. Considering the same trip by car would have easily cost me $20 in gas, and that I got to read instead of having to drive, it's a pretty sweet!

Arriving at Whitefish, Mary had arranged for a driving service to pick me up and deliver me to my bread and breakfast, the Garden Wall Inn. Considering the train was three hours late, it was after midnight, and the cab fare to the Inn was only $5.50, I was overwhelmed by the hospitality afforded me by both the driver and the B&B manager. The room was charming, though I worried that the creaking floor would drive whomever was below me crazy, as I unpacked and got ready for bed. In the event, I needn't have worried, as I turned out to be the only guest for the evening.

Breakfast the next morning was delightful; freshly squeezed orange juice (a variety unavailable in Lethbridge, apparently -- particularly good!), a fresh fruit bowl, scrambled eggs (with mushrooms and peppers) in a pastry shell, and a huckleberry muffin. Quite wonderful.

The hostess, learning I was on writing retreat, regaled me with stories of her various writer acquaintances and writer guests; the general gist of these stories seemed to be in each case that their overnight success had been achieved as the result of twenty years of previous dues paying. I took my leave in time to have a brief look through town on my way back to the train station, where I was to catch my bus to Missoula. Whitefish is very similar to Banff, the most obvious differences being the presence of several microbreweries, and murals of American flags alternating with murals of bible quotations.

The train station at Whitefish was considerably larger than the one at Shelby, and had an attached museum.

One delightful feature was a self-serve bookrack of $1 books, donated or discarded by passing travelers. I purchased a Roc fantasy, which looked promising but turned out to be appallingly, unreadably, dreadful. (Basil Brokentail by Christopher Rowley) I found the novel highly inspiring, because so much worse in every respect than my own beginner efforts. That such a badly written novel -- the viewpoint character routinely changes every few paragraphs, for example, an astonishing lack of control and/or editing -- could have been published as recently as a decade ago, just goes to show how radically publishing has changed. (On my return trip, I left my copy of Shards of Honour.)

The bus trip to Missoula was uneventful; the cab ride from the bus station to the airport costing as much as the train trip. The Missoula airport was a bit of a revelation: Missoula is roughly the same population as Lethbridge, yet the airport is three times the size and boasts a proper restaurant, large gift shop, and interesting museum display cases. Why is Lethbridge served by dinky little 12 seat propeller planes, and Missoula gets 280 passenger jets?

On the other hand, only in American airports could you see signs reminding you to be sure that your firearms were in you checked luggage.

Writer's Retreat

2010-12-12T13:01:00.004-07:00

My wife has for some time been arranging writing retreats for me. It all started a couple of years ago when I was debating taking in the writer's retreat at the Banff center, balancing the $3500 price tag against what I was likely to get out of it. Several writers of my acquaintance had praised the Banff retreats headed by Robert Sawyer, and Sawyer definitely struck me as the kind of writer from whom one could learn a lot. (I've attend his self-marketing seminars for writers, for example, and they are brilliant!) Sawyer is first and foremost a story teller. Working on my first novel, I was primarily preoccupied with the basic elements of plot, pacing, setting and dialog, all of which Sawyer could certainly help with. But the workshop leader for the year I was contemplating was instead a leading Canadian poet. I considered that a poet might not be quite what I needed. My stereotype of poets led me to suspect that he would more into examining manuscripts for symbolism and allusion and, above all, word choice. All fine things to be sure, but not my current interest. I needed to make sure I had a story that worked before worrying too much about the literary value or the quality of the writing. That could come later -- about book four, I figure.

So I was already ambivalent about the retreat when I broached the topic with my wife. Mary was very supportive of the idea of my going away to write, but pointed out that at the price, she could put me on a deluxe cruise far cheaper.

And then it occurred us, well, why not? Mary went into travel agent mode (her chief hobby activity), went online, and immediately found me a 7-day cruise to Alaska for $700. It was perfect!

Now to get an Alaskan cruise for $700 dollars, you have to know how to find the best deals, book early, and take whatever cabin they assign you. So the joke was that Mary had booked me in the worst cabin on the ship. Not only was it an inside cabin (i.e., no window), but the reviews (thanks to the Internet, you can actually find reviews of your specific cabin, believe it or not) had complained about the engine noise and constant vibration. But here's the thing: The novel I happened to be writing was about a group stuck on a starship for a year, and one of the elements I happened to struggling with was getting the atmosphere of shipboard life. So a cabin next to the engine room was exactly what I needed, the various clanks and thumps working their way into the novel for my hero to experience exactly as I was.

The Alaskan cruise gave me the same or slightly more majestic scenery (e.g., the Mendenhall glacier) as the Banff Center, and an equally quiet place to write, but at one-fifth the price and with the advantage of way better food.

I'd write in my cabin for most of the day (or night -- with no window, there was no light to disturb me, so I wrote when inspired, slept when I wasn't) come out for meals (or sent down for room service if it happened to be late) and for exercise. Blocked on some scene, I would walk the promenade deck, or hike through town or forest if we happened to be docked. It was fabulous.

That first trip, Mary also arranged for a 'behind the scenes' tour of the ship -- bridge, kitchens, environmental and so on -- which was just what I needed to flesh out the background details for my starship. As it happened, I was the only one who signed up for the tour that trip, so I was able to ask questions nonstop about the navigation systems, officer training, and so on, all of which triggered analogous details in the novel.

On the whole, the experience was a great success.

So, Mary has booked me into a couple of writing cruises since. It's been great, and I'm just now approaching the total of what that one Banff workshop would have cost.

Mary tried to book me onto a couple of more interesting cruises, notably the 21 day Panama Canal cruise before they widen the canal, but I had to turn those down as too potentially interesting. To work, I need a cruise that won't be too distracting. (The Alaskan cruise is great, but I'd already done it twice previously with family, so didn't feel I was missing anything by not doing the excursions or watching every passing conifer or going to the shipboard entertainments.) I am also not allowed to take the repositioning cruise from LA to Hawaii, as my kids have made it clear they will plot to kill me if I ever try to go to Hawaii without them.

I have therefore been contemplating organizing writing retreats around specific writing projects, and inviting 10 or 12 or more other writers to join me. The advantage for the writers, in addition to the obvious opportunity to go on retreat, is that they could get a tax deductible cruise out of the deal. I am not much interested in having other writers critique my work, or vise versa (see Stephen King quote on workshops here) but I do like the idea of being on a ship with a table load of writers who could intelligently discuss the writing life, etc. at lunch and supper. The two barriers to this project are that most of the writers I see as potential participants are either too broke to participate, or have day-job schedules that conflict with the timing of the cruises. (Not going during high season, is of course, the first principle of achieving affordable cruise-retreats.)

Google Road Kill

2010-11-02T16:38:00.003-06:00

So I am using Google Maps, noticed the little orange/yellow guy on the control bar, popped him down near my target address, and miss...so find myself zooming (virtually) along Alberta 845, slightly amazed that Goolge street level now includes tertiary highways, when I stumble across this on the highway -- road kill. I notice that the liscence plates of the vehicles we pass are blurred out (I'm assuming by human intervention?) so why not clean up the bloodstains. Not exactly a permanent land mark... But, on the other hand, quintessential aspect of an Alberta road trip!

CZP's Fall Books Launch at the Augusta House

2010-10-23T08:35:00.005-06:00

Forgot my camera back at the hotel, so don't have any photos of this one*, but pretty amazing mass book launch. Augusta House turned out to be a smokey, beat-style nightclub, complete with Helen Marshall costumed as a cigarette girl from the 50's, but with a tray of Chizine books rather than smokes: an appropriately sleazy /self-satiric atmosphere for the tone of Chizine's generally disturbing readings.

First half of the evening, I got to speak with Allan Weiss again and in greater detail about his current research — definitely fascinating stuff! Met a couple of up and coming writers, notably Kevin Nunn, who has a story in the recently released Evolve anthology. I was fascinated by how Nunn's theoretical knowledge of / experience in improvisational theatre informs his writing: full bore on first draft writing which he characterized as 'beating words into shape with bricks'. Also talked to a writer from Quill and Quire briefly, before the main event, consisting of three sets of three readings each.

I was already familiar with the work of a couple of the authors (e.g., David Nickle), but most were new to me, and the readings made me want to seek out their books in spite of my earlier assumption from the backcover blurbs that they would likely not be to my taste. I was particularly surprised by Gord Zajac's Major Karnage, the lead character's name being such an obvious gag as to initially turn me off, but his reading was terrific, and the passage read out really works. Tony Burgess reading (from People Live Still in Cashtown Corners) was also a revelation, as I am generally not a fan of horror, though I trust Chizine's tastes more than most. But what he read out was brilliant, enough for me to recommend the book essentially sight unseen. Halli Villegas reading from The Hair Wreath & Other Stories was similarly engaging. Robert Boyczuk was amusing discussing reviews of Nexus: Ascension; In the Mean Time Paul Tremblay and Sarah Court by Craig Davidson also seem worth a look.

Chizine (which I discovered I had been pronouncing incorrectly, with a hard 'chi') is definitely putting out some very interesting titles and stands as a model for small press publishing. Sandra and Brett have pulled together an astounding synergistic team:So much talent, so much productivity, in so short a span.

[*28/11/10: I didn't think I got a photo, because my cellphone camera shot just came out as a black smudge, but have since discovered that I could mess with various adjustments (something called 'gamma'?) to get an almost recognizable shot of the audience...gives a sense of the scene, at least]

Canadian History of Education Associaton Conference

2010-10-23T08:23:00.003-06:00

I thought my paper went over reasonably well, considering I had to cover 45 slides in 20 minutes; at 30 seconds a slide — or three years a minute — my analysis of education policy in Alberta over the last 75 years was necessarily a bit superficial. But that's more or less what one expects at these conference presentations: really just an abstract for the paper that hopefully I will be submitting to the association's journal in due course.

All the presentations at the conference received simultaneous French/English translation; we all got to wear headphones and feel like UN delegates. Bit of overkill for our small conference room (the translation booth took up maybe a fifth the space, and at 8:30 in the morning, only the really dedicated were in attendance) but I appreciated the effort to make the conference truly bilingual.

Translator booth for my presentation; close examination of the photo reveals my reflection in the background as I snap the picture

I was able to take in one of my UofL colleagues' presentation the next morning: a fascinating report on the implementation of progressive education in Alberta in the 1930s that fit right into my framework. I had to miss my other colleague's presentation as it was scheduled for after my flight back to Alberta, but I'd already discussed it enough in the hallways back home I felt I wasn't missing anything new. Took in some good presentations, and the luncheon on Thursday was excellent. I was flattered that a couple of faculty from other campuses made a point of telling me they were using my deskilling paper in their undergraduate courses. Nice to know that someone is actually reading my work, and that they appreciate my efforts to make difficult concepts accessible to the general reader.

David Harvey explains economic crisis

2010-10-22T12:13:00.004-06:00

At lunch today at the Canadian History of Education Conference, Bruce Curtis (Carlton University) turned me on to this great little video:

"David Harvey - The Animated Crisis of Capitalism"

(Or view the actual lecture or at YouTube: David Harvey)

Chandler Davis

2010-10-21T21:14:00.012-06:00

In Toronto for the Canadian History of Education Association's annual conference, and by lucky coincidence, tonight was also the launch of It Walks in Beauty: Selected prose of Chandler Davis at the Merril Collection (Toronto Public Library). Choosing between this evening's presentations on history at the conference, or meeting Chandler Davis, who is history, was easy. And I was not disappointed. The panel at the Merril was one of the most stimulating academic events I have attended in years.

Chandler Davis signing copies of his book at its launch, Merril Collection, Toronto, October 21, 2010.

Chandler Davis (Professor Emeritus, UofT, Mathematics) gave a short but perceptive talk on how speculative fiction is necessary to pose alternatives when dissent is discouraged, discredited or otherwise marginalized.

Josh Lukin, the collection's editor.

Josh Lukin (Temple University) made a brief, funny and insightful speech about the task of uniting the twin themes of Davis' sf fiction and social activism within a single volume, and his own role in analyzing and pitching Chandler's work. Judging by his remarks this evening, and my first impressions of his opening essay, I am definitely going to have to track down some of Lukin's other work documenting forgotten (suppressed?) protest writers.

Josh was followed by Emily Pohl-Weary, who brought greetings from the ghost of her grandmother, Judith Merril, the mother of modern SF and Chandler's contemporary. (I was later able to get Emily to sign my copy of Better to Have Loved, her outstanding biography of Judith Merril.)

Emily Pohl-Weary, author and co-editor of Broken Pencil (the only magazine to which I've ever subscribed).

Psychoanalyst and President of Science for Peace, Judith Deutsch (not pictured) gave a serious and moving speech about Chandler Davis social activism, reading several brief quotes from the collection to highlight both Davis' principles and exceptional insight.

There were two other excellent speakers, colleagues of Davis, but I unfortunately missed their names, and there was no printed program. Davis' wife (a historian) also spoke from the audience in response to a question about the role of science fiction in Davis activism.

[01/11/10: Chandler Davis provided the following update: "The two panelists whose names you didn't catchwere Peter Rosenthal & Peter Fitting. Both, it happens, were with me in sit-in against Dow Chemical recruiting on campus (1967) and have kept the faith. Fitting is also a science-fiction fan and critic, who initiated the first course on s-f on the U of T campus (teaching it without compensation at first), in which both Judy Merril & I have been guest lecturers. The third member of the panel not mentioned in your report was Metta Spencer, my old friend and fellow member of the exec of Science for Peace; she is a Prof Emeritus of Sociology at U of T and Editor of Peace Magazine"]

The discussion following the presentations was particularly fascinating, as the room was filled with activists from the 1940s, '50s and '60s contrasting their experiences with those of the current generation — some arguing that protest seems to have been successfully marginalized by hegemonic forces, while others argued that much had been achieved and that there was considerable reason for optimism about the future.

For myself, I was honored just to shake the hand of a man who had faced down the UnAmerican Activities Commmittee, refused to name names, and gone to jail for his principles. Of course, had he not been blacklisted in the States, he might never have come to Canada. Their loss, our gain.

An excellent turnout for the launch, though the majority were activists rather than SF readers. I don't think I've ever been in a room with so many prominent activists before.

Chandler's son, Aaron Davis, a renowned Toronto jazz pianist, provided the music for the launch.

Allan Weiss

As a bonus, I was able to briefly talk to Allan Weiss (Associate Professor, York University) about his current sabbatical project following the event; meet Annette Mocek (Merril Collection) with whom I have corresponded for years but never met in person before; and visit with Lorna Toolis (Head, Merril Collection) a friend for nearly 35 years (yikes!).

All in all, a very successful and enjoyable evening!

[01/11/10: Links to Aqueduct Press posts on the event:
Part 1
Part 2]

Kasia School Picture

2010-10-18T19:55:00.003-06:00

Kasia's school picture; she turns 7 in November.

Kasia started Grade 1 this year, and is suddenly showing interest in reading — formerly a highly suspect activity because it is what her sister was always doing rather than playing with her, Kasia. Of course, Kasia always loved being read to, and now that I have reassured her I will continue reading to her whenever she wants, even if she learns to read herself, she seems open to the possibility of trying it for herself.

1 Minute and 11 Seconds....

2010-10-05T21:01:00.004-06:00

...of me on video at my day job. This is a brief excerpt from TV item on research at UofL. You can view the original at apubliceducation.ca (select the month on the upper right hand side [September 2010] – it is also visible on the right side list, click on the title “U of L Research” the right hand side; you can also download to iTunes on your computer by clicking on the icon below the video). I've edited out everybody else, except for a brief voiceover on a shot of me typing in my office, and a shot of the university with my voiceover. Of course, in the original, it is all smoothly integrated into the larger piece.

This is the first time I've seen myself teaching, and it was a bit shocking. I have a bald spot? Who knew! (Fortunately, doesn't show up clearly in this tiny web screen.) And I bulk enough to blockout the whiteboard? Zowie. And I'm not sure I like how I stab at students with my figure to call for input; but then the students are not looking particularly engaged.

Of course, to be fair, this was the students' first class with me, and I had started the class just moments before by thanking them for signing up for the new 'video cohort' -- in which, I informed them everything this semester was going to be videoed. "I was afraid some students wouldn't want to volunteer for this experiment, knowing that every word they say, every move they make will be recorded, so I'm really glad to see so many of you here today!" As they all freaked out, because of course they had volunteered for no such thing, I said something like: "What, didn't you get the memo on that?" One of them had the sense to turn to the camera guy and ask, "Is that for real?" To which he replied, "No, he's just pulling your leg! Actually, I'm just here to record Professor Runte. He's having his entire life recorded for prosperity." Which may not have been entirely reassuring, not only because it meant they were still on camera, but would also have confirmed their initial impression of me as a nut case. We eventually confessed we were just messing with them, and that the camera guy was just there for a couple of quick shots of me teaching for the video he was making, and nothing they said would be recorded, and so on. And then I started class. So they were probably still a bit self-conscious and distracted at that point. I completely forgot about the camera in about 5 seconds, so I'm not sure how long he stayed, but I assume he left after just a couple of minutes.

The shots of me talking in my office are also first time I've seen myself talking, and I was amazed to see my hands flapping all over the place. "I don't talk with my hands like that!" I said as my wife looked over my shoulder, but she said, "You do! Exactly like that. All the time. There, that gesture there! You do that all the time. It is so you." Fascinating. My self-image and the image I seem to project here do not entirely overlap; but okay, I accept what I see on the video here is how I look to others.

Tigana's School Photo

2010-10-05T15:56:00.006-06:00

Tigana's school photo, Sept 2010.

I think the photographic evidence is clear: We are no longer dealing with an elementary child, here, but have definitely moved into official 'teenager' territory. In Lethbridge, middle school now starts in Grade 6, but I still think of Grade 7 as the start of Jr. High and the teenage years, and looking at the differences between this year's school photo and last year's, I still think I'm right.

Tigana's an amazing kid on so many levels, and still appears to like us more than not. Driving her to school this morning, I looked at the kids getting out of the other cars, and I could not help noticing the grumpy expressions and hostile body language on almost all of the kids. Okay, granted that 8:30 AM is not exactly my best moment of my day either, and granted parents are dropping kids off at school, not riding lessons or a rock concert, but at some level, it can't be a coincidence that all of Tigana's peers look like they have just had a drawn out screaming match with their parents. The pattern is clearly 'teenagerism' and I have to acknowledge that it takes a special kind of teacher to be successful in Middle school. Which is not to say Tigana doesn't occasionally/randomly, explode at us, but for the most part, she is happily bouncing off the walls, manic over whatever her obsession of the moment happens to be. The only time she sits (relatively) still is when she is reading -- which is every second we haven't pried the book out of her fingers at, say, the dinner table or swimming. But pulling the book out of her hands is like launching a kangaroo into the room-- boing, boing boing. But the way I see it, unbounded enthusaism beats sullen teen every time!

Interview with Krista Ball

2010-10-03T21:15:00.005-06:00

Krista Ball is an Edmonton speculative fiction author. Her short stories have been published widely in anthologies, magazines, and fan favourite collections; and she is one of the pioneers of the digital generation's movement into e-publishing and self-publishing. She is also a regular contributor to Merge Magazine (Edmonton). Her most recent (October 1) release is the paranormal historical fantasy Harvest Moon from MuseItUp Publishing. This interview is part of her virtual book tour to promote the launch of Harvest Moon.

Krista will be making in-person appearances at Con-Version (Calgary) and Pure Spec (Edmonton) this month and will also have a vendor’s table at Pure Spec, where we are told there will be copious amounts of free chocolate.

Robert: Your latest work, Harvest Moon, is based on elements from aboriginal culture. Why aboriginal culture?

Krista: I worked at a homeless agency in Edmonton’s inner city for three years. I wrote Harvest Moon while there, in fact. Edmonton’s homeless has a large aboriginal population and, thus, you end up being exposed to their cultures, traditions, and even language just as part of your day-to-day living.

Robert: Do you ever worry about charges/issues of cultural appropriation?

Krista: Any charge against culture appropriation would be valid and invalid at the same time. I am white (nearly translucent white, in fact). However, several members of my extended family are Métis. I feel that I am writing a family story as much as a historical fantasy. On top of that, I think it’s important to be able to write about different kinds of peoples, cultures, and traditions. It would be no different if I wrote about the ancient Greeks, or Jews during WW2.

Robert: Some of your work has some pretty violent imagery in it. How have audiences reacted to that?

Krista: Right now, I have a fantasy novel for consideration at a publisher and another science fiction novel nearing completion. Both are quite dark and violent. My beta readers (and, even slush readers) have commented how they felt the violence always fell on the edge but never went into the “gore porn” that some pieces fall into.

But here’s the interesting thing. Out of my published and unpublished works, I have had far more stink kicked up over sexual orientation, sex, and alcohol use. In “Space Sucks” (a short story in Bardic Tales and Sage Advice II), I had several people tell me that they didn’t like that a woman was an alcoholic in the story — “women don’t drink like that.” Others have commented on Bearclaw in “Harvest Moon” being bisexual, saying that bisexual people didn’t exist before the modern era (clearly, they’ve never read ancient Greek poetry).

Robert: You're kidding me! People actually said that? Because a lot of plains cultures had quite specific, culturally acceptable roles for gays, so bisexual is hardly a stretch. Indeed, there's a lot of cultural anthropology to suggest that bisexuality was only problematic to a minority of Western cultures. So it's hard to think anyone would object to that in a story about pre-contact native cultures.

Krista: The total amount of bisexuality talk in "Harvest Moon" consists of probably 30 /11000 words total. Two of my reviews have already put a “bisexual references” warning. Then, I get an email who said that he was very bothered by the fact that one of the character was not straight. He also said it was a really good story, other than the “gay thing.”

It’s odd that brutal, graphic violence decapitation of toddlers and having them nailed to a doorpost is fine; but anything outside of rigid gender roles and expectations are not. It’s weird.

However, nothing has made me as happy as the first piece of hate mail arrived last week. I still show it off proudly and think I might frame it. It was like being in high school again, only with better fashion sense.

Robert: What do you hope readers will take away with them from reading your work?

Krista: I really just want people to forget their lives for a few hours and sink into the worlds that I’ve created. For the light-hearted stories (i.e. "Flying Kite, Crashing Ship"), I want to make people laugh. For the more serious works, I want people to feel that they could live another person’s life for a few hours. I don’t want anything more complicated than that, really.

Robert: What do consider the best piece you've ever written?

Krista: This changes all of the time. I generally like a piece when it first gets submitted and, after several rounds of content or line edits, I want to rip the work to shreds and never read it again!

Robert: Anything you now regret?

Krista: I sometimes say that I wish I hadn’t stopped writing when I left high school. Between 18 and 30, I barely wrote. At the same time, I wasn’t in a place to be producing the kind of work that I do now, dealing with the business end of things, and the other parts of being a full-time writer that people don’t realize. I honestly thought after I’d publish a couple magazine articles and a book, I’d be living like Danielle Steele and wearing mink coats (eww! What was I even thinking?). There was no way I could have handled the business side.

Now, I have enough corporate conditioning behind me that my writing is a career, a job, whatever you want to call it. I get a rejection and the story is back out the door somewhere else in under 3 minutes. I couldn’t have done that when I was younger. So, perhaps, it’s just as well I stopped when I did.

Robert: Do you read a lot of SF, or do you read a range of genres? If I were to ask you what you read in an average month, what would I find on your bookshelf?

Krista: I read or have read pretty much everything. In September, I read a romance novel, a light horror short, a m/m erotica novella, a m/m/f erotica novel, a mystery short, and four books of a fantasy series. And a Star Trek novel because I read one of those a month.

Robert: Star Trek? What do you think makes that series such an enduring read?"

Krista: My favourite is Deep Space Nine, where it combines the alien worlds and customs with everyday people. Even the aliens had crappy days sometimes. I like that a lot. It combined the wonder of space with the mundane everyday.

Robert: I remember that I discovered John M. Ford from his two ST novels. Who are your favorite ST authors?

Krista: I found David Mack from his ST novels. He writes other tie-ins and also has his own work out. I love his writing and would never have found him otherwise.

Robert: Any genre you don’t like/read?

Krista: I can’t read most horror. I’ve tried, but I either end up with nightmares or rather nauseous. I generally read more short stories than novels these days. I like the shorter time commitment with them. Also, with an e-Reader, I can purchase all different lengths of works and enjoy as I see fit.

Robert: Who are the big influences on your writing? Who are the SF writers who’ve had the greatest impact on you / your writing?

Krista: Here is a confession – I hated speculative fiction for most of my life. I loved science fiction on TV but I hated most of the books that I picked up. The only ones I liked as a teenager were Star Trek novels and a military assassin series (I can’t remember the name of them). I wanted so bad to read about girls like me slaying dragons and invading planets, but I couldn’t find those stories. They always had boring girls (if they even had girls) and it was the guys that did everything. I hated it. So, I gave up on the genre.

Skip a decade and I began to find so many new authors that I love, who write the works that I wanted to read as a kid. Jim Butcher, Diana Pharaoh Franics, Elizabeth Moon...Then, the world of ebooks opened up an entire new world for me, where I could find all lengths of books on all kinds of things that I’d never find in a store.

In the end, I began writing what I have because I didn’t like what was out there for most of my life. I write the works that me at sixteen was desperate to read.

Robert:As a Canadian, do you see your writing as particularly Canadian, or is your fiction more accurately described by genre labels?

Krista: Oh, I could go on and on about this one. I am genre-based, but I make it a point to be as Canadian as possible (and as Newfie as possible without needing to provide a dictionary and footnotes). I’m sick of stories set in New York City or LA. I’m sick of governments and laws all being based on US systems. Canadians do things differently and I want to include that different point of view.

For example, I created a First Nations tribe in Northern Alberta for Harvest Moon. Some of my beta readers are American and were really confused by the “six month winter.” They had just assumed the story was based in the US. I went back and edited a scene early on where Dancing Cat actually pinpoints where the story is taking place, without actually saying it (since “Alberta” doesn’t exist yet in the book).

Robert: Have you noticed a difference generally in the reception your stories receive from readers/reviewers/editors from outside Canada?

Krista: Most of my beta readers are American. It can be really annoying when basic things like weather, culture, socialized medicine all need to be presented in an American manner or else you are told it’s “wrong.” I’ve even had my spelling corrected by beta readers; one told me that I needed to learn to spell “colour” before I could ever hope to become published.

I’ve been lucky in that most of my editors have been Canadian or British. However, even Americans have told me that my stories have challenged them to not assume the stories are American-based. I take it as a compliment, as I never want people to assume anything when they start reading my work.

Robert: I'm always interested in a writer's process. Some writers write by just sitting down at the keyboard and letting things develop as they may; at the other end of the continuum are those that don't set pen to paper until they have a completed outline, a white board filled with timelines and thematic analysis, and a stack of index cards detailing each character, his/her growth, and their interaction with every other character.

Krista: I have used all forms of outlining, including no outline! I generally write out a paragraph about what the story is about and go from there. Usually, I stop halfway through, re-evaluate and either start over with a basic point-form outline or finish to the end because the logic is working already.

Robert: You mention rewriting one chapter nine times. How can you tell the difference between necessary revision to get the story right, and obsessive polishing to stall from tackling a piece of a project you've been avoiding?

Krista: If I’m at the stage where all I’m doing is line edits, I stop. For me, if I’m still adjusting plot, character development, setting and texture, then the story isn’t done. If I’m merely fiddling with words, the thing is done.

Robert: Is writer's block ever a problem for you?

Krista: The cure for writer’s block is to write freelance. You learn pretty quickly that either you write or you starve.

Seriously, though, sitting my butt in the chair and writing even when I feel “blocked” is the key. Because, really, I’m not blocked. I just want to be doing something else. I don’t want to write the difficult scene, I don’t want to write myself out of the hole I’ve dug, I don’t want, I don’t want, I don’t want. That isn’t a good enough excuse for me. I write for a local magazine who give me monthly assignments. I might not always feel like working on an article but flaking out isn’t an option. I have to do my work.

I see my fiction the same way. I have a responsibility to treat it with the same professionalism.

Robert: You've described novels as long term relationships, and short stories as affairs. It's a fun analogy, but do you prefer one format over the other? Does one come more easily than the other? Is writing a novel the same as art as writing a short story, or is there a difference besides simply one of scale?

Krista: Without short stories, I would go insane. Without novels, I would get bored. For me, the short stories give me a chance to write on a small scale. Basic character compliment, tight setting, one plot, one conflict. It really gives my brain a break. I can be naughty and silly in short stories. My novels right now tend towards the dark. The stories give my emotions and brain a release of tension. They are a different skill set, though. Novels require a well-developed plot that can withstand several bouts of conflict, characters in and out, etc. Short stories are smaller, taking only a snapshot in time.

Robert: So why do you post stories for free? Is it a marketing thing for your more major works?

Krista: A lot of my published work is non-fiction articles (i.e. I am a regular contributor to Merge Magazine in Edmonton), so people who don’t read the local Edmonton works don’t really have a sense for my writing style. Also, non-fiction and fiction read rather differently. The free stories offer people a chance to see if they’d like my style without having to pay.

Robert: You have pretty decent blog/website. Did you design it yourself?

Krista: Thanks! I’m sleeping with the webmaster ;) We used a basic template and then my partner customized it for me.

Robert:How important do you think it is for an author to maintain a presence on the web?

Krista: I believe that authors need a web presence, depending on what works best for them. If you are really new, it isn’t that important. I think blogs are a good idea for new writers simply because it gives them practice on how to blog and figure out what kind of blog they want. I went through a couple of blogs before I settled on my current one. It was better to do that early, as opposed to now.

But, if an author hates blogging, I recommend just setting up a website and posting news every couple of months so that there is updated content whenever it’s available.

I also freelance on top of fiction, so I do try to keep an active blog and website. It does help keep readers up to date – and they get to hear me rant on a regular basis.

Robert: Do you think blogs and virtual tours and so on are effective? Or are they losing their novelty?

Krista: I am rather concerned about the growing trend for unpublished authors to have extensive blog tours, guest visits, “my book is debuting in 2011” (meaning they will be hopefully done writing it, not that it’s been published), etc. I think they should be focusing on writing.

Robert: How does keeping your blog relate to your writing? Does it relate, or do you see these as completely separate activities? Is it strictly a promotional tool, or is it part and parcel of your writing? Do you ever use blog postings as a kind of ‘warm up’ activity before starting in on the day’s fiction writing? As a ‘cool down’ exercise? As a coffee break when ‘blocked’?

Blogging is just another part of my writing days. I usually blog first thing in the morning or really late at night. There’s no reasoning for that, other than that’s usually when it comes to mind. As for the why I do it, it’s mostly as a means to keep me connected to people who enjoy my work or writers just starting out who want to follow someone who is also just starting out.

Robert: Some authors have told me that they use their blogs to vent, so that they keep whatever this week’s hobbyhorse happens to be out of their novel — that without the blog, they find their characters suddenly holding forth about the importance of table manners or the War in Iraq or whatever, whether or not it actually fits the book. Have you consciously used your blog this way?

Krista: That wouldn’t work for me. If something needs to be vented about, I am quite happy to either include it in a current work or slot it for another work down the road. Short stories are often my way to vent about the world.

Robert:I notice on your website you have progress counters to track how many words you've written on your next novel, or whatever. And I was struck by the fact that you've formatted that as X number of words out of 90,000. But how can you know how long a story/novel will be before you write it? How can you possibly know it will take exactly 90,000 words?

Krista: Doing freelance writing work really forced me to learn how to write for a specific word count. Add into that mix my history degree, where I had to write mountains of research papers, all with specific page counts. I discovered that fiction could be approached the same way. When I figured that out, my “waste” writing (i.e. the 3 chapter tangents that do nothing to progress a novel) vanished. Now, I only write paragraph-length tangents!

Generally, I can estimate within 10% of the final word count. I decide the type of project first, be it novel, flash fiction, short story, whatever. Then, I take one of my idea that will fit that word length. I make a couple of notes of how many scenes I think I need, what the risk will be for the story, and I start writing. My first draft will be significantly shorter than the final count. When I go back and edit, I add the texture of the world, clean up the plot, clarify things, and flush out the scene transitions. And lo and behold, I’m close to my target writing count.

It isn’t a huge deal if it goes off, though I rarely do. It’s mostly a tool I use to focus my writing so that every scene is focused on addressing the risk of the story. Keeping that in my mind and being mindful of the target length of my pieces really help focus my writing.

Robert: Thanks very much for agreeing to this interview!

A review of Krista Ball's latest, Harvest Moon is available here.

New Portraits

2010-10-01T10:18:00.005-06:00

Work needed some photos of me for various promotional purposes, so hired Rod Leland to do the shooting. He's undoubtedly the best photographer in Southern Alberta, and the best I've had a chance to work with... Quite happy how these came out. Indeed, looking at the photos he did of my colleagues, they're all surprisingly good. (Well, academics are not always the most photogenic individuals.) I've started integrating some of these photos into my various websites, and the instantly raise the look of the page, over the rather stiff directory photo I was using before.

For Zane

2010-09-21T21:13:00.007-06:00

Kasia's friend Zane is in Japan for this semester, so they have been exchanging emails; so we thought it would be a good thing to post some recent pictures of Kasia for Zane here:

Here Kasia is dancing in Lethbridge's Bon Odori Japanese Dance Festival, July 17, 2010.

Below, Kasia's true passion: horses and riding.

Now that winter is coming, Kasia's riding lessons have switched to an indoor facility.

Novel Update

2010-09-14T22:51:00.005-06:00

So, I was cleaning out the basement office last week and stumbled upon my old writing files, so I dusted them off and sorted through to find the original outline for the novel I am currently at 90,000 words on. Several facts struck me.

First, the outline (which would have come after a long period of thinking of the story before committing an outline to paper) is dated March 17, 1975. So that means I have had this novel in my head for well over 35 years. The original outline is very close to the current version; as close as I would likely stick to any outline in the actual writing stage. (My characters are the sort who insist on saying what they want, even when it means going off script.) So that's pretty amazing to me considering I haven't seen this outline since filing it in this filing cabinet when I first moved to Lethbridge, 20 years ago. I've added the character of a young boy sometime in the 1990s (because Sean Stewart told me it is next to impossible to write good action SF with kids in it; so, you know, wanted a bit of a challenge) and I added a dog during the actual writing (because I got a dog during the actual writing, and because, you know, the boy needed a dog). So considering it's all just been scenes evolving in my head all those years, bit surprised to see how close I am to original idea.

Second, the two pages of opening scene (all that existed aside from the outline) are hand printed on strips of lined paper stapled to an 8.5 X 11 sheet. That is, I had written a bit, then changed my mind, cut the sentences I wanted to save out of the page, and stapled them to a new sheet, to continue writing; then cut the bottom off that page, and stapled surviving paragraph to a new sheet; and repeated this several times until filling the page. Which is how one did word processing, circa 1975.

Third, the initial outline is on a 5X3 index card hand printed in such tiny letters I cannot read it without a magnifying glass. I recall that I used to keep all my notes that way. Unbelievable -- and unreadable -- to me now. I hereby solemnly swear not to take typing for granted again. Long live the keyboard! (If I thought typing 90,000 word manuscript was hard, I cannot imagine what it would have been like writing a novel by hand.

Fourth -- and this really hurts -- are lines like this piece of dialog: "Frayer is well into his fifties, but don't let that throw you, he's a damn good officer." Questions of literary merit aside, it's a little annoying to have one's younger self send such a clear message to me now, saying I am of such an advanced age to be officially over the hill and my competence suspect. *Sigh*

Fifth, re-reading this outline, it appears that I didn't have any ideas back then either for what comes next. I have about three scenes left to cover on the original outline, and then I'm on my own.... 36 years and I still don't know how the stupid book is supposed to end.

Kasia Manual

2010-09-06T14:28:00.003-06:00

This being the start of school, and Kasia's first week in Grade 1, we were asked to write a letter to her teacher to help her place Kasia in context. This is an abridgement of what my wife wrote:

If Kasia came with an instruction manual, the on-switch would be a picture of a horse. She is obsessed with horses and mythical horse-like creatures, such as Pegasus’s and unicorns. The off-switch would be a picture of a raw carrot—unless she got to feed it to a horse!

Kasia is a really cool kid. Sometimes she is shy, but once she gets comfortable in a setting, she tends to dominate a room and ‘take charge’. For this reason, she is particularly excited when she gets to be an assistant to her teacher and really enjoys helping out when there are kids who are new or struggle socially.

We have always been impressed by Kasia’s sense of compassion. If a child is hurt or crying, she will seek out the child, ask to help and will connect on a very empathetic level with their emotional state. She feels others’ sufferings very deeply—sometimes too deeply. Although this empathy will be applied to other children, it is most apparent when she sees/hears of the suffering of an animal. For this reason, she is deeply connected to issues of animal cruelty and neglect. She is very interested in wild horse conservation and dog rescue work. We have a dog, Jackie, who was rescued from an environment where she suffered terrible facial/head injuries and lost an eye [her full name is One Eyed Jack(ie)!] If Kasia had her way, we would have a ranch with hundreds of horses and dogs. Just to warn you—if there is a dog being walked through the playground, Kasia will be right there. We have instructed her to always ask permission to pet the dog first and she tends to be quite good about this.

Kasia has a really great sense of humour. She loves puns and practical jokes. She often comes out with witty comments which seem beyond her years. Indeed, we often discover the extent of her vocabulary when she comes out with a witty retort using unexpected words. She might have a future as a standup comedian. She has done improv through drama programs and shines in this area.

Kasia loves to sing. She has a lovely voice and can riff on the harmonica like an old blues singer.

Kasia has been very reluctant to learn to read. Her explanation to us is that ‘reading is what you do when you don’t want to play ponies’. And, there is nothing better in her mind than playing with her toy horses. Her sister, who reads a great deal, uses the excuse/explanation of reading to avoid playing with her sister. Typical teen behavior, but Kasia seems to blame the reading, rather than her sister.

Kasia loves science. She particularly loves doing experiments or studying something (like a leaf) in great depth, memorizing every nuance. She has recently developed a fascination with history and has started requesting history lessons at night instead of bedtime stories.

Kasia wants to be a vet when she grows up. Actually, she wants to own a horse ranch in Hawaii and work with rescued dogs and horses. She is totally obsessed with horses and loves to ride. She takes riding lessons and asks daily for us to buy her a horse of her own. Any writing or reading activity which involves animals will engage her attention.

Kasia Sings

2010-08-23T22:32:00.003-06:00

A brief clip showing Kasia's signing.

Tigana in concert, Empress Theatre, Aug 20, 2010

2010-08-23T19:20:00.005-06:00

Introduction by Kasia:

Tigana sings:

The videos should be self-explanatory, but I was extremely proud of Tigana's performance, and pleased at the reception from the audience. I doubt many of them realized that she is only 12, but they applauded enthusiastically, and I think, genuinely. Her performance was part of a local vaudeville evening, so the quality of acts varied, but Tigana's was certainly as good as any and better than most.

Mary also recorded Kasia singing as we waited in line to get into the show, and I think I hear the six year old beginnings of a similarly beautiful voice there...I'll post the clip in the next post.

Irfaan in Belize

2010-08-17T07:23:00.003-06:00

Irfaan, one of my favorite students, is currently doing his student teaching in Belize. His blog is worth following because he is a good writer as well as an all round interesting guy.

Galt Museum Saturday Program

2010-08-05T07:44:00.004-06:00

Kasia (with help from Dad) and Tigana building 'gopher puppets' at the Galt Museum as part of Napi Tales, one of their Saturday at 1:00 kids programs. Kasia's puppet was a gopher princes (thus the blonde hair); Tigana's is a snake (note forked tongue and the first of the scales being put on). The puppets were designed to pop out of the ground/tin on cue. The Napi story teller was wonderful, and all the kids who made puppets got to be in the show.

the New Vanity Publishing

2010-07-16T18:38:00.000-06:00

Thanks to the revolution in publishing technology, it is easier than ever for people to find a print-on-demand (POD) publisher, or an e-publisher, or to self-publish. Self-publishing has the obvious problem that one can't really know if one's book is worthy without objective third party review — and even then, there have always been great books that went on to great commercial success after being rejected by 47 editors.

And, unfortunately, there have always been truly terrible books that have been published by 'editors' at vanity presses.

In the old days, vanity presses were slowed down by the fact that actually printing copies of books cost money, so it was fairly obvious when the publisher asked you, the author for the money, that you were dealing with a vanity press. (Legitimate publishers pay the author, not the other way around.) Lots of still people got sucked in, but most could be warned away by friends and family.

Now, with epublishing requiring very little money (or talent) upfront, many more individuals have set themselves up as epublishers. Some of these are legitimate publishers with high standards putting out excellent product; especially those who also do POD. Five Rivers Chapmanry would be a good example of an excellent print-on-demand publisher who also puts out e-editions.

Others, not so much:

www.ebooksforpleasure.com

I don't know about you, but the titles alone scare me.... take for example Patricia Backora's SciFi series with titles like "Beam Me Back to Bible Days", "Forbidden Love in Christ's Millennium", or "Tough Love in Christ's Millennium: Part I" Gosh, I wonder why titles like these could not find a legacy publisher?

Yikes!

This is not to suggest, I hasten to add, that I have something against Christian SF. There are plenty of great Christian SF authors (Donna Farley comes to mind), but these titles are not promising.

But publisher Chris Fayers does have standards! Here, quoted from Chris Fayers' twitter feed: "Now is a great time for the unpublished! We will publish your fiction! Just make sure it has commas and full stops and that sort of thing." In another tweet he says "I had a book in the other day which had no paragraphs, not even at the end of chapters. The author said she was not computer literate." Well, okay then! Sentences! Paragraphs! Where else in epublishing will you find that kind of demanding expectations?!!

Remember Fanthorpe readings? Where aspiring authors would sit around at writing workshops taking turns reading selections from Fanthorpe's (he wrote under a number of pen names) books aloud because they were so appallingly bad it gave everyone in the room encouragement, on the grounds if this clown could get published, anyone could.

(If you are not familiar with the Fanthorpe phenomenon: he had a contract to produce a book a week back in the early 1960s, the publishers' only requirements being that (a) the manuscript be typed and (b) that the manuscript be exactly 109 (or whatever, I forget the exact number) of pages long... Fanthorpe managed the first requirement because his mom operated a typing school: he would walk up and down the rows dictating his novel aloud to the students, and then put the manuscript together from the best typed pages. Not a lot of editing and revision going on there! He managed the exact page requirement by stretching out or cutting short the final scene based on feedback from the typing students over how close he was to the last page. In one memorable case, the hero takes three pages to turn the doorknob to open the door to reveal the final scene because Fanthorpe had three and a half pages to go. Memorable writing, I tell you!! I actually have a pretty fine collection of Fanthorpe because they are incomparable works! Thankfully.)

Patricia Backora and some of the other authors sold at ebooksforpleasure, are, I'm guessing, the new Fanthorpe.

I also love that these books appear to be sold only through "http://www.ebooksforpleasure.com/bookstore/sci-fi" because one of Chris' tweets says "Authors, don't get lost on Amazon, we are looking for new fiction" which suggests to me that these books aren't even sold on Amazon....

Sigh.

Robert

==========
A correction from Donna McMahon (author of Dance of Knives and second childhood) :
OK, I just have to make a few corrections here. Lionel Fanthorpe wrote pulp novels for Badger Books (in England) in the 50's. He was in his early 20's at the time. They wanted 50,000 words, so he would write to 50,000. If there was still plot happening at 49,000, he'd come up with a deus ex machina and wrap everything up; if he was running short, he'd pad. "I say, Fred, this alien invasion problem reminds me of the Punic Wars...." And then the character would deliver three or four pages of description of the Punic Wars. He also made extensive and creative use of the thesaurus. He dictated his books and they were typed up by his mother and sisters. Nobody, including Fanthorpe, is sure how many books he wrote since they were all under pseudonyms, but the figure cited is that he was averaging a book every 12 days. The sheer, raging ridiculousness of them spawned a small but dedicated fandom.

Two of these fans are Paul and Debbie Cross, who run a bookstore in Portland, Oregon. They used to hold regular Fanthorpe readings at Orycon back in the 1980's. One night about 2 am, Debbie's phone rang. She answered it and somebody says "This is Lionel Fanthorpe calling." She said "Oh, yeah, sure," and hung up. But he phoned back, and it was indeed Mr. Fanthorpe, who'd done his time zone arithmetic incorrectly. He said he'd heard that the convention featured his books and he wanted to attend. And there ensued much trepidation--would he expect people to take his books seriously? (This being before the internet, there was really no information to be had on him.)

Well, the Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe (he's an Anglican clergyman) turns out to be a charming, funny character with a great sense of humour. He's every bit as eccentric as you might imagine--he's into paranormal research, martial arts and UFOs and hosted a British TV show.

You can enjoy some of his Badger book covers here: http://krustelkram.blogspot.com/2009/11/lionel-fanthorpe-badger-book-cover.html

His style is rather well captured in this short excerpt:

"Everywhere was dark, dark darkness. Blackness. Black. Black blackness."

Nazis from the Moon

2010-06-30T10:12:00.002-06:00

I talk a fair bit about the future of publishing, so I thought I mention one possible future for the movie industry. The producers of Iron Sky have raised 8.5 million from fans who want to see the movie made. They did this by producing a couple of trailers for the film, uploading it to Youtube where it has been viewed over a million times, and asking for micro investments from viewers who might like to see the trailer turned into an actual movie.

And it seems to be working.

Here's the description of the film from the Iron Sky website:

The Story of Iron Sky
Towards the end of World War II the staff of SS officer Hans Kammler made a significant breakthrough in anti-gravity.

From a secret base built in the Antarctic, the first Nazi spaceships were launched in late ‘45 to found the military base Schwarze Sonne (Black Sun) on the dark side of the Moon. This base was to build a powerful invasion fleet and return to take over the Earth once the time was right.

Now it’s 2018, the Nazi invasion is on its way and the world is goose-stepping towards its doom.

At some level you have to love the idea of flying saucers filled with Nazis attacking the Earth...one of those concepts that is so dumb it just might make a great B movie. But check out the trailers yourself and look around the site. A fascinating alternative to the Hollywood machine....

(see also the Wired Magazine article.) Thanks to Kevin Kozoriz for bring this to my attention.

Espresso Books

2010-06-17T01:24:00.004-06:00

Well, I got excited there for a minute.

The day following my Keynote address at the conference in Beverly Hills, Mary took the kids to Disneyland while I worked on some writing. I took a long lunch break, however, to walk around Downtown Disney, the shopping and restaurant district which doesn't require any admission fee, though you do have to clear security. So walking down the street I spied this sign and thought, "Wowhoo! A bookstore built around the Espresso Book Machine!" Which is, of course, what I have been going on about in this blog and elsewhere. And where else would you expect to find such an avant garde concept realized than Disneyland!"

So I go in and look around what appears to be a fairly mundane bookstore, but at the middle back of the store is a sort of closed in alcove/counter deal with a clerk stacking books, presumably hot off the Espresso press. I elbow my way through the crowd
and look around for the machine.

"May I help you," the woman asks, seeming my obvious lost expression.

"Where's the machine," I ask in response, because I'm thinking, half the point of having an Espresso Book Machine is letting people watch their book being printed in front of them. I mean, it is way cool. Hiding the machine in the back is just wrong.

"What machine?" the clerk asks, not unreasonably.

"The Espresso Machine!" I enthuse.

Long stare as the clerk tries to decide if I have perhaps already consumed more caffeine today than is altogether healthy. "Um, its right over there in the coffee bar section."

"No Espresso Book Machine?" I ask, knowing full well that there is not. "But your sign says, "Espresso Books!"

Another long uncomprehending stare. "Because we sell Espresso, and we sell books."

"Have you thought of putting a comma in there? Between 'Espresso' and 'books'. Because it now looks like you have an Espresso Book Machine. It's kind of false advertizing and you know, disappointing."

"I'm sorry, what are you talking about?"

I tried to explain, but elicited only a shrug. Not her problem.
"No one else has ever complained."

And that was that. So Disney Downtown, not necessarily at the cutting edge.
But for a minute there...had me going.

X marks the spot

2010-06-16T15:32:00.005-06:00

Looked up in the sky to see huge 'X'; it took a minute or two for me to think of taking out my cellphone and snapping this picture, so it had already started to blur. But I have to tell you, that 'X' made me nervous. Who or what was marking our location and to what purpose? Vogon Hyperspace Planning Council was the first thing that came to my mind...

Ideology and Blame

2010-06-13T20:24:00.004-06:00

Allow me to quote from a press release on a recent article:

Financial Literary Bailout for the Younger Generation

Hanover, NH-June 2, 2010-In the aftermath of the global financial crisis,
financial literacy is still low among young adults. According to a new study
published in the Journal of Consumer Affairs, only twenty-seven percent of people aged 23-28 can answer three basic questions about interest rates, inflation, and risk diversification, and other basic financial concepts. Furthermore, this result was amplified when studying the answers of young women, African-Americans, and Hispanics, and those with low educational attainment.
...
The research, headed by Dr. Annamaria Lusardi, shows that financial literacy
is largely influenced by parental education levels and financial habits.
...
Lusardi says, "If we do not address financial illiteracy among young people
through high school literacy classes, we will fail to equip young people
with the tools they need to make financial decisions, and we may pay the
cost down the road. Not everybody has an opportunity to learn from their
parents or their friends. Young people at the start of their career, or who
are in the process of buying their first home need to be financially
knowledgeable before they engage in financial contracts."

It is the final paragraph that is most interesting. It is a fascinating example of the sort of thing I teach in my sociology of education course: the ideology of individualism focuses our attention on the individual and blinds us (well, average Americans, anyway) to the true structural problems. What we see here is the structural problems of capitalist economy, and specifically the recent economic collapse due to unregulated sub-prime market etc, translated into the individual consumer's fault! If only consumers were better educated, there would not have been the problem! It is a wonderful example of 'blaming the victim'!

And the solutions to economic problems -- education! Great how problems in the economy caused by bad (unethical) business decisions suddenly become the fault of consumers and the 'failed' education system.....

Keynote Speech at Beverly Hills Hilton

2010-06-13T12:12:00.006-06:00

Right to Left: Keynote Speaker, Dr. Stewart L. Tubbs, The Darrell H. Cooper Professor of Leadership and former Dean of the College of Business at Eastern Michigan University; Dr. Turan Senguder, Conference Chair and CEO The Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge; and Robert Runté, Keynote speaker; the International Business & Economics Research Conference, Los Angeles, June 2-5, 2010.

I don't usually talk about my day job in this blog, but I got to be one of two keynote speakers at this conference, which was an interesting experience for me -- liked being in such elevated circles! At first glance, an education professor giving one of the keynots at a business conference may seem odd, but I was talking about the "assurance of learning" process, which is a hot button issue for business schools these days. I also presented a paper on my research on professional workers, which I co-wrote with my wife, who is a business prof. It was a very enjoyable conference, with some great discussion. Even the banquet was exceptionally good -- better banquet food than I usually get at Education conferences, though this conference was at the Beverly Hills Hilton, so you sort of had to expect great food and service.

Anyway, thought I'd show you what I look like on the job, for once.

Tooth Fairy

2010-05-30T11:50:00.001-06:00

Kasia, my six-year-old, turns to me and asks very seriously, "Dad, what happens when the Tooth Fairy loses a tooth?"

The Man Who Planted Trees

2010-05-27T22:59:00.004-06:00

Tuesday I took Kasia to see the stage version of The Man Who Planted Trees at the Calgary Children's Festival. I did this with a certain amount of trepidation as the story is inherently slow and abstract and Kasia is very...well, six.

I was familiar, as I am sure you are, with the NFB film version of the story. It has long been a favorite of mine; knowing this, Candas Dorsey once gave me a copy for a Christmas gift, back before there was a YouTube. It's a great film, but not one I would normally think to show Kasia. Kasia normally watches, Max and Ruby, Prank Patrol, and -- when we don't catch it fast enough to stop her, I, Carley.

The stage version on the other hand...was brilliant, hilarious, and kept Kasia enthralled. (Me too!)

The story is the same, and told with respect -- almost reverence -- and carried Kasia and I along through the desolate countryside of the opening, the sadness of the War years, the indignation over bureaucrats and politicians, and finally wonderment at the scope and fulfilment of the Utopian dream. The two actors used a minimalist set, and puppets for the character of the Man Who Planted Trees and for the bureaucrat/politician, to tell their story. Wonderful stuff.

But.

That's only half the story. Interwoven in between all this is the character of the dog. Who can best be likened to the dog from the movie Up, though that doesn't really do justice to the originality and spontaneity of the character created here.

The play starts by introducing the dog to the audience, both establishing his comedic character and hooking the young audience long before the actual story begins. The narrator then invites our dog to play the part of the dog in the story, only our dog doesn't really have time to learn his lines, so improvises as he goes along. It is absolutely hilarious, with the dog's appearances perfectly timed to pace the main story and to ensure the young audience remains focused. And there really is quite a bit of improvisation involved as the actor doing the dog ab libbed constantly to respond to the audience or happenings on stage. The dog kept the story from dragging; the story provided structure and purpose to the dog's stand up performance.

It was masterful!

I highly recommend Richard Medrington & Rick Conte of the "Puppet State Theatre, Scotland" any time, anywhere you can see them. (They are currently on tour in North America, so they may indeed be coming to a town near you.)

Galt Museum

2010-05-27T22:44:00.002-06:00

I have been consistently impressed with the exhibits mounted locally by the Galt Museum, but I was particularly struck by the recent Treasures and Curiosities Exhibit (Feb 20-May 2010). I feel strongly that this exhibit was not only engaging and innovative, but a role model for other regional museums to follow (which is why it's worth mentioning here, since most of my readers cannot travel to Lethbridge, or back in time, to see it).

The Treasures and Curiosities Exhibit had staff, board, volunteer and community members select their favorite artifacts from the Galt’s collection. This resulted in a very eclectic and slightly eccentric collection of artifacts, but presented two connecting threads: first, everything was from the Galt collection so by definition had a Southern Alberta connection; second, every item had a personal connection to, or resonance for, the community member who had selected it for the display. The write up on each item devoted as much space to the story of why the community member made the selection as on the item itself. This made for an inherently fascinating exhibit because even if the particular object held little interest for the viewer (i.e., me), the story of why someone else felt connected to the object was often as engaging, or more so, than the object itself.

The resulting display presented, therefore, several unique aspects:

First, just as Wikipedia includes entries on many topics the Britannica editors would never have deemed worthy of inclusion, the use of ordinary community members (as well as staff and board members) in choosing items for display created a wonderfully democratic process. Although the display was delimited by the fact that everything necessarily came from the Galt collection, and so all the artifacts were appropriate and of museum quality, the selection criteria still pretty broad! I find it highly unlikely that any expert curator would have put together this particular selection of items, and it is that very aspect of random juxtaposition that made the display so stimulating and such a creative success. Where else would you find a WWII model tank (made by a German POW interned near Lethbridge) next to a multilith, a grand piano, and six really creepy nurse dolls?

Similarly, given the broad sample of individuals included in the selection process, the criteria of personal resonance produced an extremely representative sample of time periods, topics, and Southern Alberta lifestyles. The greatest unifying theme was the sense of browsing through the Galt collections oneself and stumbling upon item after item with their own personal resonance for the viewer.

Second, I had a very strong emotional connection to several of the items. I would not normally have expected a multilith machine to be included in a museum display, and was strongly reminded of my mother, who ran that exact model of multilith for many years when the technology was still new. A far higher percentage of items in this exhibit had that effect on me than any other exhibit I can remember.

Third, I had a very strong impulse to donate to the Galt collection. Seeing, for example, the Gestetner 120 included in the display, I was reminded that I have a working condition Gestetner from two generations earlier in my basement – one of only a few dozen of that particular model left in the world. (Gestetner recalled and destroyed all the others when they realized the ‘perpetual guarantee’ they had been sold with was costing them too much money.) Indeed, there were any number of artifacts which gave me pause to think that I too had something similar, something better, or something missing from the display that could be offered to the Galt.

Beyond the association with particular artifacts, I think I and others become much better educated about the sorts of items museums actually collect when we see an exhibit such as this one. Most of us make the mistake of preserving the unusual – the commemorative coin, the souvenir, etc. – rather than the every day, common place items that are in fact the representative artifacts that museums require. Seeing this eclectic collection of everyday items, and feeling the strong emotional response such familiar objects trigger, educates potential donors about what they could be passing onto the Galt. This is especially timely given current demographics and that many of my generation are dealing with elder care and the disposition of estates. The range of items included in this exhibit – from a widower’s hooked rug of the ‘big bang’ (a nice example of both eccentricity and the concretization of abstract theory held in a particular age) to a ‘compact radio’ the size of trunk to first nation artifacts – was unusually helpful in demonstrating the scope of museum collections.

Further, as a celebration of the breadth and depth of the Galt Collection, one cannot help but feel a certain level of pride in and appreciation of -- and therefore the desire to contribute to -- that collection.

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, the display served to highlight the purpose of collections and museums such as the Galt. A local exhibit of local history that teaches us all that this stuff matters. That there is indeed a personal connection to local history for all of us at some level, even if we originally came from and have roots somewhere else. This is what museums are about.

The extremely simple (I mean conceptually – I’m sure it was an immense effort to organize) design of this exhibit is exemplary – there is no museum that could not adopt this particular democratic and populist approach to mounting a display from their own collections. That I have never seen or heard of anything similar elsewhere suggests to me that the collections team at the Galt has hit on an extremely useful, applicable, and transferable innovation which others would be well advised to adopt.

So, go forth to your local museum and suggest that they attempt a similar exhibit -- and be sure to volunteer as one of those to pour through their hidden collection rooms to make your own selection for the display.

Future of Independent Book Stores

2010-05-23T10:45:00.002-06:00

My vision of the independent bookstore of the future is one with an Espresso Machine, a coffee bar, a flat screen monitor flashing random 30 second shots of coverart/coverblurbs from the available Espresso catalog, and a set of bookshelves filled with 'staff picks' off the Espresso machine. Maybe a couple of computer stations fixed to a site like GoodReads. The customer comes in, orders a latte, and as they wait, talking to their friends, they can watch the screen flashing unexpected covers or browse the shelves to find books that will NEVER show up in Chapters/Borders/Barnes&Noble. Since every book on the shelf is by definition something the store/staff thought worth the $15-30 Espresso printing cost to display, you only see books the people behind the coffee bar know and are prepared to discuss with you.

If a title or cover intrigues you and you buy the book, the Espresso Book Machine automatically prints off another to replace it as they scan the barcode in at the till, and the space is filled ten minutes later. The store never has to stock more than a single copy of any book, but unlike on-line shopping, you can actually pick up the book and leaf through it to make a more informed decision. (And the display of actual books encourages browsing among the latte drinkers in a way that an online page may not.)

And when customers come in and ask for a book that isn't on the shelves, it's ready for them at the same time as their latte -- and the staff ask the customer about the book, and sometimes, if it sounds like it might be interesting, they'll decide to print off a second copy to put on the "customer recommendations' shelf.

Really hot titles might justify a second copy behind the first on the shelf in case the latte bar gets busy; and the presence of a second copy becomes an obvious physical sign that this book is a best seller (at least locally). Titles that start to move more slowly are replaced with a photocopy of the cover -- want to look at it, we'll print off a copy for you with no obligation, because we're pretty sure the book is popular enough that we can sell it eventually. But if nobody ever asks for it, the photocopy is retired at essentially no cost to the store.

Once every six months they have a half-price sale to get rid of the books that never sold even that first display copy; or a dutch auction where the price is reduced a little bit further each day until it finally sells. I could see that working pretty well to clear out unwanted books. At some point, following the big half price sale, would be 'Refresh the Shelves Day" or whatever it would be called, a sort of Grand Re-Opening, as essentially all new titles are rolled out --- at the very least, 'refresh the shelves day' would probably move a lot of extra lattes, as people come in to see what's new!

No more going from bookstore to bookstore to find a copy of a book you need tonight for tomorrow's class or book club meeting or just because you really need book three in the series NOW-- it's always in the store you entered because every book is. No waiting for three days for shipping from Online venues.

And writer events -- readings, signings, panels, would go without saying. Listen to the reading, then decide if you'd like the book -- if you did, they can print off a copy for the author to sign before you've made it to the head of the line up at the signing table.

It's not just that this approach has the advantages of Print On Demand (no shipping or warehousing costs, very little wastage/remaindering; books remain in print much longer; and can service smaller niche markets than legacy publishers) but that it promotes community and communication. Since the books displayed reflect staff and customer tastes, one could anticipate each locale developing its own bestsellers, its own underground hits and guilty reads; the customer base would slowly evolve until the coffee shop bookstore becomes the hang out for particular genres or authors, etc. You'd know when you walked in that -- unlike Starbucks next door -- everyone who came here not only could read, but chose to buy their coffee there because they wanted to talk books, at least some of the time. It would be one place where "read any good books lately" wouldn't just be a pick up line.

The Story of My Life

2010-05-21T11:02:00.004-06:00

Author Casey Wolf recently asked the question, what would be the title of your autobiography. (She suggested hers would be "Sometimes a Vague Notion", which I rather liked.)

So I asked my wife what she would title my biography, and she suggested:

"Never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down"

which is, admittedly, my family motto, although it sounds a lot better in the Latin.

But I'm thinking the subtitle here would have to be "The Story of a Sedentary Life" and that is the sort of title that might not make the best-seller list.

Her alternative for me was likewise unhelpful:

"Drifting: So Far, So Good"

Although that does accurately describe my general approach to life, it might mislead readers into thinking I was a hobo, which would likely be more adventuresome than my actual biography.

So upon reflection, I have to go with:

"Still Thinking About it"

but again, for commercial reasons, I thought I should drop the subtitle:
"A Life of Procrastination"

But then Quebec author Jean-Louis Trudel argued:

I don't know... IIRC, Proust was one of the first to use the word "procrastination" in French, and _Remembrance of Things Past_ is a masterpiece of procrastination, showing how a writer can procrastinate in the course of writing about a writer who
procrastinates until he finds out he's going to write about procrastination.

It worked fairly well for Proust, though he died before he could finish it all, proving that he was a true procrastinator and turning his masterpiece into a work of performance art. Or perhaps a Totalkunstwerk.

I am, however, no Proust. So I spent quite a long time debating and wondering what the perfect title would be, right up until I went to post this on my blog. Then of course it came to me: I had to call my autobiography, "I'm Not Boring You, Am I?" Pretty much sums up all aspects of my life as an academic, an essayist, and especially as a parent....

What Type Are You?

2010-05-19T21:29:00.004-06:00

Casey Wolf drew my attention to the website that asks the question, "What type are you?". It is an amusing bit of pop-psychology and well worth 10 minutes of your time. I was particularly pleased that this is a free-standing webpage, not one of those annoying Facebook apps that tells you what character in Avatar you are, or whatever, and then raids your Facebook info to sell to marketers, because you had to allow the app access to everything in order to play. This site, by contrast, seems to have a deeper and more noble purpose.

There's a bit of a punchline involved, so to get the full benefit, you might want to go do it before reading the rest of this post, which includes spoilers.

* * *

I have to say, I thought the sight a brilliant bit of understated comedy — and the commentary on typefaces very informative. The site is obviously intended to be sent to people who think the test is about a different meaning of "type", so the purpose of punchline appears to be to get people to think seriously (albeit in a satirical context) about fonts and their meanings. Whoever developed this page is trying to provoke the audience into asking the question: 'What do different typefaces express?' The typology developed is simplistic, but I nevertheless applaud the serious undercurrent here. Somebody was trying to get a general audience to think about the meaning of fonts when most people are barely conscious that there is a choice to be made.

So, in case you're wondering, I come up Bifur. I am very pleased.

But to expand on the comment I made in passing about book design in yesterday's post, one problem with self-publishing is that authors seldom think of issues such as font choice. Even excellent authors, who take the precaution of having their work edited for their work, and know to get a good cover artist, are still likely to miss details like designing professional looking text. Consequently potential buyers can sense these works are self-published or 'amateur' even though the reader often cannot put their finger on what it is that is giving off that impression.

I concede that I would never have given typeface selection a second thought if I had not happened to be friends with two fellow SF fans in college who grew up to be two of the top Canadian type designers and text experts — one, Thomas Phinney, was until recently a font manager at Adobe; the other, David Vereschagin, is now a professional book designer in Toronto — so I had it kind of beaten into me that this stuff matters. Thanks to them, I tried to pay attention to issues of font selection and layout in my zines, and when I grew up to be a prof, in my course materials. The latter in particular had a significant impact on students and colleagues, who have repeatedly told me that my course outlines, course manuals, powerpoints, and so on "just look more professional" than anybody else's, even though I have -- knowing my limitations -- stuck with the very simplest of designs. But apparently, basic is better than no design at all.

This effect has worn off somewhat in recent years as undergraduates these days are much more visually sophisticated than a generation ago. Having grown up as part of the digital generation, they have always been immersed in a world of fonts (in contrast to my growing up with typewriters -- what a revolution it was when I got an IBM Selectric which allowed one to switch fonts by switching 'golfballs'!) My colleagues constantly complain how less literate today's students are, but they seldom recognize how much more sophisticated they are visually. When Macs first appeared at school, every term paper would come in with a minimum of 27 different fonts on the title page, but today's students never make that particular faux pas. Similarly, most undergrads come in having at least a rudimentary understanding of how to handle text in power point or on a Smartboard. Less so, my aging colleagues.

But the problem remains that universities are very slow to adapt and update their curricula, so although my students get a pretty decent training in a variety of the skills they will require on the job, we still have nothing on design, layout, fonts, and so on -- but these have become vital to anyone (which means everyone!) interested in contributing to the on-going conversation that is the Internet, POD publishing, or etc. We used design daily, but so many of us are limited to the templates provided by others that it limits our ability to participate fully. Most high school grads have the reading and writing skills to present themselves in a reasonably good light, but almost no training in design. It's a bit as if a business executive made a fabulous presentation to the Board or a group of buyers, then ate the salmon entree with his hands at the luncheon. You know? Understanding fonts has become part of social capital -- if you have it, one simply exudes professionalism and is automatically taken more seriously; if you don't, it becomes something others have to get past....

Reading, writing, and publishing as conversation

2010-05-18T22:30:00.001-06:00

My previous post got me thinking about the place of books in the 21st century and it suddenly struck me that the central paradox of our age is that reading is in decline at the precise moment that writing (publishing) is undergoing explosive growth.

It's true that people read less these days...I certainly see that in my undergraduate students compared to when I started teaching here 20 years ago...but the other, largely overlooked, half of that picture is that of those readers who remain, a great many more are also writers. Phrased negatively, it is easy to complain that the only people left reading are the writers; the idea that we are just writing to ourselves seems to be spreading among many of my colleagues. But I think that has it backwards. True, more people are watching TV and playing on the Internet or gaming or whatever than buying books, and even those who still read regularly may be reading less thanks to these other distractions. But more of my undergraduates are also serious about writing. Facebook set that back briefly as the writers' urge for audience found it's outlet in social media, but more and more of my students are dropping out of Facebook and its ilk and starting work on their novels or epic poetry.

Admittedly, that's a good news bad news story: more people fully engaged in literacy -- as both consumer and producer -- is good; more very badly written books being produced is probably less good. The emergence of practical POD self-publishing has made publishing much more democratic and diverse, which is very, very good; open access may also mean no refereeing and often no editing at all, which is often very, very bad.

But I remain optimistic that that will quickly sort itself out. As I've predicted here before, as the number of new, and especially self-published titles proliferates, the role of reviewers and small press editors correspondingly gains in importance in helping readers sort out the pearls from the dross. As readers come to know and trust particular reviewers, editors, and imprints, they will give preference to books (whether paper or digital) that come with their quality guarantee. Indeed, we are already seeing Amazon and YouTube and Goodreads and the like setting up channels/communities to which consumers can subscribe to more efficiently follow such recommendations.

It is all very reminiscent of the pre-megacorporate days of publishing when imprints reflected the tastes and literary values of their editors. When you bought a story edited by John W. Campbell, you knew exactly what you would be getting, even if you had never heard of the author before. Same with, say, the Ace Specials edited by Wollheim and Terry Carr. You didn't have to worry that the author was unknown to you or the cover blurb sounded dubious, it was an Ace Special and so a very safe bet. The editor or the imprint was the guarantor of the product.

This reliance on editors has been lost as the large-scale corporate publishers have allowed marketing departments to dictate editorial policy. As editors have been pushed aside in favour of fixed marketing categories, the neverendingseries, and author name recognition -- all in search of predictable sales in an inherently unpredictable market -- 'safe' titles have overwhelmingly replaced 'good' ones. Legacy publishers often find it difficult to publish cutting edge titles because they cannot afford to stand on the edge, and marketing departments don't know how to market something they can't fit into their pre-existing categories. The result is a retreat into republishing essentially the same book over and over with only slight variations. The trend towards narrowly focusing on a known product in hopes of reliable sales results in a sameness that the industry itself refers to as 'processed cheese'.

[Its as if GM and Chrysler were still producing the same cars today as sold in 1960, as if there had been no advances in automotives in 40 years! Oh wait. They did that and had to be bailed out by governments when consumers refused to buy their products. The publishing industry would do well to take note of this precedent; except, there's no bailout coming for publishers and booksellers....]

So here's a thought: perhaps one reason readership is declining is because the publishers themselves have become so fixated on 'the winning formula' that they have reduced their offerings to overly predictable formulaic crap: after you've read five Honor Harrington novels, you start to feel like you've pretty much read them all, so why bother buying the next one? Why continue reading at all if one's experience is that most books just aren't that good? If all that the legacy publishers are offering readers is the same 40-50 tired series, what other reaction could they expect from the reading public? Maybe the real problem isn't competition from movies, games, and the Internet; maybe the more fundamental issue is that the legacy publishers have become so risk-adverse that they are no longer providing the quality and range of books people want to read.

As small press niche publishers (like Five Rivers) emerge to fill the gaps left by the legacy publishers, I think the legacy publishers increasingly risk being cut out of the conversation.

First, as more and more real readers -- those interested in literature and fresh ideas and approaches, rather than just the latest movie novelization -- begin to turn to particular niche imprints, editors, and reviewers for their reading fix, the impersonal, marketing-driven publishers will begin to lose market share. Of course this won't happen over night and the trend won't be immediately obvious because the legacy publishers will continue to churn out processed cheese, and frankly, there will always be a market for processed cheese. I myself don't mind a slice of processed Cheddar on my burgers, but it's not, you know, to be confused with real Cheddar. Same with books. There will be a market for cheese slices and Dan Brown, but somewhere, someone will be reading Matt Hughes and eating a nice piece of brie.

Second, megacorporate publishing is a one-way street: the publishers produce books and we consume them. That was true for music and TV too, up until MP3 and YouTube, when consumers could suddenly also become producers. Just as the emergence of those new technologies turned consumers into sometimes producers, POD and digital make it possible for many more individuals to enter the print conversation. Yes, that raises the noise to signal ratio at first; but in the long run, I foresee authors and readers forming channels/communities where readers are reading the books by people who've read and are reacting to the books they themselves have written.

That may sound crazy, but there are plenty of historical precedents. I once undertook a study on the Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure, for example, which flourished in the 17-1800s and was exactly that sort of mutual reading and contributing community, covering the full range of literacy from scientific advances to poetry. The expectation was not only that the subscribers would be interested in everything they published, but that the readers would also themselves be regular contributors on a diverse range of subjects.

Or take Bali, for example. It's a culture where everyone is an artist -- everyone is supposed to create at least one work of art in their lifetime to contribute to the temple. Sure, some of the sculpture is better than others, and some people produce more art than others, but everyone appreciates art and craftsmanship and everyone participates. The division between producers and consumers that is so embedded in our capitalist culture that it is literally unthinkable for us not to speak in those terms, doesn't exist there to nearly the same extent.

I would therefore like to argue that the division between readers and writers that has emerged in our culture under conditions of monopoly capitalism is a false dichotomy, and one which cannot persist in the face of new technologies (i.e., the emergence of new, more inherently democratic means of production). Just as we have gotten used to not singing outside of the shower because singing is something that professionals do on the radio, we have become conditioned to thinking that writing is something that a few professionals do for publishers, not something average human beings should attempt.

But that's rubbish. Anyone reading this prepared to argue that Dan Brown is a particularly good writer? That there are not thousands of unpublished works as good or better? Mass appeal does not translate out to literary value in anyway we have ever been able to demonstrate. Big publishers, driven by the need for profit -- and the even more immediate need of servicing their stupidly high debt loads -- have to look for best sellers. They are not, cannot be, interested in whether the book is any good; just in whether it will sell. So a perfectly wonderful novel set in Alberta which might easily become a best seller in Alberta can be of no interest to the legacy publishers because the population of Alberta simply isn't big enough to produce the economies of scale the mega publishers require to make money on a book. Consequently, much excellent Canadian literature goes begging because, unless the megapublishers believe they can sell it to the Americans or the British, they just can't make a Canadian book profitable on that scale. Same goes for genre and niche fiction. But economies of scale should not fool us into thinking that 'bigger' is necessarily 'better'.

So, just as we can't allow ourselves to stop singing just because we can't get into the top ten of American Idol, I don't think we should stop thinking of ourselves as writers, or potential writers, just because we can't break into mass market publishing.

We need a whole new vocabulary here. Just as reading novels is not the same act as reading an instructional manual or a tax form, reading legacy-published novelizations of Avatar or Alice in Wonderland is not the same as reading a novel from Chi Press or the actual novel of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I think legacy publishers will continue churning out Honor Harrington novels and Dan Brown books, but we have to stop thinking of that as reading and instead add it -- along with the Internet, gaming, TV and movies -- to the list of distractions from true reading. Perhaps 'real reading', the true definition of literacy, is what happens when one reads books that are not mass produced processed-cheese but hand-craft works by local or niche artisans.

Initially, I expect to see a great flowering of Canadian literature as more Canadians have the opportunity to self-publish or publish through small POD presses then would ever have had a chance through the bloated legacy publishers. Okay, admittedly -- going to be a lot more weeds. But as we do weed out the crap, we're going to discover a hell of a lot of previously overlooked, ignored, or silenced voices that deserve to be heard.

And I don't expect the weeding-out process to take that long. After picking up a few unedited, badly-written, self-published disasters, readers will stop buying books that haven't been properly edited or vetted. Self-published authors will quickly learn to approach known writers and editors for introductions, the simplest form of vetting. As the pool of Robert Sawyers available to write introductions to Canadian SF novels is rather small, however, and as such authors won't write intros for weak books, the self-published author will have to turn to something else.

One possibility could be the emergence of an army of freelance editors who contract with authors to edit their books. As certain editors become associated with successful books, their name on the backcover becomes a quality guarantee, especially in contrast to books that provide no evidence of having been edited. As the editor's reputation grows, so does the demand for that editor's services and the corresponding ability of the editor to turn down inferior work and to enforce changes the author might otherwise be reluctant to make -- thus further enhancing the editor's ability to improve and guarantee the quality of product, which in turn enhances the editor's reputation. In theory, such editors could wield considerable influence, even within a freelance market.

(Of course, this vision of the freelance editor may be influenced by my intention to become one upon my retirement from academia, so I concede that I may be indulging in pure wishful thinking here.)

More likely, authors will choose to go through small press POD houses that can offer not only editing, but cover art, book design (the least appreciated and understood aspect of publishing, but nonetheless a crucial one) and marketing as well as act as a significant guarantor of quality.

In the longer term, however, I see the emergence of literary communities. As more readers turn writer and write their own books in response to what they are reading, tight knit communities could emerge based around a particular subgenre, regional literature, or otherwise mutually familiar literary cannon. This again has many historical precedents, such as the Amateur Press Associations of the turn of (last) century; or more recently, SF or comic fandoms. (See my essay on the history of fandom or discussion of amateur Press Associations) Both fandom and apas were briefly superceded by the emergence of the Internet, since chat rooms and web pages were cheaper, easier and faster technologies than print; but I think the emergence of POD could lead to a new, more professional and sophisticated print version of these earlier social phenomenon: Not fandom, but prodom; not zines but books. Indeed, the parallels here are intended only as illustrative of the sort of social relations I envisage evolving, and are by no means an exact parallel.

And that is about paper-books. Digital books add entirely new possibilities. It is only a matter of moments until someone figures out how to network ebooks with social media, so that reviews and reader commentary automatically accumulates with your copy of the book, creating whole new dimensions of book club/literary criticism and networking. We already see something of the sort in GoodReads and similar, but that is only scratching the surface of what we are likely to see in the next couple of years....

So what we may be witnessing is the re-emergence of a literate culture similar to that of the educated landed aristocracy, where literacy didn't just mean reading, but also carried the expectation of writing. Instead of readers being passive consumers, I foresee those still engaged with print as a medium using it productively to become themselves part of the conversation. With POD houses and Espresso machines in every Starbucks, there is now no reason why everyone should not have a shot at developing and contributing their talent to the pool of cultural objects available to everyone.

I think Clay Shirky's (Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations.) may be onto something. His central thesis is that Web 2.0 etc has created an environment that allows people to pool their 'cognitive surplus' -- leisure time. Although each of us has only a couple of hours to spare here or there, multiplied by the entire population, this cognitive surplus becomes a vast resource of personhours. Whereas previously our options for putting this time to productive use were limited (the occasional community project or carpentry hobby, but mostly frittered away in front of the TV), the Internet makes massive undertakings such as Wikipedia possible. For all its weaknesses, Wikipedia is a vast cultural resource which is growing and improving by the second. It is a perfect example of what I am talking about: instead of sitting back and waiting for experts to publish an encyclopedia -- with all the advantages of vetting and all the disadvantages of control and restrictions on what is to be considered worthwhile knowledge -- consumers have themselves become contributors and editors. They have become part of the conversation.

It does not take a great deal of extrapolation to suggest that the same sort of ongoing dialog, the same contentious arguing and vetting and occasional vandalism and correction that ultimately results in fairly reliable entries on Wikipedia can create a conversation that results in the publication of an equally vast and quality body of literature.

The Future of the E-Book

2010-05-18T22:16:00.002-06:00

Interesting column at "The Idea Logical Blog" trying to get a handle on the upcoming issues for publishing arising out of the digital revolution. The blog raises 15 issues; the commentary by readers immediately adds more. (Thanks to M. D. Benoit for pointing column out.)

I'd love to be a fly on the wall at either the Digital Book World conference or the Tools of Change Conference mentioned in the blog; I've wanted to attend/present at the more academic Future of the Book conferences but the conference sites have mostly been overseas and too expensive for me to get to. But no question we live in exciting times, even though I strongly believe that repeated announcements of the imminent demise of the paper-based book are premature -- you and I will be reading paper books for a long time to come.

What may be under imminent threat is the current publishing model. (I almost wrote "old publishing model" but the truth is the current model of giant monopolistic corporate publishers is relatively recent -- we may in fact be moving towards something that looks a lot more like the good old days of multiple small, editor-based publishing houses of fifty years ago.) The giant legacy publishers may have to rethink how they do business if they wish to survive, but the book itself is just fine.

Writers Retreat

2010-05-06T21:18:00.004-06:00

Well, daily postings of words written didn't work out, partly because I did not have reliable access to Internet, partly because it was difficult to generate reliable word counts. The first couple of days I wrote only three to five hundred words of final copy, because I kept having false start after false start, so spent a lot of time rewriting the same scene or otherwise spinning my wheels. This is a fairly common pattern in my writing, where it takes several days immersed in the task to get any traction. By the third and fourth days I was getting a bit more written, but I was also throwing out more of what I had written up to then. I would produce a chunk of something, kind of like it, but realize that logically it could not come here -- the protagonist had to know X before Y made sense, or that if I went with A in this scene, I would have to abandon B in that one. And so on. Slowly, slowly, it started coming together. I started having 1500 word days (my minimum target) and more importantly, some of the pieces started to fit together; some of the scenes I had thrown out I could bring back, though this time it was that character saying X rather than the protagonist. And so on. In the end I came away with three more or less finished chapters, or about 15,000 words. That averages out to about 1500 words a day which is what I set as a minimum (the level one has to maintain to successfully complete NaNoWriMo). I had hoped for more, of course, but I often have unrealistic expectations and the key here is that I managed to cover all the scenes I had written in my head; that is, what I have written down has once again caught up with what I had worked out.

Not that what came out on the page what as all like what I thought it was going to be. I find the writing process fascinating. My characters often refuse to speak dialog I hand them, and say something completely different. I used to think that was a metaphoric kind of thing when authors would say that, but now that it happens to me on a regular basis, I totally get it. (Not all authors subscribe to this view of course: I recall the late Phyllis Gotlieb saying in effect that her characters did damn well what they were told and that was that.) But I am largely writing this novel freefall. I have only the vaguest outline, and just throw my characters into one situation after another and then sit back to see what happens. So, this can be an awful lot of fun, because my characters keep doing and saying things that take me totally by surprise. The most amazing to me is how characters discover clues and reinterpret events I've already written to solve mysteries I hadn't actually known I had written into the book. Some tossed off line I just had someone say because it seemed like a funny bit of repartee turns out 60 pages later to be a vital clue to what's really going on. And even more astounding, my characters seem to be undergoing development, and have motivation and characteristic speech patterns I hadn't actually thought about consciously. So that part's pretty cool! Hopefully the same excitement I feel writing this stuff will be there for the eventual reader. (Well, I am talking first draft here -- obviously drafts two through seven will more consciously refine all of that so that it does work for external audiences.)

On the other hand, the down side of not knowing precisely where I'm going is that I get lost a lot. I write something for this character, and that character responds, and the next thing I know is that the conversation has written me into a corner from which there is no escape. So I often have to back track, throw scenes that don't make sense out, or at least put them aside until later when I may be able to salvage some of the dialog or action. Other times I have to stop and realize the characters are acting on a scene I cut two months ago and that they do not in fact know any of what they just said. Or that it wasn't this character that figured X out, it was this other guy. And so on. So exciting, but highly inefficient.

But that is the nature of this particular novel. Others novels I have in my head have much more developed outlines and often very much more developed scenes -- I've had one novel in my head since Grade 9, and I know exactly what happens and why -- but those are for another time. This novel was my practice book to see if I could (a) finish a novel (in contrast to all the previous 1 chapter false starts), (b) manage the basics of plot, dialog, action, character, and (c) enjoy the process in spite of the frustration that comes when things don't flow. This story had an okay general outline and a couple of vaguely developed scenes here and there -- just enough to give me a general direction and tone -- but not enough invested in it that my emotional investment in it working out would lead to paralysis if it didn't work out entirely as I imagined. I know I am not yet a competent enough writer to pull off my two or three more 'literary' novels; and I have too much invested in my two deeply developed novels to try to commit them to paper before I am ready. So I chose the simplest storyline with the most straight forward characters and just went for it.

And I am enjoying the process more than I ever thought possible. And so far at least, I am pretty happy with what I have written.

Social Responsibility

2010-04-23T21:31:00.004-06:00

Several years ago, Mary put a fair bit of effort into founding the Social Responsibility Division within the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada. Frankly, I had been surprised that such a thing hadn't already existed, but the truth is that business ethics has always been a relatively minor academic interest until the series of scandals that followed de-regulation under Reagan, such as the Enron debacle. Of course, with the recent near collapse of the banking and insurance industries, headlines about auto maker bailouts, and so on, the need for greater emphasis on social responsibility has become pretty obvious. Anyway, a number of colleagues told Mary she was foolish to devote so much time and energy to what's called 'service' in academia -- that is, spending time organizing conference streams and advocating for social responsibility to be recognized as a key specialization within the discipline -- when what counts for tenure is teaching and above all, research. But Mary was able to produce more quality research than almost anyone I know, retain her reputation as a top teacher, and still found and chair the new division. Sometimes, when you believe in something as strongly as Mary does, you just have to do it, whether there is any career payoff or not.

So, it was nice to learn that others recognize her contribution to the field: she's just found out that she is going to get a Service Award from the Social Responsibility Division of the ASAC at this year's conference. Almost restores my faith in academia.

Writer's Retreat: Day 0

2010-04-23T20:32:00.007-06:00

My wife, bless her, has sent me away on my annual writer's retreat. I am approximately 90,000 words into my novel, and figure I have about 60,000 to go, so I won't likely finish this trip, but I would very much like to take a significant bite out of that remainder -- I'm hoping if I get close enough to the end, I can keep nibbling away at it even after the retreat and actually finish this year. What the retreat gives me is the opportunity to intensely re-immerse myself in the material again, get some momentum, and hopefully start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. So I'd like to set myself a quota of about 1500 words a day minimum (i.e., before I can go play) and am hoping that I can crank it up much higher than that -- say, 4000 words a day, if I can really get inspired. So, just as I did for NaNoWriMo, I'm going to post my word count here each day as a motivational tool.

Most of today went to travel: took the Canadaline to the airport, waited for my flight, flew to LA, took two hours to get to the hotel... by the time I dealt with some leftover issues from work via email, it was almost time for bed. So I wasn't expecting to get anything done today beyond some tentative outlining. I am a bit worried that I could stall out immediately, because of course I had stopped at a point where I was having a lot of trouble with the next couple of scenes. They are not working and I'm not quite sure why. So since they are not jelling in my head, I'm terrified when I sit down to write tomorrow, nothing is going to come out. Hopefully the NaNoWriMo philosophy will once again assert itself and I'll just plow forward, damn the torpedoes of internal critics, and something will fall out.

In the meantime, the itinerary calls for a good night sleep tonight. (Feels a bit like the night before an exam, but also like Christmas eve; I'm pretty excited!

Inauthentic Western Food

2010-04-23T18:38:00.005-06:00

I'm off to a writer's retreat out of LA this week, but stopped off in Vancouver to visit with my long-time friend and now brother-in-law, Philip. We spent a wonderful day catching up and sharing news from our respective disciplines. Philip is teaching an IB course on "The Theory of Knowledge", which is the sort of course you wish had been available back when you were in high school. Philip is primarily a physics teacher -- indeed, just won the 2010 Canadian Association of Physicists' Award for Excellence in Teaching High School/CEGEP Physics for British Columbia --but is clearly relishing the opportunity of teaching such a wide-open, 'big ideas' course to students at the exact age when the 'big idea' can really capture their imagination. So discussing issues from his course ("to what extent should one rely on experts? Does it differ between disciplines? How do you know who is an expert? ) was a great discussion starter, and inevitably ended with us watching TED videos late into the night. Good times!

But one of the more interesting bits was trying to decide where to eat. Philip suggested going out for some inauthentic Western food, so naturally, I said, "Huh?"

"Remember how when we were growing up in Edmonton and we'd go out for 'Chinese food' at the Bamboo Palace, but it was all pineapple chicken balls and beef and broccoli and wasn't really like authentic Chinese food at all?"

"But I liked the Bamboo Place," I complained.

"Just so! It was often really good food, but I'm just saying it wasn't Chinese food. If someone from China ate there, they wouldn't recognize it as Chinese food at all."

"But I like Americanized Chinese food. 'Chinese influenced' cuisine, if you insist. When you and the others tried to drag me away to what you called 'authentic' Chinese food, it was usually awful. Dreadful! Chicken feet for example. They just hand you this chicken food. And I'm telling you, there is nothing you can eat on that thing. They might as well hand you a stick."

"Well, I'm not a fan of chicken feet myself, actually. But you're missing my point. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with Americanized Chinese dishes, or that you should prefer authentic Chinese dishes just because they are authentic. On the contrary, my argument is that they are completely separate cuisines, with just perhaps some vague historical influences.

"Okay," I allow, following his argument, but increasingly suspicious he's going to try to get me to eat Dim Sum.

(The last time I had Dim Sum in Richmond, I almost starved. The servers took one look at me, and didn't even bother wheeling 3/4 of the carts past our table. "What's that one?" I'd shout as the cart shot past. "You not like that one!" the waiter would explain. "I might!" I would argue, game to try anything. And then the waiter would wheel the cart over resignedly, lift the lid, and I would say, "Or maybe not!" or "Oh my god, what is that?" And the waiter would wave off the next 8 carts. "Here, I'll ask the kitchen if they have any steam rice for you." Enough said.)

"So, now imagine that you're growing up in Hong Kong", Philip continued, "and for an occasional treat, you go out for Western food. Only, it's about as authentically Western as the Bamboo Place is Chinese. What they call Spaghetti Bolognese and what you might have very little overlap, except that there are noodles in there somewhere. Or 'borsch' is a red soup, but nothing a Russian or even a Canadian Ukrainian would recognize as borsch. It's still often very good soup, but it's not exactly the Western item its named for."

"Sino-Western food. Interesting concept..."

"So then when you moved to Richmond, you sometimes still want a Western restaurant, but you want the inauthentic Western food you had in Hong Kong, not the real stuff that's just, well, way too Western for your tastes. So there are dozens of restaurants in Richmond catering to that market. And they are often very good, but...different."

So we go to the Kingspark Steak House Restaurant and have...a completely fabulous meal. I would recommend the place to anyone -- though we were the only non-Asians in the place. (As Philip pointed out, there always at least a few whites in the Chinese restaurants, because many Vancouverites have acquired a taste for authentic Chinese food, but if you felt like a steak, why would you go to a Chinese steakhouse for a steak?

Well, I'm here to tell you, you really should! The tenderloin at the Kingspark was excellent; as was the rack of lamb. The fact that they have a tenderloin/rack of lamb combo plate is, to my mind, greatly to their credit! And excellent value for the money -- I could not possibly have bought that much food for so little in any other steakhouse I have yet attended. I had my choice of a regular plate or hot plate, and chose the latter -- my meal came out sizzling exactly the way it would at Ruths Chris Steakhouse. They brought us tea in plastic water glasses and kept refilling our glasses exactly as a regular steakhouse serves ice water. Again, a plus in my mind! Other steakhouses could learn a thing or two here!

But there were some differences. Given Philip's earlier example, I chose spaghetti as my side (again, note how much food is included in the meal here!) and it wasn't. No red or cheese sauce. Looking at it, I thought it would just be plain spaghetti noodles, but tasting it, it was definitely flavoured -- I'm guessing Five Spice. It was both oddly different and oddly good. I really liked it. But I see what Philip meant about it not being what someone who thought they were ordering spaghetti would expect. I also ordered the 'cream soup' -- the fact that the description was a bit vague should have been a hint that this was going to be a bit different too. My least favorite element in the meal, it was still pretty decent. I suspect there was some manner of crab or lobster or something of that ilk, so not something I could eat around my highly allergic wife, and maybe not something I would have chosen given a more precise description, but not bad. Philip had the Borsch with his and pronounced it excellent. And a mango custard thing for dessert that had an unfortunate consistency of Junket but a magnificent mango taste, so I gobbled it up appreciatively, childhood Junket associations notwithstanding.

Weirdest part of the meal was the hot drink (also included in the very reasonable price! I think I paid just over $20 for all that food!) but then I went out of my way to order something I didn't recognize. (Well, they had the Chinese jellygrass drinks, but I knew better than to order those.) Horlicks, Philip explained to me, is actually a British drink, exported as a habit to Hong Kong, and then abandoned by the British. At least, I hadn't heard of it before. wikipedia explains it as a British drink consumed before bedtime to promote sleeping, but became a cafe drink in Hong Kong and Pakistan etc. I drank it all appreciatively, but I'm still not sure if I actually like it. It was kind of a cross between Ovaltine (whatever happened to Ovaltine? Didn't everyone of my generation drink it all the time as kids. Especially before bedtime in the winter.) and cream of wheat. Very alien.

So, I would not hesitate to recommend Kingspark to anyon: excellent quality, excellent value, bit of an adventure.

Georgina Runte Eulogy and Funeral

2010-04-09T23:46:00.005-06:00

The funeral for my Mom was Tuesday (April 6) at St Mary's Anglican Church. The Church is small, intimate, and filled with golden light from the yellow windows that frame the half dozen stain glass pieces. About 20 people showed up, which is a lot for someone who had outlived just about all her acquaintances.

Her former boss had long since passed away, but his wife showed up to speak to Mom's working life; a member of the Eastern Star showed up to speak to Mom's long service within that organization (she joined in 1943); a couple of the residents from her condo showed up to speak to her participation in the life of that community; one was also a member of St Mary's congregation and told me how Mom sat in the fourth row each Sunday until she had to stop coming because the timing conflicted with her medications; and how the Minister and the Deacon (both also long passed) had alternated visiting her each week to give her communion. The lady from the Eastern Star described visiting Mom and how Mom had insisted on making and serving everyone tea, long after she had gone completely blind.

My brother Ron spoke with his unique blend of sensitivity and humor, perfectly capturing both my Mom's generosity and her fierce determination to stand up to bullies in two perfectly balanced anecdotes from his childhood. I hadn't heard either story for years, but recognized immediately how perfectly they summed up my Mother's character.

This is what I said:

Yesterday would have been my Mom’s 101st Birthday, so it is impossible to sum up a 100 years in just a few words. And one problem with living to over 100 is that there aren’t many people left who can bear witness to the first half of that life. So I can only speak to the last half of her life, and my memories of her as my mother.

My mom loved the arts and she loved to travel. She had season’s tickets to every symphony and every play in the city; and she read constantly. When her vision gave out, she listened to books on tape. I remember the librarians trying to get a sense of what sort of books she preferred and were confounded when she couldn’t be pinned down and simply wanted more of everything.

She traveled across Canada, across Europe, across China and Japan. When I say “across” Europe or China or Japan, that doesn’t really cover it, because the rule was, starting when I was ten, which means she must already have been in her 50s, we had to climb to the top of every castle, every cathedral, and every monument: the top of St Paul’s in London, the top of the Eiffel tower, the Great Wall of China. Where ever, whatever, she was always game. When my mom was in her 70s she actually fell off a castle in Denmark.

And wherever we went, Mom would seek out the art of that region: an exquisite Swiss clock, a fabulous Flemish vase, a set of Danish glass two decades before it became fashionable in Canada. Of course one of my strongest memories is helping to lug the vase or the clock or the Danish glass all across Europe as we hopped on and off trains, sometimes passing the packages through open windows because the train only stopped for 2 minutes at that station. That could often be quite the challenge, especially with my reputation as the kid who broke everything he touched.

One of my favorite memories was when we were in Denmark one summer having lunch at their version of Zellers when my mom suddenly had a craving for an orange float. She tried to order one without much success, until another customer started translating for us, but he and the man behind the counter were both incredulous at the suggestion of putting ice cream inside a glass of orange pop, so she had to repeat several times with assurances that that’s what was meant; and then watching my mom drink it, and by then I and my brother Douglas had joined her, the counterman and the translator also had to try it... and the punch line is that when we returned to that store on our next visit four or five years later, we discovered that orange floats were a house specialty.

So that was my mom: always game; always rising to meet every challenge; taking from each place she found herself, something beautiful, or meaningful, or significant; and leaving a little bit of herself behind; leaving the Earth and the lives she touched better off for her having been here.

My daughters than each took a brief turn speaking; Tigana talking about her favorite memory of her Grandmother at Christmas Dinner years before; Kasia saying "I love you Grandma" while laying a pink Teddy bear on the table next to Mom's picture (and later into her grave).

After the service, we had tea in the Church basement, as fitting a tribute to Mom as any, tea having long been central to her social life. Mom's favorite niece -- the daughter she never had -- and her husband were there; along with the two of her nephews. And the irrepressible Mrs. V., the woman who half raised me when my Mom had to go back to work full time: she brought my daughters each a doll with hand knitted dresses and regaled us all after the service with her own near death experiences. It was nice meeting her son again after nearly 50 years, as great a joker as I remembered him. And a friend of mine from Edmonton came to be supportive.

Only the minister and the immediate family went to the grave side; we buried my Mom, my brother Douglas, and my Dad Henry all at the same time. A month earlier, I had booked the other two burials for April 6, thinking I'd take care of that matter on the same trip as we came up for Mom's 101st birthday; I'd had no sense then that she would be joining them. Burying all three at once was harder than I thought it would be. I'd thought I'd already dealt with the other losses, and Mom's came at the end of an exceptional life, but it hit me pretty hard. And my kids. Kasia cried out when she realized that they were burying her Grandfather that she had never met. It was a tough moment. The minister asked if I wanted to shovel in a few symbolic shovelfuls but I couldn't do it.

It didn't help that the Minister kept saying my name instead of Doug's or Henry's as she lowered the urns. I can't blame her for getting confused, since she'd only met me a day or two before. She was nice, and it provided a moment of comic relief, albeit in a creepy sort of way. But I'd been nervous about getting everything right throughout the day, even though Mary had kept me organized and relatively sane through the process. I was also grateful for the presence of cousin Mike who kept reassuring me throughout that this was just a family affair and that it was all good. He reminds me a lot of Doug, the way he can reassure and restore common sense with just a few words.

And then we were done. Mary took the kids over to visit her father's grave in the same cemetery while I handled the paper work. Later, Mary and I had supper with Ron and his wife Joan; we determined to see more of each other now that we are the last of the family.

In the end, what gets me through is my wife and kids. I don't know how I could have handled any of this had I still been single. It's not just Mary's organization and support, it's that my kids are so full of life, such an reaffirmation of the life force, the continuance not just of my family but of the meaning of life, that they make it possible to carry on in the face of death. Its hard to explain, exactly, but my Mom and brother carried the memories of who I was for the first half of my life, but the loss of that identity, the absence of any external validation of what I think I remember, is compensated by the potential for new memories to be made with my wife and kids. When I was sitting with my Mom in her final days I kept looking at the photos of my kids on my blog taken at the San Dieago zoo. The life, the exburence that comes through in those four photos got me through not just those last days with Mom, but through the funeral as I kept picturing them in my mind. I miss Mom, I miss Doug, but...life is good.

Georgina Runte (Dodie)

2010-04-01T10:20:00.004-06:00

The nursing home phoned me late Monday morning to say that my mother had likely had a stroke on the weekend: her speech was slurred, her tendency to lean to one side was more pronounced, and her oxygen levels had been low. The initial call was framed as an update: they knew we were already planning to come up the following week for Mom’s birthday, and thought that would be fine; but needed to discuss some treatment options in the interim. Mom’s oxygen levels were back up, but she was experiencing difficulty eating and drinking. Was I in favor of increasing her fluid levels?

The second call was more urgent; she had lost the ability to swallow. By 4:30 I was on a plane to Edmonton to be with her.

She was unconscious when I arrived, but seemed to derive some comfort from my being there and holding her hand. I sat with her through the evening and tried to get a sense from the staff what her condition was, but no one was able to be definitive. One staff member I know and trust told me she was growing weaker by the hour; another, more medically qualified, member said that Mom seemed to have stabilized and was resting comfortably, and that it would certainly be safe for me to go home to sleep for a few hours. A third said she could offer no such guarantees.

In the end, I judged mom to be stable and comfortable, and with the nurse’s promise that I would be called if mom suddenly started to get worse, I risked going to Mom’s condo to sleep. I might as well have stayed as I was unable to sleep: restless, I paced and read and distracted myself as best I could, but eventually gave up and returned to the nursing home in the early morning.

I sat with her through the rest of the day, holding and stroking her hand. She would occasionally withdraw her hand briefly: as mentioned in a previous post, if I held her hand too long the blood would stop flowing, so I interpreted this as her hand having fallen asleep, especially as my own hand would sometimes start to have pins and needles after holding in the same position for too long, so I would leave it be for a bit and just talk quietly to her. My impression is that she knew and appreciated my presence, but was too busy breathing to have much energy to respond. The staff kept reassuring me that hearing was the last sense to go and that Mom knew I was there. (I had just read some recent research where the researchers were able to communicate with a man in a vegetative state by asking him to imagine two different types of scenes -- one for 'yes', the other for 'no'-- while in a MRI machine, so I am inclined to believe that they were right about my mom.) So I alternated between stroking her hand when I ran out of things to say (it's amazingly difficult to keep talking to someone who is not responding), and talking when I judged her hand was getting tired. But I made sure she knew I was there with her.

At about 2AM, I lay down for an hour's break. Mom was calm and her breathing had been steady if labored for several hours so I judged it a good time to break; the nurse had assured me Mom was not in pain because she was laying quietly, whereas those in pain tend to wave their arms around and appear agitated. Mom's movements were few and slow. 45 minutes later, I heard Mom say something, halfway between a moan and a call, and woke up. Then I realized I must have dreamt that because the 'quiet room' was well down the hall from her room and it would not have been possible for me to have heard her. So I turned over to go back to sleep when the nurse knocked on the door and told me my mom had gone. I said, "Oh so that was her I heard?" and she gave me this really odd expression and said, "No, it was just my time to check on her. [Name] had just checked on her a minute before, and your mom was fine then; but I didn't know that she had gone in already, so I went again just now, and she was gone. But we didn't hear anything. She just went quietly in her sleep."

I had been sorry I hadn't been with her, but the nurse told me, "Its often that way. The family will sit all day, but when they leave to go to the washroom, the patient will go in that moment. We think that they know and wait to spare the family that last moment. Its either that, of they wait until everyone is there. We had a woman last month, the whole family was there and they were waiting for hours, but when the last grandson arrived, and they all started singing a hymn, she left. It happens like that a lot too. Either way."

So my Mom passed away about 2:45 March 31, 2010. She would have been 101 April 5.

Part of me had kind of hoped she would make her birthday, but I know that's silly: there is no prize for crossing a particular finish line. Indeed the Chaplin had told me earlier in the day that vast majority went just before their birthdays. "You tell them that they are going to turn a hundred and they say, 'No, no I don't think I want to be a hundred', and they'll go a day or two before. So we don't ever mention their precise age unless they specifically ask..."

I was surprised to learn there were four residents older than my mom, two of whom had lived at home up until and only arrived in the nursing home after their 101 birthday. So we are definitely living longer. He related the story of one lady who on her hundredth birthday had announced to her family that she was the oldest person in the building, and when he had looked away not to disagree with her, she had noticed and demanded to be taken to someone older. so he had wheeled her to a resident who was 102 and they had had a long if shouted conversation (both being quite deaf).

A lot of staff told me stories like that over the two days I was sitting there. Each one made a point, on their own and spontaneously to see Mom and to tell me a story about her. Two of them were fighting back their own tears. It was very clear to me that they sincerely cared for my mom. Their support was very important to me, and I know that they had always taken very good care of my mom. I want to say here that I have always appreciated the humor, warmth, patience and above all, the commitment to the care of my mom and the other elderly in that home (The Dr. Gerald Zetter Care Center). Doug had spent months researching nursing homes before permitting himself to place her in one, and I had come up and toured the three 'finalists' with him, and in the end there had been no question in my mind that this was the best one. There was something about the culture of the place that was obvious even on my short visits that made it the place we wanted her to be. Then Doug had gone there to feed mom supper every day for two years, so he had really gotten to know and trust the staff before he passed away. I could only visit for a weekend once a month or so in the two years since, but I got the same impression of the staff, partly because they treated me as they had Doug, and partly because I was able to observe them with other residents when they didn't even know I was watching, and they were all unfailingly great. I know I could not do the job they do.

I miss my Mom, and Doug, a lot.

Stewart Lemoine's Evelyn Strange

2010-03-14T22:17:00.003-06:00

Mary and I were in Calgary last night and had the opportunity to attend the 'preview' opening of Stewart Lemoine's latest play, Evelyn Strange at the Vertigo Theatre and WOW! were we impressed. The best play we've seen in a couple of years. Absolutely hilarious and intriguing. Great writing and excellent performances and direction, nice stage design -- really, a flawlessly mounted production. I guessed who done it half way through (though that wasn't really the core mystery) but the dialog was absolutely brilliant, and the handling of the reveal the best of any play of this sort. Highly recommend this production to anyone in Calgary; the rest of you should demand this play be brought to your local theater.

Earlier in the day we took the kids to YStage presentation of Axis Theatre Company's King Arthur's Kitchen, the best kids' production we've seen in five years. Excellent clowning to get across the basic Arthur storyline, with lots of frantic running around and silliness.

So that's two for two from Vertigo, so definitely going to start making a point of going -- especially when they mount both the kid and adult play the same weekend so we can kill two birds with one commute.

It's funny, because Mary and I had been discussing at length what characteristics a good children's play has to have, and this one had 2 out of the 3 elements perfectly done - in contrast to a string of disappointing offerings from Storybook Theatre.

Next month is ScriptFrenzy and if I weren't already committed to finishing my novel (and editing three books for Five Rivers) in that timeframe, I'd give a children's play a go. (My play is entitled "The Princess and the Zombies" and has Kasia as the target audience and Tigana as the lead actor, so I'm pretty sure I know what I'm doing! But that will have to wait until next year.

Video clips

2010-03-10T10:02:00.003-07:00

You've undoutably seen this Rube Goldberg Machine music video already (6 million views) but pretty entertaining!

I hadn't come across Pigeon Impossible before, but anxiously await other Walter Beckett cartoons.

(Both pointed out to me by Matt Baum -- Thanks!)

Future of Publishing

2010-03-10T06:22:00.000-07:00

Publishing: The Revolutionary Future by Jason Epstein provides an interesting take on cultural implications of digital publishing in current issue of New York Review of Books.

San Deigo Zoo Wild Animal Park

2010-03-09T09:59:00.005-07:00

So this was pretty cool: the Lorikeet Landing exhibit at the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park.

Tigana reacts to Lorikeet landing on her.

Kasia with Lorikeets

I love how my kids are enthusiastic about things others find less exciting (e.g., man behind Tigana, who is clearly less pleased with the birds mobbing people).

We were in San Diego over Reading Week in Feb.

Gift Registry

2010-03-07T13:09:00.001-07:00

Okay, going through my computer throwing out old files, came across this notice of a great lamp. I would sooo buy this!

Mary Runte -- Associate Professor

2010-03-04T22:51:00.003-07:00

So my wife, Mary Runté received Tenure and promotion to Associate Professor today. The committee met, I am reliably informed, for about six minutes -- three of those spent introducing the External, and going through the paperwork, so not a lot of debate over whether she had made the bar for either tenure or Associate. The comments from all the external reviewers were basically rave reviews without a single reservation (something almost unheard of!), and the fast turn around in the meeting was another form of validation, so Mary's feeling pretty good about the whole thing. I always knew that she was a slam dunk to get tenure and promotion, even given the occasional nonsense politics that interfere with the process in some departments/faculties, but its always nerve wracking until its official.

Walking the Dog

2010-03-02T23:24:00.005-07:00

Two quick dog stories, sort of.

So I'm out walking the dog the other night, when a flicker out the corner of my eye draws my attention to Orion's Belt. And I am just in time to see the three stars of Orion's Belt peel off to the right and zoom across the sky. And I'm thinking, "That can't be good!" Because I'm pretty sure we have been tracking those three stars in particular for about 5,000 years. Another star gets up and moves, maybe it was a piece of space junk or just a passing plane, not a star at all, so no biggie. Or even if there was an object that we had thought a star but turns out to be an alien observation station, if it decided it was time to leave, well, maybe they were hoping we wouldn't notice and maybe we wouldn't so much. But I can pretty much say that if the aliens running the three stars of Orion's Belt decided it was time to go, and they go off in formation like this, that really can't be good.

Then, of course, I eventually worked out -- say 20 seconds later -- that they haven't moved at all, and that I have been tricked by the 'moving train on the other track illusion' -- that is, Orion's belt has stayed safely stationary, but the two other stars in the background against which I had been tracking their motion turned out to be two planes travelling in parallel have an arc apart. But the illusion was a very powerful and convincing one, right up until the planes moved to far out of the field to maintain the illusion. And for the record, 20 seconds is a very long time when you think you're watching the end of the world....

In a completely unrelated incident, my dog has been driving me crazy, barking in the backyard. Mostly she is a quiet, calm, wonderful dog, but whenever the neighbour behind us lets her dog out into her backyard, Jackie goes berserk trying to break through the fence to kill it. The neighbour's dog is the size of my hand, so no threat to Jackie, but either she doesn't know that (it's a solid fence with no eye holes); or she's seen the dog and mistaken it for a barking rabbit. Whatever the case, Jackie's barking is enough to wake the entire neighbourhood so Mary and I will go out onto the deck and call Jackie in. Jackie rushes back for Mary, but studiously ignores my shouts for her to "come!"

On one recent occasion, I was at the back door when Jackie started up, my shoes were upstairs at the front door, the backyard was under three feet of snow, and it irked me that Jackie would come for Mary and not me, so I might have allowed the tiniest bit of an edge into my voice as I shouted "Jackie!" repeatedly. Louder and angrier, "Jackie! Jackie!, For God Sakes, Jackie!" After about 5 minutes of this, the neighbour had retrieved her dog, Jackie had stopped barking, but was still refusing to acknowledge me, merely sniffing along the fence for the spoor of the hated dograbbit. "Jackie! Jackie!" I continued shouting, in what I might in hindsight now confess to be slightly shrill tones. When a peeved voice a couple of houses down answers, "What? What already?!" And it occurs to be in one illuminated moment that (a) The neighbour two houses down on the other side of the lane is named "Jackie"; and (b) I have not had occasion to introduce her to our new dog, "Jackie".

Oops. So now I am careful to shout "Come! Here girl! Good Doggie!" rather than my dog's name when yelling into the back yard. Or, you know, saying, "Hey, Mary, the dog's barking in the back yard again! You'd better go call her in..."

interview with me at Five Rivers

2010-03-02T23:06:00.002-07:00

Interview with me by Lorina Stephens at Five Rivers Publishing blog today. Mostly about how I expect to fit in at Five Rivers, bit about my writing, and so on.

Tigana on the news again

2010-02-25T09:18:00.005-07:00

Tigana was once again interviewed on local news, this time about a school activity. We don't know what Tigana actually said because she has become so blasé about her media exposure that she forgot to mention to us that she was on TV until after the fact, and while Global News does have the clip online (thus the above photo), the sound was wonky for her piece of the clip. Maybe just as well....

CodeOrgan Review

2010-02-24T11:24:00.002-07:00

Okay, this is an immensely entertaining time waster... Heard about it this morning on Q so tried it out and it is hilariously intriguing. Basically analyzes any website to produce that page's theme music. I know the algorithm is strictly mathematical analysis of number of letters etc, but it somehow seems to come up with music that fits. My desktop page (just a series of job related links etc that I use daily) gives a horribly boring and mechanical tune; my curricular websites gave appropriately lively and intriguing music; Five River Publishing page gave great book theme music, again entirely appropriate to the tone of the place. Great fun. Try it yourself:CodeOrgan

Interview with Casey Wolf

2010-02-09T19:11:00.004-07:00

My interview with SF writer Casey Wolf is up at Strange Horizons today (Feb 9). My title for the piece, "Nice Makes Write", made Casey wince, but otherwise I think it came out okay!

Tigana Santa and Kasia

2009-12-11T22:06:00.005-07:00

The The Impotence of Proofreading

2009-11-13T11:54:00.002-07:00

..." by Taylor Mali is an amusing poetry read via Youtube, worth 3:31 minutes of your life. (Warning some language, may not be suitable for viewing at work.) Brought to my attention by author Simon Rose, via SF Canada.

Anthem for SF Writers

2009-10-07T11:25:00.002-06:00

Mark Shainblum nominates this for science fiction's national anthem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

Pure Speculation

2009-10-07T10:49:00.006-06:00

I attended the Pure Speculation conference in Edmonton on the weekend and was pleasantly surprised by how much it has grown. I was especially pleased with the Friday evening entertainment at Happy Harbour, which included an excellent performance by author GoH and professional singer Edward Willett, and a fascinating talk by Rick Green on Prisoner of Gravity series.

me with author/singer Edward Willett. He's only two years younger than I; so why does he still have hair and look so fit? And that voice! The man definitely has stage presence. (Photo by author Barb Baller-Smith, whose book Druids was released at the convention.)

Me with authors Ann Marston, Edward Willett, Aaron Humphrey, and Nicole Luiken (Humphrey) (Photo Barb Baller-Smith)

Awaiting my turn to speak on one of the panels. (Photo by Ron Sannachan)

Vancouver

2009-09-23T22:34:00.003-06:00

We stayed at the Delta in Richmond, which was being renovated in time for the Games in Feb, and a good thing too. Our room was annoyingly tiny and crowded, a sharp contrast to our last Delta room. But no biggie, we just needed a place to crash.

So, some shopping (Lulu Lemon outlet store—I even bought myself a hoodie and a jacket. I hate to admit it, but the brand really is worthy of the hype. There is almost nothing that my wife or daughter tried on that didn’t look fantastic on them. If they’d had kid sizes, I’d have dressed Kasia in it too.) visits with the Vancouver relatives; a day trip out to White Rock (lovey!); Flying Wedge Pizza; a Vietnamese vegetarian restaurant; White spot burgers; and Mary took her niece clothes shopping, my brother-in-law being a single dad with no sense of style....

Mary and the kids on our day trip to White Rock

Hope, BC.

2009-09-22T23:30:00.001-06:00

We stayed the night at the Lucky Strike Motel. This motel was strongly reminiscent of those I stayed in when as I was a kid, and an important balance for our kids from the four and five star hotels we often end up in traveling for work. (I still remember the first time we had traveled on our own nickel when Tigana was young, and she had folded her four year old arms and contemptuously demanded, “What kind of a dump is this? Where’s the marble? Where are the gold panels? Look, the paint is even chipped here!” And we’d realized that through traveling with us for work, she had become accustomed to a lifestyle that we couldn’t actually sustain. Time to deprogram ‘spoilt kid’ mode!) This time, the kids were fine with the room, especially since we were just spending the night and moving on.

(I made the mandatory jokes about Hope, which while new to the kids, still struck Tigana as pretty lame. And inappropriate, as it later turned out, given that Ryan Jenkins had hung himself in one of Hope’s hotels, his own having run out, about a week later.)

Talking to Strangers

2009-09-22T22:36:00.003-06:00

Like all parents of five year olds, we’ve had the ‘don’t talk to strangers’ talk with Kasia. This has not been entirely successful.

Kasia, left to herself, would hug everyone that came into range. We have, with some difficulty, managed to convince her that she should at least ask her intended victim whether they wished to be hugged before actually hugging them. Since this was similar to the well-established and understood rule that she must never pet a dog without first checking with the owner (lest said dog bite her) she has started asking permission first. The problem is, few people feel they can turn down the request for a hug from a five year old without appearing completely cold-hearted, so they often say ‘yes’ even though their body language is screaming ‘No!’.

This is particularly problematic with people in the service industries, who may feel they have to indulge the child lest they loose the goodwill of the parents. So we have recently added the rule that Kasia must first ask us, even before asking the intended huggee, so we may judge whether the individual or circumstances appropriate.

The latter criteria is still a bit hard for Kasia to grasp, however: Once given permission to hug a particular person, she believes she has carte blanc to hug them at will, regardless of what they are currently doing. This can be an issue when relatives, for example, are spotted at a job site, or standing on the edge of a panoramic cliff, or otherwise engaged in some demanding activity and not expecting 22 kgs of child to come hurtling at their knees.

So. We are the first aboard our cruise ship and a nice looking woman is manning the reservations desk, so Kasia asks if she may hug the woman. Mary agrees that it would be okay to ask, because for the moment we are the only ones there, and the woman appears approachable. So Kasia asks, the woman agrees, and the hug proceeds to everyone’s apparent satisfaction.

The woman introduces herself as Maya*, and tells us where she will be working later that evening, and expresses the hope that she will see us then and possibly get another hug. All is good until later that day when Kasia, contrary to the rules, rushes over and hugs another woman without checking with us first. Now, this was not a time or place I would have given Kasia the go ahead, because the waitress in question was clearly very busy – if anything, looking a little tired and harassed – and being tackled at the knees is probably the last thing she needed. But in the event, the waitress burst into a huge grin and hugged Kasia enthusiastically right back. And again later, Kasia spontaneously hugged another waitress without checking with us first. I was about to chastise her for this violation of the rules when I saw Kasia’s surprised distress when the assaulted waitress asked, “What’s your name, sweetie?” I realized that faced with three waitresses of the same nationality, with similar hairdos, and wearing identical uniforms, Kasia had confused the women and honestly thought she’d been given prior permission to hug. It wasn’t until she’d talked to them all a bit more that she was able to keep clear who was which.

And talk with her they did. One of the three, Aba*, was so smitten with Kasia and her hugs that the next day she brought over her roommate to meet Kasia so that the roommate could get a hug. On another occasion, Aba saw us in a restaurant she didn’t work in, but nevertheless came in for her hug. Our waitress of the hour, seeing Aba making a fuss over Kasia, asked if she too could get a hug, and pulled out pictures of her seven year-old daughter. Pretty soon, it seemed as if every crewmember on the ship had heard of Kasia and were asking her if they could get a hug.

This was not, I hasten to clarify, about the ship’s crew humoring a spoilt child’s need for attention. On the contrary, it became increasingly clear that many of the crew desperately needed a good hug. The crew generally sign 10-month contracts, and having been away from their own young families for too long, latched onto Kasia as onto a lifeline. Out came baby pictures, cellphone photos and 30-second videos of sons and daughters, and stories of what it was like being away from family for so long. One waiter talked about how he had left when his wife was pregnant and now had an eight month old he had yet to meet; this one had a seven-year-old who followed her compulsively for the two months she was at home, even into the shower; this one had a ten month old who’d be a toddler by the time she got home; and so on. Heart-breaking war stories, familiar enough for those in the armed forces, but these workers don’t even have the satisfaction of knowing they are making the world safe for Democracy.

Other cruisers, we discovered, often made facile comments such as, “I can hardly stand to be away from my children for the week of the cruise, I couldn’t possibly be away from them for 10 months!”, as if these workers had the choice, or that being away for 10 months out of the year, every year, for the child’s entire childhood doesn’t fundamentally change family dynamics in ways that a week’s absence can’t begin to approximate. It must gall these workers that such sacrifices are demanded of them so that they might serve cruiser’s another round of iced drinks.

Not that I don’t have my own middle class guilt here. When Aba came over to the table where Tigana and I were sitting to say hello and asked where Kasia was, I mumbled something about Kasia being off with her mom on ‘an activity’. “Yeah,” Tigana pipes up, “Mom’s taken Kasia to the spa for a mother-daughter massage session.”

“She’s five, and she’s getting a massage?!”

“She loves massages!” Tigana again volunteers, though this is based entirely on the five-minute demo the spa staff performed on Kasia as part of first day orientation on board ship. (Kasia’s cuteness factor gets her a lot of freebies.) But I could see by Aba’s expression that she was trying to comprehend what it must be like to be so rich that one could afford routine massages for one’s five year-old.

In another conversation, Aba said something about our work being hard too, and Mary said, “It’s not bad really, we only work about 6 hours a week.” Now, I’m pretty sure she meant to say “60 hours a week”, which would be pretty typical for a prof, and considerably less than the 90 expected of crew; or maybe she meant to say that this term she only taught 6 hours a week, and could work out of our home for the other 54 hours, which made sense in context of explaining why ‘rich’ folks like us didn’t have a nanny; but either way, Aba’s expression suggested she was picturing a lifestyle where the driveways are paved with gold....

(On the other hand, we had super next to a businessman and his wife who probably had glided his driveway – they mentioned in passing how their new chihuahua had ruined their $40,000 carpet and how he had jetted down to Argentina for some duck hunting the previous weekend...I deeply resented the extravagance of this glad-handing wastrel, but if he was typical of cruisers, I can’t imagine how galling having to wait on this idiot would be – or how I and my family look any different to the crew serving us....)

But I digress. Aba started showing up with little origami pieces for Kasia. First was a crane, then a kangaroo, folded by her fellow crewmember, Percy*. Kasia, with five year old’s lack of manners, asked for a puppy and a horse, next, which Percy quickly produced, along with a host of others: scorpions, crabs, and so on, all quite marvelous.

And then, to my consternation, Aba showed up with an expensive doll for Kasia, which sang a superb rendition of “You can count on me” when hugged. Kasia was instantly crazy about the doll, but I worried that Aba should not be spending her money on my already spoilt children. But Aba told Mary that although the crew see a new shipload of children every week, Kasia had affected Aba far more than any other child she had encountered. Hopefully, we can stay in touch, and Kasia can send Aba’s child something too...

*[Names changed to protect their privacy.]

Kelowna, BC

2009-09-22T22:33:00.003-06:00

Then on to Kelowna. We stayed at the Delta and got a fantastic room, complete with gigantic balcony. Super at Hector's Casa. Breakfast on the balcony. Lunch at great brunch place whose name I've forgotten. And in between paddle boats round the lake, shopping at their Lulu Lemon outlet.

We quite liked Kelowna. Even upon such a cursory examination, it seemed a very artsy community, lots of interesting restaurants, art gallery, bookstore, and relaxed ambiance. And nice views.

I loved the self-satire of this beach sculpture, which suggests a nice artsy orientation on the part of the town fathers.

Revelstoke

2009-09-22T22:32:00.002-06:00

We stopped for lunch in Revelstoke at the Modern Bakeshop and Cafe and were surprised by another really great meal! You never know what you’re going to get when you stop in smaller towns, because the captive market often means restaurants survive that could not last against city competition; but on the other hand, you often get independents that really represent home cooking at it’s best. The Modern was an example of the latter, only with a hippie twist that suited us very well indeed. Vegetarian and glutton-free options weren’t just after thoughts, as they so often in mainstream cafes, but things you’d actually order just because they tasted fantastic. We grabbed a bunch of their fruit granola bars and comped on those in the car for the next couple of days. Full four stars for this one.

Maple and Banff

2009-09-22T22:27:00.003-06:00

Our next stop was Banff.

Kasia explains to her Mom the difference between squirrels and chipmunks as they meet this guy at the top of sulphur mountain.

Mary took the kids up the Sulfur mountain cable-car, a mandatory excursion in their view, but one I skipped to work on my novel. (My knees had been bothering me so paying to limp around a mountain top seemed like a bad idea.) The kids reportedly had a great time, though they’ve done this one repeatedly; and I had a wonderful time writing overlooking the valley forest. There is something about basking in the sun, writing, that significantly improves productivity.

Then checking into the Brewster hotel, quick walking tour of the townsite, hitting the usual kid-friendly shops (e.g., COWS ice cream), plus the Banff Tea Shop.

We ate at the Maple restaurant because a $40 voucher came with our hotel room, but it was one of the few disappointments of the trip. The food, while adequate, was overpriced even with the $40 discount; and the service inflexible to the point of being ridiculous: we couldn’t help but overhear the next table being told all the things that couldn’t be done for their toddlers, the substitutions that couldn’t be accommodated, and the allergies that couldn’t be vouched for. So lots of pretensions towards being a high end restaurant, but neither the service nor food preparation to carry it off. Just the prices.

Lipizzaner Stallions, Magicians, Calgary Dining

2009-09-22T22:24:00.006-06:00

Lipizzaner Stallion

Summer vacation started with our taking in Lipizzaner Stallions show in Calgary as a special treat for horse-mad Kasia. In this regard, the show was a bit of a disappointment, as Kasia was clearly bored. Upon reflection, we realized that the finer points of dessage may have been a bit too esoteric for a five year old; or as Mary put it, if you’re of an age where you believe your toy Pegasus can fly and talk, seeing a horse stagger around on it’s hind legs for ten seconds may not seem that impressive.

Lipizzaner Stallion takes a bow

Kasia much preferred the Arabian Nights show we’d seen in Florida the previous summer, in which equally impressive animals were combined with a princess/fairy storyline and a good deal more racing around with acrobats on horseback. So, no reflection on the good work of the Lipizzaner Stallions in keeping alive an important European tradition, but Kasia turned out to be the wrong target audience.

Kasia yawns

The day was by no means a loss, however, as we were staying at the Delta Calgary South, a hotel with one of the finer dinning rooms in Calgary. Enroute to the show, we had enjoyed the lavish Sunday brunch. To give just one example of why I love the place: when I got to the station where the chef carves the roast, he asked how much I wanted, and I jokingly indicated a slice twice the size of my plate. Without so much as a blink, the chef folds it in half, and piles it on my plate. It was if I had ordered the largest prime rib dinner available, even though I’d already piled my plate high with the many other fine offerings from the buffet. This was in such sharp contrast to smorgs in Lethbridge – which either don’t have a carvery station, or else provides slices so thin they’re translucent and so small they get lost under a pickled beet – that I almost felt guilty about the two salmon fillets I had for seconds.
Gluttony aside, I was incredibly impressed with the chef on duty that Sunday. When my eleven year old ordered something at the pasta bar, he treated her like an adult, discussing the finer points of seasoning and taking her odd request completely seriously. When she came back for seconds, he rushed back because he could see the cook who had relieved him at that station had mistaken her intent and was doing her a normal kid’s pasta. That sort of awareness of what is happening throughout the entire buffet line second to second, and attention to detail even when dealing with a very minor customer, wins my undying loyalty.

If that were not enough, the brunch also features Robert Wong, the province’s top magician circulating table to table. I have seen my share of magicians over the years but nobody comes close to this guy, and nothing tops up close and personal for a magic show. My favorite trick is the simple slight of hand of producing a bunch of grapefruit out of a tiny magican's cup in which it could not possibly fit, right in front of our eyes. I have seen him do this trick each time we go, and each time I test my latest theory of how he does it, and he’s still too fast for me. Its so simple yet elegant!

We always end up talking for awhile after, and he was saying how the recession is killing him. He’d originally retained the hotel gig out of sentimentality as it had been his first break years ago, but he’d long since worked his way up to the business conference circuit and was making a good living as a motivational speaker. But come the recession, ‘magician’ is pretty much the first line in the budget you’re going to cut, right? Who needs motivational speakers when the threat of massive layoffs is pretty much sufficient to motivate everyone to want to shine their bosses shoes? My heart really goes out to anyone in the entertainment business, but I have to admire how Robert was able to reposition himself – he’s developed a whole new line of talks for school visits, a lower paying but steadier market. He’s even had some of his routines published in magician journals, and I must say I could see how they could be really effective in motivating students to stay in school and study maths and science.

Thus, the trip started on a fairly high note, built in part around excellent food. Breakfast the next morning, a regular Monday service, was equally gourmet (so much better than other hotels of the same bracket) and the service again beyond anything we’d been expecting. Soooo friendly and efficient, and again taking our kids completely serious as foodies – no crappy kids meals here.

And that became a theme for the trip that followed: this trip became about the food.

Tigana and Story Time

2009-09-10T14:54:00.004-06:00

Until recently, story time has been very different for Kasia than for Tigana at this age. Tigana loved having books read to her, as does Kasia, but Tigana also insisted on us telling her our own original bedtime stories.

When very young, we told Tigana the standard fairy tales, which would then have to be retold exactly the same way each night, until each story eventually reached saturation and we moved onto the next. Then Mary started a continuing series of stories featuring Peter (a Tom Thumb character) and “the little Girl” (who was of course Tigana). Tigana loved these stories beyond reason, as Mary retold the day’s highlights from the perspective of Peter. Tigana would always ask if she was ‘the little girl’, which Mary would neither confirm nor deny, but the events of ‘the little girl’s’ life strangely mirrored those of Tigana’s.

Then one time I covered off the Peter stories when Mary was away, not realizing that Mary considered them her special thing with Tigana. But the deed done, I was permitted to tell Peter stories when Mary was busy, so that we were soon alternating nights.

It was some time before we realized that we had quite different styles and had evolved the character of Peter in quite different directions. Mary’s Peter was mostly comical, getting himself into silly situations or misunderstandings, like the title character of the Amelia Bedelia books. My Peter stories were more plot driven and about Peter having adventures. Again, I wondered if this reflected a gender difference, or just personal style.

When Tigana was five, we moved to a new home in anticipation of Kasia’s arrival. Following a series of Peter adventures/misadventures over the move, I introduced the new character of Rhubarb, who lived in the Rhubarb plant in our new yard. As Peter and Rhubarb explored the new neighbourhood, they came into contact with a host of new characters who lived by the rules of magic I adopted holus-bolus from Dave Duncan’s A Man of His Word series. Bedtime stories became a 1,500 episode serial, building one to the next, and often ending on a cliffhanger to be resolved the next evening.

Like any B movie serial, much of each episode included stock footage. In our case the nightly prologue was getting Tigana and her companions out her bedroom window (stealing from Dave Duncan’s The Magic Casement) to the Giant’s castle in Cloudland, from whence her nightly adventures began. (Originally, Tigana and Peter had snuck out into the garden, and then out into the neighbourhood, but after the first couple of weeks of sneaking past Mom in the kitchen, the sequence started to lose credibility, and the storyline started to chaff against the confines of the neighbourhood. So I had the giant invite Tigana back to his castle in the clouds, and introduced the magic window to get her there. Once I exhausted the potential of Cloudland, I introduced the new characters of Dr. Who and Romana. Tigana was delighted with these characters -- and the infusion of 25 years of plagiarized episodes, adapted only enough to make Tigana the star of each adventure.

There were two problems with a continuing series of bedtime stories lasted over 1500 different episodes, First, having stolen every story idea I've ever read over the past 45 years, I was worried there for awhile that I might have ruined fantasy for Tigana. I could just see her discovering Dr. Who or Dave Duncan's books, and instead of the pleasure they have given me over the years, quickly discard them on the basis "They're not very original -- I've heard it all a hundred times before!" Fortunately, in the event, Tigana instead has discovered the dozen of new great authors writing for kids her age, and still loves fantasy. (Though lately she is into the preteen reading of novels about dating, most of which make my brain hurt. But that's another post.)

Second, since I wasn’t writing any of this down, I would frequently lose track of some of the characters or occasionally start to repeat a particular storyline. Tigana would immediately interrupt and ask, "Is this like where they went into the castle and found the bomb?" or "Is this like the time the got caught in a time loop?" "Somewhat similar," I would stall, improvising madly, "but in this case the time loop was running in the opposite direction!" or "No, no! No bomb in this one!" and then beat my brain against the bed post trying to come up with some different angle on an overused story steal. Explaining what had happened to the characters I left hanging from a cliff a couple of episodes back and completely forgot about was similarly challenging.

Some days I rose to the challenge magnificently, and would go out from Tigana's bedroom to regal Mary with the evening's story, and bask in her agreement that ''that was a good one!" Other days, not so much. On more than one occasion, I was so tired by the time we got Tigana to bed, that I would actually fall asleep before her... This did not, to the amazement of all, actually keep me from finishing the story. The first time this happened, I came back awake to Tigana saying, "That was terrific Dad, but I didn't quite get the part about the train."

"Train? What train?"

And Tigana recited back to me a whole 10 minutes of story that I had no recollection of telling, and which frankly made no sense within the context of the story I had started out to tell. But dream like, it had all sort of blurred together, and apparently my mouth had kept recounting as I drifted off to sleep. I wasn't entirely sure I believed this was possible until it had happened several times, and had been witnessed by both Tigana and Mary.

I loved telling Tigana bed time stories, and was sad when she finally out grew that nightly ritual in favor of her reading to herself. My only regret was that I never thought to record any of those stories/episodes. In retrospect, there were enough 'good' nights, and enough original material (given Tigana and in the latter years, her sister) were added to the standard fantasy storylines for me to have gotten the rough draft of a novel or story collection out of it. And then I thought maybe I could record my stories to Kasia, and was shocked to discover her complete lack of interest in anything other than the stories she dictated to me....

But then, at five and a half, it's early days yet. Tigana is insistent I don't tell Kasia any of my Dr. Who episodes, since in Tigana's view those belong solely to her, but as I begin linking together the stories of Princess HummingBird and her Pink Pony -- and more significantly -- the newly introduced character of tinyweenie -- there is hope yet that the process will repeat. I hope so.

Kasia's Play and Stories

2009-09-10T14:01:00.007-06:00

While sorting through my mom’s stuff, preparatory to putting her condo on the market, I came across a box of my old matchbox cars. This immediately brought back memories of hours of car chases round the border of the front room carpet. Even after 45 years, I still remembered what each car represented – the crooked racecar driver, the target treasure on the moving truck, the ploy of hiding the getaway car in the blue carrier behind the citron, the detective in the silver shadow Rolls-Royce who always figured out each case in the end, the decoy milk truck – the whole set of complicated plotlines that kept me happily engaged for years. I was surprised to find them, having thought I had passed all my toys on to another family’s youngsters decades before when I’d left home, but this particular set had somehow survived the general purge. So, naturally the shoebox of matchbox toys went into the ‘keepers’ pile.

Where it was shortly discovered by my own 5 year old. She opened the box with a ‘Wow, cars! Can I play with them?” I of course consented, especially since they were clearly already too banged up to be considered any sort of collector’s items. What harm could she do?

Momentarily distracted with other sorting duties, it has half an hour or so before I could return to explain what each vehicle represented, how they drove around the ‘roads’ on the carpet, which flowers in the carpet represented cloverleaf interchanges, all the complicated rules it taken me years to work out. And a good thing too as it turned out.

The carpet I grew up with -- "note highway" border strips with flower "interchanges".

When I got back to Kasia, she had all the cars out of the box and lined up next to each other. “These two are sisters,” she said pointing to the two blue cars, “and this is their Mom.” It was vital, she explained to me, that the cars stay in the right position within the line, that the line move forward in unison, because otherwise the family relationships might be disrupted. In a half hour she had worked out an entire family tree of cars, which had nothing to do with highway chases, conspiracies, or shootouts.

So, is this an age-related developmental stage, or is it a gender thing? For her, every doll and stuffy – and apparently toy car – is about “mommy/baby/older sister” relationships.

Kasia’s favorite pastime is ‘playing ponies’, which consists of extensive role plays with her massive collection of horse, unicorn, and Pegasus stuffies, supplemented with a few dog stuffies, the occasional fairy or mermaid, and visits from various Barbies and Kens intruding in the land of magic from the human world. Initially, when Kasia was three or four, plotlines consisted entirely of one or other horse falling from the bed or couch onto the floor and the frantic attempts by various horse family members to rescue these “I’ve fallen and can’t get up” victims. Invariably, once rescued, these careless individuals would again immediately plummet to the exact same spot. The cycle would be repeated for hours of selfplay. Invited to join Kasia playing ponies, we would have to stick strictly to the script: any attempt by one of our characters to, say, warn horse family members to stay way from the edge of the cliff, would elicit outraged tantrums.

Only slowly over the years has this basic plotline been allowed to evolve into the current version, which is that some bad guy (monster/witch/horse trader) intrudes into the valley of horses/land of magic to steal one or more horses and put them in cages from which they must be rescued. Lately, the bad guys are surprised to discover that the horses are magical and can talk/fly. Sometimes this discovery is what motivates the bad guys to try to capture the magic horses; sometimes it is this discovery that allows the horses to escape (e.g., the horses have invisible wings and turn out to be Pegasuses that can then fly away, after pummeling the would be kidnappers).

Mary and I have resisted, without much long-term success, Kasia’s insistence that there be bad guys. Tigana had had no such need to divide the world into good guys and villains, but Kasia insists on it. Most disturbing is her apparent belief that violence is justified against bad guys simply because they are the bad guys, as defined by the very narrow perspective of her tribe. The suggestion that the bad guys are bad because they are violent, and that being violent back makes you a bad guy seems to be a challenging concept to Kasia.

[I blame the early My Little Pony movies, which featured various stereotypical witches and mean spirited villains; in contrast to more recent My Little Pony offerings (such as Minty’s Christmas) which feature intelligent, engaging adventures sans bad guys. We started horse-crazy Kasia on the current My Little Ponies episodes, which were harmless enough, then hunted down the originals for our addicted daughter, not realizing what a corrupting influence they would turn out to be. I hated those early My Little Pony episodes almost as much as Kasia loved them. Fortunately, she now seems to be outgrowing the franchise...]

So, over the last year or so I have been working on introducing more moral ambiguity into Kasia’s play world. First, some of the dolls started objecting to being cast as the bad guys in various games. This was a hoot, because 4-5 year old Kasia saw nothing unusual in a doll arguing its assigned role, and would enter long debates with various ‘actors’ about their roles, their presumed motivation, and whether they were becoming typecast. The point of the exercise was to break down the ‘beauty=good’, ‘ugly=bad guy’ stereotype – and, frankly, to delay the moment when the next pony would fall off a cliff or get captured.

More recently, I have been working on showing the bad guy’s perspective. For example, I had a long series of bedtime stories / role-plays (story time has a tendency to become scripts for playtime, and playtime ‘rules’ tend to restrict the range of options for story time) in which the princess and her pink pony are the subject of persecution by the Wicked Witch of the West. (Borrowing wholesale for bedtime stories falls under ‘fair use’, right?) It slowly emerges, however, that the Wicked Witch has been the victim of a smear campaign, and that she is in fact the aggrieved party here. Although initially intrigued by the moral ambiguity presented, Kasia was clearly disturbed by the introduction of shades of grey, and has recently asked if we could go back to the original stories where it was just the good princess vs. the Wicked Witch....

Kasia's drawing of a pony

New Job

2009-09-02T07:36:00.003-06:00

See announcement of my new positionwith Five Rivers (moonlighting of course; I'm still a professor for my day job) .

It's been an interesting journey: I started by reading and reviewing Lorina's first novel, Shadow Song, which is a brilliant example of why some great literature has to be self-published (in contrast to most self-publishing, which has been turned down for good reason.) That led to me discussing trends in publishing with Lorina and her role as a rapidly growing micropublisher (see earlier posts). The more we talked, the more I became convinced that she and others like her represent the future of SF publishing, And I've been looking for an oopertunity to get back into SF editing but all the other presses I was looking at kept missing what are for me the obvious trends of where things are going in the future. Lorina Stephens and Five Rivers seem to be positioning themselves at the cutting edge, right where I wanted to be.

I look forward to a long and fascinating association with Five Rivers.

On Writing by Stephen King

2009-07-24T10:54:00.004-06:00

On Writing: A memoir of the Craft
By Stephen King 297pp.

Two-thirds of the way through writing my first novel, I felt the need for a little moral support, so ordered a shelf of books on writing from Amazon.ca. This one happened to be on top of the stack when I went on holidays and needed something for the plane.

The book quite surprised me: the first 94 and last 19 pages are in fact autobiography, which is certainly not what I expected from a book on writing. It's largely a pleasant surprise because this is Stephen King after all, so as autobiographies go, it's pretty slick. And it does rather support his contention that one must write what you are. A central theme of the book, once King gets around to the actual "how to write" section, is that one must "write the truth", by which he means, in part, "write what you know." Thus, the "CV" portion of the book serves as back-story to demonstrate where Stephen King the writer came from; and, perhaps, even to go some distance towards answering that perennial question, "where do you get your ideas?"

There are some quite compelling insights here, including the revelation that "The Shinning" was likely a call for help during his own losing struggles with alcohol and drugs (p. 89). (King subsequently (p.92) directly addresses the Hemingway stereotype of the creative genius as necessarily a drunkard, and makes a compelling case that this is a literary creation without basis in reality: the two conditions are unrelated.)

The actual section on writing is also quite engaging, its only failing King's abhorrence of adverbs, against which he strongly warns the reader. This is of course nonsense, but a fallacy shared by the majority of Americans, so one for which a prolific writer of American fiction may be forgiven. King sets up the strawman of the evil adverb by providing numerous examples of appalling misuse, with which he then attempts to tar an entire part of speech. British authors (and by extension, Canadian writers) being native speakers of English are better equipped to use the adverb correctly. Far worse, in my view, is the inexcusable American habit of dropping the 'ly' from an adverb and pretending it is an adjective.

But that one aberration aside, just about everything else King has to say resonated strongly with me, not only as a writer, but also as an instructor. For example, he devotes quite a few pages to the need to finish a first draft before showing it to anyone else. I have experienced, and frequently observed in colleagues and students, the death of stories or articles critiqued too soon.

Rough drafts are often that, and not everyone can look at one's initial attempts and see the potential it could have once properly revised and polished. It's all too easy for a casual observer to dismiss a rough draft as "not very strong" or complain that the "ideas just doesn't make sense". And often the author will look at what they have so far, see the holes that have just been pointed out to them, and give up. But this misses the point that first drafts are always weak.

This is particularly a problem with my grad students, who constantly compare their own tentative first efforts against the finished product of others' published articles/stories. They don't realize that that published story/article they are using as the standard went through eleven drafts, four colleagues, and an editor to end up like that. The initial draft of those now successfully published pieces might well have been much, much worse than what they currently have on their own screen. But never having seen anyone else writing (writing being largely a solitary act), they often assume that writing comes easily to everyone but them, and that if their first draft is this weak, then they might as well just give up on this story/article.

For King, the secret is putting the completed manuscript away for six months and to work on something else entirely, so that one can return to it with fresh eyes, completing the rewrite from a more detached perspective. I completely agree. But that's not always possible for grad students working against the deadline for thesis completion. Nevertheless, I encourage students to keep moving forward to finish the full first draft all the way through before revising anything, because (a) by the time they get to the end, they will have gained at least a little distance on the earlier chapters, which aids in spotting needed revisions; (b) there is no point revising something to a high polish early on, only to discover that that section has to be fundamentally changed, deleted or replaced when one gets to the end and realizes that's not where they needed to get to in the end; (c) after one has a complete draft and sees how it all kind of hangs together, our egos are better positioned to hear constructive feedback – the project is less fragile than in the early stages when one's ideas are still quite tentative and one's ego vulnerable; (d) pragmatically, one has a better chance of passing with a weak but completed thesis than with the first three brilliantly refined chapters of an incomplete thesis.

Another point on which I largely agree with King is his reservations about writers' workshops. I think these can be invaluable if handled correctly, but too many are as he describes them: too vague feedback on too early drafts:

How valuable are [these daily critiques]? Not very, in my experience, sorry. A lot of them are maddeningly vague. I love the feeling of Peter's story someone might say. It had something...a sense of I don’t know...there's a loving kind of you know...I can't exactly describe it.
Other writing-seminar gemmies include I felt like the tone thing was just kind of you know; The character of Polly seemed pretty much stereotypical; I loved the imagery because I could see what he was talking about more or less perfectly.

And instead of pelting these babbling idiots with their own freshly toasted marshmallows, everyone else sitting around the fire is often nodding and smiling and looking solemnly thoughtful. In too many cases the teachers and writers in residence are nodding, smiling, and looking solemnly thoughtful right along with them. It seems to occur to few of the attendees that if you have a feeling you just can't describe, you might just be, I don't know, kind of like, my sense of it is, maybe in the wrong fucking class.

Ouch! But all too often, uncomfortably close to the mark. I've been in some excellent writer's workshops where the attendees are more articulate and helpful than those depicted by King, or where the facilitator has intervened with probing questions to draw out more specific and therefore more constructive feedback from attendees. But I have grown increasingly skeptical about weekend or week-long retreats that consist of a random selection of aspiring writers, most of whom may not 'get' one's particular genre or style or intention; and where the timeframe between first draft and first reading is too close to be useful.

I think one requires a longer timeframe: Where one has a chance to draft, rewrite a couple of times, put the story away for a month or two, then revise again, and only take the story to the 'focus group' once it's ready to be published, just as a final check. For that, one requires an ongoing writer's circle, a small group of reliable reviewers (writers, editors, trusted readers) who can provide clear, concise, specific advice. A few writers who live in large urban centers may be able to develop a circle of such colleagues that physically meets in someone's home on a regular schedule; but more likely it’s a group of correspondents in other locales to whom one can send the manuscript when it is ready. (And it's a lot easier to dump a correspondent who doesn't work out – you just stop sending them your stuff as often – than it is to fire someone from a circle that meets physically.)

But back to King. I found On Writing an invigorating read because the personal anecdotes provide a context that successfully changes the tone of the book from the didactic of the typical "How to" manual, to a much more involving 'discussion' of the writing life. Although the book cannot directly critique my manuscript, I often find the most useful aspect of writers' workshops is just the validation of the writing life that comes from hanging with others who take writing seriously. Of course, reading On Writing is not really the same as hanging with Stephen King, but then, getting King to accompany me on the plane would have been a lot more expensive, and a lot less convenient, than just ordering the book from Amazon. So a recommended read.

Freelancing Video

2009-07-18T14:15:00.004-06:00

Writer Simon Rose pointed out this hilarious and painfully accurate video on what it's like to be a freelance writer/editor/professional. Should be viewed by anyone thinking of 'going consultant' or of hiring one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2a8TRSgzZY

Hawaii in the Summer

2009-07-17T09:29:00.012-06:00

Our balcony at the Waikiki Sheraton -- Mary was able to get the room for $100 a night on Priceline, which has to be the deal of the year

We had only previously been to Hawaii in the winter. When I was growing up, Hawaii is where Edmontonians who could afford it went to escape Winter over Christmas. I never got to go as a kid, but I had always therefore assumed that Hawaii would be more crowded over Christmas holidays than at other times of year, and that Hawaii would be nearly deserted in the summer, because why would you pay all that money to leave Alberta for the two months Canada has decent weather? But of course, that understanding of Hawaii tourism turned out to be completely wrong-headed. Hawaii is way MORE crowded in the summer, filled to capacity with Americans from Texas and Arizona etc escaping the heat. So the experience of Hawaii is a little different in the summer, because the place is filled with American tourists (and a few Australians escaping their winter) rather than Canadians.

Having done Honolulu previously, we were focused primarily on the beach and fine dining this time through. One of Lethbridge's deficits is that there are no really fine restaurants, just chains (though that is slowly improving). So Mary and I in particular were really looking forward to Roy's, one of our favorite restaurants anywhere. We ate there twice, Hulla Grill twice, Duke's once, Keo's (a Thai restaurant -- order the 'Evil Jungle Prince'!), and Eggs and Things once (all highly recommended). We made up the rest of our meals at Planet Hollywood, the Cheeseburger Waikiki and Maui Taccos (which spoils you for any Canadian tacco chain ever again) because sometimes you just have to, you know, eat. Planet Hollywood is only okay chain restaurant food, but really good value for the money if you order the half price appetizers during happy hour or the breakfast. (We didn't get to eat at Le Mar, but we would have needed babysitting and a bigger budget to go there.) Roy's is especially wonderful, and to our amazement, a favorite of the kids' too. They have a great kid's menu, and give the kids the same three course dinning experience as adults, just with more kid-friendly food and prices. Almost worth the trip to Hawaii for Roy's alone.

Mary took the kids to the beach twice without me, giving me two mornings to write. That was great! Sitting on a balcony in Hawaii overlooking the beach and the ocean, is the way to write! An unexpected bonus was that, since I was essentially sitting still for hours keyboarding, a wonderful variety of birds came and sat on the edge of the balcony with me. I've never seen so many different types in a single day. And I made quite a bit of progress on my book. Other days I went with them to the beach, but since I can't swim, and burn at the mere sight of sunlight, Mary was still mostly stuck with supervising kids while I just found some shade and read. (Stephen King's On Writing, about which more in another post.)

The four day trips we planned were the trip to Sea Life Park, where we had the dolphin encounters (see earlier blog entry); the Hawaii Fire Surf Lessons for Tigana and Kasia; a trip to the Dole Plantation: a pleasant afternoon touring the historic plantation and doing the maze; and an afternoon in the Honolulu Zoo.

Tigana surfing well

Tigana surfing well -- but right into Kasia and her instructor! (The instructor had to pull Kasia under the water to keep Tigana's board from hitting her)

both kids going out to the waves

close up of Kasia with her instructor going out

We would highly recommend Hawaii Fire over other surfing lessons, especially when as in our case, kids are involved. Much cheaper lessons are available all along the beach at Waikiki, but the Hawaii Fire folk have two key advantages: one, they take you to a more sheltered, shallower beach which is ideal for learning on (lots of waves but manageable waves); and all the instructors are firemen --so, if you're going to have problems, these are the guys you want to respond.

The Zoo is considered a small one, but we found it highly enjoyable. As Mary pointed out, the entrance fee would have been worth it just to walk through the trees, bushes and flowers between the animal exhibits -- a great botanical garden. And the Zoo is cleverly laid out so that although its footprint in Waikiki is small, it seems quite big and takes a full afternoon to walk through. I was fascinated that even though we were only a few yards from apartment blocks on one side, the beach on the other, we felt completely isolated from the rest of the city; one really did feel as if one were out on the African savannah.

One of my favorites were the hippos, who were not only hugely huge magnificent beasties, but were enjoying themselves hugely playing ball -- no question about it, they were tossing that enormous green sphere around between them.

Kasia's favorites were the Zebras. Kasia is hypnotized by all things pony, and Zebras are apparently close enough to count. Here a zebra rolls in the dust to cool off. (I was tempted to point my hand like a gun and shout bang as it started to go over for a roll, but that probably would have meant years of therapy for Kasia, so I let it go.)

I'd recommend the zoo for anyone looking for a couple of hours away from the beach.

So, overall, a nice quiet vacation -- quiet days at the beach alternated with low key day trips. A great chance to detox from email and the stresses of our day jobs.

Dolphins Again

2009-07-16T23:14:00.005-06:00

Strictly speaking, that's a Walphin that Tigana is dancing with: a dolphin -killer whale cross. But Kasia had so much fun kissing a dolphin on our first trip to Hawaii, we decided that the rest of us should try it.

Back to Hawaii

2009-07-16T22:49:00.003-06:00

Following my teaching in Summer Session this June, we took off for vacation in Hawaii. Well, I went to Edmonton to check on my Mom for a couple of days first, and I took the dog with me to confuse the kids. Because we hadn't told the kids they were going to Hawaii, only that they would 'be joining Dad', whom they knew had gone to Edmonton. They understand the need to be in Edmonton to visit family and to attend to all the Estate matters I am still plowing through (even after all this time). Not fun for them, but borne with stoic understanding that the family needed to do this. So Mary picked them up from school on their last day, drove them to the airport in Lethbridge, where they boarded a plane for Calgary, the usual transfer point to Edmonton. Mary had set them up perfectly by telling Tigana that they would drive up, but then giving in to Tigana's asking to fly up instead. (Tigana had used the argument that since I had already driven up earlier in the week, we already had a car in Edmonton, so there was no need for them to endure the six hour car trip. Mary had graciously acceeded to this request, never letting on that it was all a con.) So I flew down to Calgary from Edmonton, and was sitting in the airport Tim Horton's as they got off the plane. Kasia sees me, runs over and hugs me, as Tigana goes, "I thought we would be meeting you in Edmonton?"

Robert: "Ready to start the Grand Adventure of Summer in Edmonton."

Tigana: "Yeah, right."

Robert:" What, you don't want to spend summer in Edmonton?"

Mary: "Kasia, where do you want to go?"

Kasia: "Hawaii!" (This was a safe bet: Kasia always answers 'Hawaii' to questions like 'where would you like to have dinner tonight?' Besides a standing joke, Kasia asks us at least once a week why don't we live in Hawaii. We're having an increasingly difficult time thinking up an answer.)

Mary and I look at each other and shrug. "Okay, why didn't you say so. Let's go to Hawaii."

Tigana: "Whaatt? Youmeanaghghghghghghghghghgyeaahhhwhoooo!"

And so on. So an hour later, three hours after school ends, we're enroute to Hawaii via Vancouver.

Of course, we will be paying for this for the rest of our lives because now every time we take them to Edmonton they're going to be spending the entire trip saying, "Yeah, where are we going really?"