Reverb 10

Have signed on for this December challenge, which goes all month. Am liking the idea of reflecting and manifesting. Thanks to Kyran Pittman for pointing me there.

Here's the first day's assignment:

December 1 One Word.
Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?
(Author: Gwen Bell)

My response: ‘Endings’ (I liked completion too) This was a year of lost loved ones and coming to the end of writing projects. I’d like to think next year’s word will be ‘Beginnings’ – beginning to add loved ones, and fresh writing projects.
New Beginnings. Begin at the end, and start again.

Art Every Day in November

Despite a rough start, I've surpassed my November editing expectations, and although there's still a fair bit to do, I'm optimistic that I will be finished the fifth draft of 480 pages by Dec. 15. This has been a good month for my noveling elective as well. Nothing like five young devoted writers to practise the craft with.

My twin has introduced me to the idea that November isn't just for noveling, it's for some type of art every day. She has managed to include such forms as knitting, cooking, creating comedy jokes, writing - both long form, on a novel she began some years ago, and short form, speed haiku while traveling between jobs. I've been inspired to keep thinking creatively, even when the minutia of daily life pulls me in a thousand directions.

I had a wonderful long weekend in Texas, reaffirming my faith in love, and mine in particular, and taking a jewelry making class with my friend Tammy. Less than a month until that 2+ week vacation! Light at the end of the tunnel.

Deadlines Coming and Going & NANOWRIMO

Tomorrow is November 1. Since 2006, I have participated to some degree in NANOWRIMO, an international novel writing challenge that got my first 200 pages under me in 30 days back in that heady first year. It took another 3 plus years to get the next 282 pages done, so you can perhaps imagine the frenzied scribbling and typing that took place in that one frantic month. I have a huge soft spot for NANO because without the grip and gravity of those first 200 pages to anchor me, I'd probably still be back at about page 8, with perhaps two or three little one pagers - my previous specialty - to throw in.

Truthfully, I haven't been an orthodox participant in the competition since 2006, but every year I sign up and use the NANO website, forums, and sheer nerdy energy to power through some difficult rewrites and editing. Rather than begin a totally new project, I commit to visiting with my novel every day in the month of November. It isn't enough, but for someone with a full time job, that often feels like full time and a half, it's still really good.

This year, for the first time, I am leading a Novel Writing Elective and have signed our group up to the YWP to help motivate us and track our progress. I am excited about that and also about finding the time, despite their being really none available, to edit and revise every day in November. As per NANO'S quote, it will be 30 Days and Nights of Literary Abandon.

That said, I have a real deadline now. I have an editor scheduled to read my entire main manuscript on December 15, and that will be a combination of helpful and horrifying, no doubt. That deadline seemed far off in the impossible distance when I booked it months ago, and now here it is, looming large. I have so many things to work on in the edits, I just hope I can fit another full go through in with the time I have.

In class, I am using a YA novel/memoir (still just a first draft jointly written by my twin and I) to occasionally provide exemplars of a given element. That will be my November class project, given its suitability. So that's where things stand now.

Back to Life - Voted for a Mayor for the 1st Time Today

Short blog to say I'm going to try to get back on the Blog Roll. Low period of family loss - 2 grandparents in 6 weeks - (Spring of our discontent) has been followed by an Autumn return of creativity. Working on figuring out how to maintain my voice, with some caution, while working full time, in a job that requires discretion. But very pleased to state that I made it out to vote for a mayor tonight. Two siblings are now blogging pretty regularly, with specific missions, (finance for frat boys - NOT G rated for sharing, and buying nothing new for a year) and I'm feeling inspired by their output.

Noveling is going well - am now well into Draft 5 of the big project. Self-imposed editorial deadline of Dec. 15 to move me along.

Guest Blog by My Twin, Tara - Hard News

I am struggling tonight as I just heard that my Dad's father, Poppy, fell and broke his hip tonight. I got to speak to him briefly, but he was already sounding a bit doped, as they'd given him some pain meds. He's 88. Essentially he is the absolute heart and soul of our family. He is our centre. We've all come from him, look to him, and owe him a debt of some kind. Some emotional kind. He is an orphan who got to live his version of a dream by creating a giant, sprawling family. His village is the place I fondly refer to as my 'ancestral homeland'.

When he had a stroke, more than 12 years ago, I was lucky enough to be there to ride in the ambulance with him the almost two hour ride into the city. He soon after learned to use a computer for the first time (since he could no longer build boats and fix engines) and wrote his memoirs. We happen to be currently in the process of ordering family copies of his updated version of the memoirs (280 pages, which include the history of the community in Newfoundland where he lived, and also, of our family tree as it grew).

Around 3 years ago, I was there the night he had a heart attack, and shared in the sense of blame we all nursed about him eating a 'big feed of salmon and having some wine'. Later he had to remind us more than once that having a good feed, and a drink from time to time was one of life's pleasures, and in his late 80's that was no small thing. His nickname in our family and the community is the Skipper. This is a respected term, as he has captained more than a few boats. No matter that I am 40, I will never be ready to lose my grandfather. Tonight, as I await news, I am tearful and bereft. We are all children when it comes to facing the fragility or mortality of our elders. I have been so fortunate in reaching 40 with 3 grandparents still in my life, but strangely, this in no way makes me feel prepared for any kind of bad. Here's wishing my Poppy safety through the night and I guess I thank the universe for this yucky reminder of what is most, most important to me and many of us.

xo Tara

The Indignities of Air Travel

I had some extra time to indulge in Moving Meditations yesterday. I was returning from Texas to Toronto, via Montreal. I guess that was my first mistake. When you take a points ticket that involves a connection, I now know a) not to make it through Montreal and b) not to have your connection be your customs spot. I would have been better off stagnating in Atlanta or almost anywhere.

What happened was that my flight was slightly late taking off from Houston, and slightly late landing. That didn't seem so problematic. They even expedited customs and had a special super fast line through for connecting passengers. I breezed past many hundreds of unhappy regular travelers, and was through in minutes. The logjam was oddly on the way out, after we'd picked up our luggage and had to drop it back off. We couldn't get out of the customs area and to the secondary luggage drop - because there were so many people and no one working there to guide/advise us. By the time I got to the front of the line, I was flagged as being too late to make my flight, and shunted off to a side lane, where a friendly and helpful (though clearly harassed and hurried) agent, was tasked with rebooking me on a later flight to Toronto.

The last time I had a connection through Montreal it ended up in a delay where I had to spend the night at my own expense. I was directed to a Holiday Inn where I was given a room on the second floor - in a hotel with NO ELEVATOR! This was another Air Canada flight, meaning one where I was able to bring two heavy bags, and did. After a brief attempt to drag one up the stairs, I gave up and simply dragged myself up, leaving the bags with the night desk clerk.

So, I was pretty pleased to find myself booked onto a later flight that was a mere hour later than the original. After the agent handed me my new boarding pass and retagged my luggage, I was urged to hurry and drop off the suitcase and head back through security and to the new gate.

There was barely time for a compensatory pint, (none at all for poutine or food of any kind besides a cookie) and I was at the gate in time for boarding. Just as I was handing the new boarding pass to the gate agent, it struck me: this new ticket was NOT IN MY NAME! I explained the situation in a milder panic than if I had still been in the States, but for whatever reason, the rebooking agent had rebooked me on the later flight as Carol Lombardi - and tagged my checked bag in her name for good measure. The new flight was boarding, and there was no time to lose. The gate agent, an older man, was friendly and helpful, but also harried. He looked me up, and said I didn't exist, but worked some airline voodoo and rebooked me again. At this very moment, the gate printer quit working, so he wrote my boarding pass in his own shaky hand. It included my name, seat, and flight number, and after handing me something that looked like it came off a 1990 dot matrix printer - which was my new bagtag, he waved me onto the plane.

A few moments after everyone was seated, there was a message from the cockpit that we had a 'no show' passenger with a checked bag that had to be removed for security purposes before we could take off. This happens on about every other flight I take, so it took a moment for me to react. I pressed the page button and spoke to two flight attendants in some distress, trying to find out if the bag being removed belonged to my alter-ego 'Carol Lombardi'. Alas, they refused to give me any info and said it was too late. I would simply have to wait until Toronto; there was nothing they could do to stop this once it was in motion.

I got to Toronto finally. Waited a long time beside an empty luggage carousel, and had some difficulty explaining my situation, but eventually, the luggage agents understood and believed. What I didn't know was when (or even if) ALL my clothes (and my new spring ones) would arrive. Happily, the answer was a little under 24 hours later. So, thank you to the people who found them, and thank you to Carol Lombardi, who I assume had right of first refusal, and let me have my stuff.

Back to work tomorrow.

Insomnia is OK when it's a good insomnia

Short post.
I've been awake since one a.m. And, for a happy change, not because I'm imagining bugs crawling in my ears or rats running under my bed. Instead, for the first time in ages, I'm awake because my story is back as the dominant running narrative and theme in my mind. It won't shut off, and that's a great reason to be awake.
I don't, however, need for the insomnia to become a frequently recurring theme in my life, given that there are only a few days of March Break left, but right now, I'm banking on a Pre-St. Paddy's Day afternoon nap to shore me up, after plenty of extra predawn hours in the writing bank.