The comedian at our dinner dance last night told a joke that perfectly illustrated the difference between 'you're', and 'your', so I share it here.
A man walks into a psychiatrist's office wrapped only in cellophane, and wants to have an assessment.
"I don't need to assess you," the psychiatrist says. "I can clearly see you're nuts..."
My wife, Jennifer's, blog can be found here:
Cleverly Disguised as Cake
And my first novel, squeakyclean, here:
eBook, pdf, mobi, epub, rtf, lrf, palm, txt
Kindle US
Kindle UK
Kindle Germany
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Pack up the tents.
The camping trip is over.
That is what many in the media say about the occupy movements around the world. As soon as I had read the articles about the evictions of protesters, many prematurely calling it the 'death' of the occupy movement, I knew that they had completely missed the point. It struck me soon after that the media WANTS the end of the movement, as it fits into their cynical veiw of how long a protest can go on before fizzling into cynicism and frustration, with people going their separate ways.
This cynical effect was multiplied by the nature of the movement in Canada. Here, it never caught on in the parks as it did in the hearts and minds of the average Canadian. There were protests in Vancouver, where notably one protester overdosed and died, and in Toronto, Ottawa, London, and Calgary, among others, but with a strong economy, job market, and strong labour Unions, and with a less-than-disastrous fiscal outlook, the swelling numbers of people attending the occupations didn't materialise. This was not a failure.
The average Canadian understands that what happens in the US directly affects our economic and fiscal policy, and so the movement of occupy, while only tokenly represented in our parks and cities, was overwhelmingly supported by the average Canadian.
Today on CBC radio, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, himself a long time activist, said that the mistake about the occupy protests is that the movement became about the tents, not about the issues. I agree. The 'occupation' may come to an end, and so it should, for many safety and sanitation issues, sure, but more importantly to shift the focus from the tents to the issues.
The movement needs another phase.
So what is that next phase? I don't know.
I can bet that whatever happens, if it is to gain success, the movement will have to first understand that even though the physical occupation will, and must, come to an end, the occupation of the preoccupations of average people everywhere will have to continue. That requires a media presence, and a clearer statement of the ills it is to address. This movement is not about what is going to be DONE about the rich poor gap, or the wealth accumulation of the 1%, or about any number of issues on their own, but about what is going to be ACCOMPLISHED.
What I mean is that no matter what the direct action of government, or the rich, or any number of other players, the movement can never lose sight of the goals, no matter how nebulous and indefineable. These goals are, and absolutely must be, tied to the individuals effected by the roll-roughshod over rights decades of American and world politics.
The movement will have to measure its accomplishment not in what is offered to appease the group, but in the winning over of each and every person out of work, unable to pay off student debt, unable to integrate after fighting America's wars, who are denied health care, or everyone, for that matter, who wants an education without debt, or who wants a better world for their grandkids.
A big bill to fit, sure, but this movement is not about a bunch of tents in a bunch of parks. It is about the people, together, requesting, not demanding, a better world, and a future.
The camping trip may be over, but the movement is the same movement that first carved itself on thousands of clay shards in Athens in 400BC ... it is true democracy in action, and no city writ to evict the protesters, no arrests, riot sheilds, or pepper spray, will ever erase the possibility of a better world from our collective hearts.
My wife, Jennifer's, blog can be found here:
Cleverly Disguised as Cake
And my first novel, squeakyclean, here:
eBook, pdf, mobi, epub, rtf, lrf, palm, txt
Kindle US
Kindle UK
Kindle Germany
That is what many in the media say about the occupy movements around the world. As soon as I had read the articles about the evictions of protesters, many prematurely calling it the 'death' of the occupy movement, I knew that they had completely missed the point. It struck me soon after that the media WANTS the end of the movement, as it fits into their cynical veiw of how long a protest can go on before fizzling into cynicism and frustration, with people going their separate ways.
This cynical effect was multiplied by the nature of the movement in Canada. Here, it never caught on in the parks as it did in the hearts and minds of the average Canadian. There were protests in Vancouver, where notably one protester overdosed and died, and in Toronto, Ottawa, London, and Calgary, among others, but with a strong economy, job market, and strong labour Unions, and with a less-than-disastrous fiscal outlook, the swelling numbers of people attending the occupations didn't materialise. This was not a failure.
The average Canadian understands that what happens in the US directly affects our economic and fiscal policy, and so the movement of occupy, while only tokenly represented in our parks and cities, was overwhelmingly supported by the average Canadian.
Today on CBC radio, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, himself a long time activist, said that the mistake about the occupy protests is that the movement became about the tents, not about the issues. I agree. The 'occupation' may come to an end, and so it should, for many safety and sanitation issues, sure, but more importantly to shift the focus from the tents to the issues.
The movement needs another phase.
So what is that next phase? I don't know.
I can bet that whatever happens, if it is to gain success, the movement will have to first understand that even though the physical occupation will, and must, come to an end, the occupation of the preoccupations of average people everywhere will have to continue. That requires a media presence, and a clearer statement of the ills it is to address. This movement is not about what is going to be DONE about the rich poor gap, or the wealth accumulation of the 1%, or about any number of issues on their own, but about what is going to be ACCOMPLISHED.
What I mean is that no matter what the direct action of government, or the rich, or any number of other players, the movement can never lose sight of the goals, no matter how nebulous and indefineable. These goals are, and absolutely must be, tied to the individuals effected by the roll-roughshod over rights decades of American and world politics.
The movement will have to measure its accomplishment not in what is offered to appease the group, but in the winning over of each and every person out of work, unable to pay off student debt, unable to integrate after fighting America's wars, who are denied health care, or everyone, for that matter, who wants an education without debt, or who wants a better world for their grandkids.
A big bill to fit, sure, but this movement is not about a bunch of tents in a bunch of parks. It is about the people, together, requesting, not demanding, a better world, and a future.
The camping trip may be over, but the movement is the same movement that first carved itself on thousands of clay shards in Athens in 400BC ... it is true democracy in action, and no city writ to evict the protesters, no arrests, riot sheilds, or pepper spray, will ever erase the possibility of a better world from our collective hearts.
My wife, Jennifer's, blog can be found here:
Cleverly Disguised as Cake
And my first novel, squeakyclean, here:
eBook, pdf, mobi, epub, rtf, lrf, palm, txt
Kindle US
Kindle UK
Kindle Germany
Friday, November 11, 2011
If anyone in Toronto...
UPDATE!!!!! Momma horse has been found!!! Thank you all for your help and kindness in returning her to Daisy. We have a very happy girl here, knowing that Momma Horse is on her way home :D
I know this sounds crazy, but if anyone in Toronto happens to be near Sick Kids Hospital, Daisy lost her "momma horse", most likely on University Avenue, right behind the Mary Pickford bust and plaque near the entrance. The picture here shows where Momma Horse was left by a little girl caught up in playing in the leaves.
She has had 'momma horse' through thick and thin, despite paint, and the horse losing a limb, it has always been her favourite. I know it may not be there, and I know that someone may have picked her up and put her in the trash in the meantime, but a certain little girl would be very happy to have her companion back. It would mean a lot if someone could look there for us.
Next weekend, we will be coming down to Oakville, and if you find it, we could pick it up from you. I'm sure there would be a little girl hug in it for the lucky person who finds her....
I know this sounds crazy, but if anyone in Toronto happens to be near Sick Kids Hospital, Daisy lost her "momma horse", most likely on University Avenue, right behind the Mary Pickford bust and plaque near the entrance. The picture here shows where Momma Horse was left by a little girl caught up in playing in the leaves.
 |
| Just at the end of the bench on the left is where Momma Horse stayed after playing in the leaves. |
She has had 'momma horse' through thick and thin, despite paint, and the horse losing a limb, it has always been her favourite. I know it may not be there, and I know that someone may have picked her up and put her in the trash in the meantime, but a certain little girl would be very happy to have her companion back. It would mean a lot if someone could look there for us.
Next weekend, we will be coming down to Oakville, and if you find it, we could pick it up from you. I'm sure there would be a little girl hug in it for the lucky person who finds her....
 |
| Here is a close up of the horse, and the girl who is very sad. |
Saturday, November 05, 2011
TimTam Slam
Weeks ago, Jenn was reading about TimTams, a cookie treat from Australia, and joking that I should try them. They are good with coffee. They are chocolate. A perfect match for me, she thought.
Okay. I put it on the list of things to try, and went back to my writing. Fast forward to this grocery shopping expedition where she actually found a package of them in the Metro. She bought them, and I tried one. Not bad, but not my favourite by any means. I read the package. It's a cookie, alright.
Jenn then looked up on the internet that the "proper" way to eat them is in a TimTam Slam. That requires coffee or tea, so I set to work.
Enter latte.
(TimTams lurking menacingly in background....)
The TimTam Slam was described on the internet, so Jennifer gave me instructions and took pictures while I put it all together.
One starts by biting off the corners, and creating, what is in effect a cream-filled chocolate straw.
Then, one gently places a corner of the 'straw' into the coffee (or coffee-ish liquid), and gently sucks on the other corner so the liquid goes through the biscuit until it is full.
(photo redacted for vulgarity)
This creates a little somewhat squishy chocolate tube full of biscuit and latte, and there are several techniques (apparently) for cooling the cookie to ensure that the chocolate stays cool enough during the next phase while the insides are filled with hot coffee. (those Aussie's are so clever!)
Then, giving it just a short moment to ferment in its own chocolatey hot latte biscuit juices, you then slam the whole thing in your mouth and let it melt.
Ohmigod.
Ohhhhhhhm'god.... ohhmmmmaaaaahhhhhhgawwwwwwd.
That package isn't going to last the afternoon.
My wife, Jennifer's, blog can be found here:
Cleverly Disguised as Cake
And my first novel, squeakyclean, here:
eBook, pdf, mobi, epub, rtf, lrf, palm, txt
Kindle US
Kindle UK
Kindle Germany
Okay. I put it on the list of things to try, and went back to my writing. Fast forward to this grocery shopping expedition where she actually found a package of them in the Metro. She bought them, and I tried one. Not bad, but not my favourite by any means. I read the package. It's a cookie, alright.
Enter latte.
(TimTams lurking menacingly in background....)
The TimTam Slam was described on the internet, so Jennifer gave me instructions and took pictures while I put it all together.
One starts by biting off the corners, and creating, what is in effect a cream-filled chocolate straw.
Then, one gently places a corner of the 'straw' into the coffee (or coffee-ish liquid), and gently sucks on the other corner so the liquid goes through the biscuit until it is full.
(photo redacted for vulgarity)
This creates a little somewhat squishy chocolate tube full of biscuit and latte, and there are several techniques (apparently) for cooling the cookie to ensure that the chocolate stays cool enough during the next phase while the insides are filled with hot coffee. (those Aussie's are so clever!)
Then, giving it just a short moment to ferment in its own chocolatey hot latte biscuit juices, you then slam the whole thing in your mouth and let it melt.
Ohmigod.
Ohhhhhhhm'god.... ohhmmmmaaaaahhhhhhgawwwwwwd.
That package isn't going to last the afternoon.
My wife, Jennifer's, blog can be found here:
Cleverly Disguised as Cake
And my first novel, squeakyclean, here:
eBook, pdf, mobi, epub, rtf, lrf, palm, txt
Kindle US
Kindle UK
Kindle Germany
Wattpad
I had posted earlier about a website that I had signed up for called Booksie, which was a website where users could post short stories, poems, and even full novels, to get feedback from other writers, and some readers. I signed up earlier in the year, and posted about it here:
Booksie
I enjoyed it for a while, giving comments to writers whose work showed a lot of skill and those who were willing to put in determined editing. There were a few who became quite defensive, and a few who were shocked that I was even on the site.
One wrote:
"wow, you're not some wannabe writer teenage girl like most people on this site", which in itself was both heartening to know, but also made me sad that I would have less chance of finding great writing there.
I read hundreds of stories. I was brought right back to my creative writing classes at Concordia, where every writing rule possible was broken regularly. Let me tell you, there is a ton of clunky writing out there, and not in a bleary-eyed blog posting way. Some of it was worked over, and over, and still clunky.
Editing, more than writing I believe, is an art, a craft, and in reading a whole bunch of raw, hastily edited, half-dressed out-the-door fiction, I was reminded of two things. One, that good editing is something that can be learned, and HAS to be learned, in order to put out novels. I was reminded how far I've come since my own tentative stories twenty or so years ago.
Two, that some may be born with spark, but flames still have to be painstakingly nurtured. Reading on Booksie is like scanning through hundreds of sparks, and some small flames. It is an exercise that only someone who loves writing could put themselves through, because there is a lot of crap to wade through. Don't get me wrong, I found great writing there. Most of it, however, is teen fiction. I found, further, to my horror, that most of the teen fiction is actually vampire teen fiction. ugh.
I grew discouraged. I visited less regularly, and stopped editing or commenting until a couple of days ago. That was when I found Ryder Stokes. Her writing is a little raw, but talented, and if you like teen fiction, by the way, her page can be found here: Family Rendezvous.
Ryder had found herself caught in a drama between two trolls flaming each other back and forth on everyone's walls within typing distance, and found it better to move most of her work over to Wattpad. Disappointed with Booksie, I went to check it out.
If Booksie is the small town of mostly writers, Wattpad is the big, dirty, roiling city, geared toward readers.
Where at Booksie, people had taken an interest, and left many comments, and encouraged comments from me, on Wattpad they read quickly and moved on. It is less personal, more geared toward actually publishing.
I quickly realized the projects getting the hits had custom covers, so I created one, using a lighter, a half melted crayon, and a few pictures of a silver goblet I had kicking around, and Photoshopped it up. Not great, but not bad for about twenty minutes work.
First day posted, 30 reads, no comments. Compare that to Booksie, which, after many months, had generated 18 hits, but much more feedback.
Now, on Wattpad the problem I'm finding is that I had to choose a genre. 'Historical Fiction' to most people means romances set in the rolling hills of 1700s England, with Dukes, peasants, and illicit love between classes. With 40,000 years of humans having this brain size and covering most continents, and 4,000 years of recorded history, writers can do better than that myopic view. Still, I'm hoping Seven Gates will stand out as being somewhat unique.
(Still, if English country fiction is your thing, there is a great project being written by katquincy23 which I would love to see as an edited, tightened novel someday.)
I'm keeping my stuff on both. It's kind of like living in the country, where everyone knows my name, but while keeping a condo where I can do business. That way, I can maintain a bit of a writing community, where I can bounce ideas off people who can give gut feedback, while also polishing my writing for a larger more critical market. Works for me.
Booksie
Wattpad
My wife, Jennifer's, blog can be found here:
Cleverly Disguised as Cake
And my first novel, squeakyclean, here:
eBook, pdf, mobi, epub, rtf, lrf, palm, txt
Kindle US
Kindle UK
Kindle Germany
Booksie
I enjoyed it for a while, giving comments to writers whose work showed a lot of skill and those who were willing to put in determined editing. There were a few who became quite defensive, and a few who were shocked that I was even on the site.
One wrote:
"wow, you're not some wannabe writer teenage girl like most people on this site", which in itself was both heartening to know, but also made me sad that I would have less chance of finding great writing there.
I read hundreds of stories. I was brought right back to my creative writing classes at Concordia, where every writing rule possible was broken regularly. Let me tell you, there is a ton of clunky writing out there, and not in a bleary-eyed blog posting way. Some of it was worked over, and over, and still clunky.
Editing, more than writing I believe, is an art, a craft, and in reading a whole bunch of raw, hastily edited, half-dressed out-the-door fiction, I was reminded of two things. One, that good editing is something that can be learned, and HAS to be learned, in order to put out novels. I was reminded how far I've come since my own tentative stories twenty or so years ago.
Two, that some may be born with spark, but flames still have to be painstakingly nurtured. Reading on Booksie is like scanning through hundreds of sparks, and some small flames. It is an exercise that only someone who loves writing could put themselves through, because there is a lot of crap to wade through. Don't get me wrong, I found great writing there. Most of it, however, is teen fiction. I found, further, to my horror, that most of the teen fiction is actually vampire teen fiction. ugh.
I grew discouraged. I visited less regularly, and stopped editing or commenting until a couple of days ago. That was when I found Ryder Stokes. Her writing is a little raw, but talented, and if you like teen fiction, by the way, her page can be found here: Family Rendezvous.
Ryder had found herself caught in a drama between two trolls flaming each other back and forth on everyone's walls within typing distance, and found it better to move most of her work over to Wattpad. Disappointed with Booksie, I went to check it out.
If Booksie is the small town of mostly writers, Wattpad is the big, dirty, roiling city, geared toward readers.
Where at Booksie, people had taken an interest, and left many comments, and encouraged comments from me, on Wattpad they read quickly and moved on. It is less personal, more geared toward actually publishing.
I quickly realized the projects getting the hits had custom covers, so I created one, using a lighter, a half melted crayon, and a few pictures of a silver goblet I had kicking around, and Photoshopped it up. Not great, but not bad for about twenty minutes work.
First day posted, 30 reads, no comments. Compare that to Booksie, which, after many months, had generated 18 hits, but much more feedback.
Now, on Wattpad the problem I'm finding is that I had to choose a genre. 'Historical Fiction' to most people means romances set in the rolling hills of 1700s England, with Dukes, peasants, and illicit love between classes. With 40,000 years of humans having this brain size and covering most continents, and 4,000 years of recorded history, writers can do better than that myopic view. Still, I'm hoping Seven Gates will stand out as being somewhat unique.
(Still, if English country fiction is your thing, there is a great project being written by katquincy23 which I would love to see as an edited, tightened novel someday.)
I'm keeping my stuff on both. It's kind of like living in the country, where everyone knows my name, but while keeping a condo where I can do business. That way, I can maintain a bit of a writing community, where I can bounce ideas off people who can give gut feedback, while also polishing my writing for a larger more critical market. Works for me.
Booksie
Wattpad
My wife, Jennifer's, blog can be found here:
Cleverly Disguised as Cake
And my first novel, squeakyclean, here:
eBook, pdf, mobi, epub, rtf, lrf, palm, txt
Kindle US
Kindle UK
Kindle Germany
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