Cold and Hot

Staying under the blankets was so delicious, it took some willpower to drag myself out. I had a little dialogue with myself going, and I don't know how the responsible part of me managed to convince the sleepy part of me so early in the morning. The house is poorly insulated and gobbles up quite a lot of heating oil, so we are trying to keep it cool. I'm not a big fan of cool. I'm dressed in three layers now, but I'm sure most people would be comfy just in a long sleeved shirt, or maybe a thin sweater. Yesterday the blankets won. Today I was quite stern with them and kicked them off. 1000 words--ta DA--done!


After completing my morning chunk of writing, I'm procrastinating. I need to start re-reading (I'm dreading this part) Swearing in Russian, as I need to make some factual changes and who knows what other changes to the novel before I hand it over to my editor.

Instead, I find myself thinking about this: Scientists have created the hottest temperature ever in the lab -- 4 trillion degrees Celsius -- hot enough to break matter down into the kind of soup that existed microseconds after the birth of the universe.

The Sabbatical--my new WIP

I've been thinking about this (new) novel for over a year. I had the setting, the characters, the opening, the ending, and a vague idea of the middle. I remember the dinner I had with my friend C. in Iqaluit at the Frob, just over a year ago. I told her about the plot, and we brainstormed a little. She's a writer too, so she understands. I remember being stuck on my protagonist's intentions--why would she do this? I wasn't sure. Then for the entire year I thought about writing it, but something held me back. Meanwhile I revised Swearing in Russian for yet another time, moved to Halifax, bought a new house and moved there, and didn't feel like writing. I convinced myself that thinking about writing was actually good enough. And actually, it was! I came back to the novel (tentative title is The Sabbatical) and the outline came out of me. This is pretty new, as I usually struggle with outlines and do better without them. But after working with Victoria, I started to internalize some of her principles of tension building and pacing. And this is how the outline just happened, with this basic idea that one conflict leads to another and yet to another. I don't have a very thorough outline, I don't think I will enjoy that, but I have a functional outline that helps me to navigate to the ending, with some basic ideas of how relationships between my characters develop.


This morning I woke up 2 hours before the first kid woke up (3 hours before the second, 4 hours before my night owl who will go to bed after midnight)...This is all courtesy of the City of Halifax, who needed to dig up our water pipe this morning, so that the plumber could replace the shut off valve, so that he could hook up my washing machine. Did I tell you we just moved into an OLD house? Yeah, most things don't work. Yet, I love being here.

I wrote about 900 words. What a pleasure to be finally writing it! I feel like I'm weaving with words. It is the joy and the energy of a first draft--rough weaving, no worries, just the process. But I can see the characters are already much more defined that in my previous opening chapters. (I had written about 15000 words of it already, but I'm writing from scratch now, and might use the previous work in later revisions, or I might not. The focus is somewhat different--there's much less of the supernatural in this version. I simply don't want to have a ghost in every novel!)

Lessons learned: thinking about a novel, even for more than a year, is a good thing; outlining can be learned (but I think it comes easier to some than to others); writing is a true pleasure; quiet mornings are an inspiration.

Road to Somewhere

There's a new road in Iqaluit. It starts around the old military base and ends at the new gravel pit. If you drive up that road, the view is truly one of the best in town. That's one.

Iqaluit is proud to have the Road to Nowhere. I'm quite enamoured with that road and with its name, of course. That's two.

It would be a pity, for a town with the Road to Nowhere, not to have a Road to Somewhere. That's three.

Last night I printed out some posters and today my husband pinned them up at a few places in town. He said people read them and smiled.

Riding on the Night Train

I haven't been motivated to post lately. I keep thinking that in the last years I haven't grown as a writer, haven't accomplished much. I'm not sure if this is true, as I've been focused on my novel, and there wasn't the almost immediate gratification of flash fiction (both writing it, submitting, and getting pieces accepted.) I'm re-reading my novel and making more changes.


This time I'm finally distant enough from my writing, and I'm able to actually read it, rather than simply remember it. I think I've done a really good job with it. (Is this normal to be impressed with one's own writing?)This might sound like I'm contradicting my first paragraph here, but I still feel that I could've written this very same novel three years ago, hence the issue of "growing." Is it really happening? Silently and invisibly? Or am I stagnating? I simply don't know. Only time will show.


Another issue that has been bothering me is this: What if in my efforts to remain positive about my writing and not to get too affected by rejections, I'm creating an illusion that my writing is better than it actually is? How do I find the right balance? I started this post to shout about my new / old piece in Night Train, and ended up whining about my lack of progress. This is the story with the words penis and vagina in the opening lines. How's that for a hook? I wrote it 3 years ago, when we just arrived to Iqaluit. Read it here!

Representing the Process of Writing--Visually

For some reason I'm not able to embed the video in a way that shows all of the viewing screen, even if I fiddled with the html. And it buggs me. Here it is on Youtube.

Stop motion animation with Windows Movie Maker

I spent the day working on (okay, playing with) stop motion animation with Windows Movie Maker. Just set each frame at the very minimum of seconds allowed (Under “Options”) and you’re good to go. I was inspired by PES on Youtube (also check 'Prank Call', 'Western Spaghetti' and the X-rated 'Roof Sex', with some chair action,) so I spent a good hour looking at apples, oranges, kiwi and dry fruits, but I was very aware of my technical limitations. At one point my 6 year old grabbed the raisin at which I was staring and swallowed it. Here you go, an actor, gone. I reached for another raisin, but it just didn’t have the right personality. Eventually I settled on dry kidney beans. It took me 5 minutes to make the movie (the technical part), from start to finish. Hooray for conceptual simplicity. However, the ending just wasn’t right, and I’m re-shooting tomorrow. Tentative title? “Awakening and Death of a Red Kidney Bean.” The death wasn’t a part of today’s production. I envision moderate technical difficulties tomorrow. Stay tuned.


My 6 year old made the cutest “Baby Snail” stop motion, but she won’t agree to make it public, at least not yet.

Novel as a scarf?

I’ve had a busy week—being new in town, even in a town I’ve lived before for two years, takes up different energy and creates different energy as well. I look at things already with nostalgia—we’ll be leaving just in a few short months. There are new buildings, new people, the same snow covered hills.

The kids have settled into a routine of watching old Russian cartoons before bed, and this leaves me with a good couple of hours of writing time. Or doing nothing time. Doing nothing is still doing something—so I sit and think and try to weave my novel, my characters’ stories in my head, while my baby sleeps on my lap. I sometimes wish I could write novels in 3-D, with things happening simultaneously on different facets. Does this make sense? I don’t know.

Last night I saw my novel as an unraveling scarf, and it totally made sense, but this morning, when I tried to imagine it again, and to bring back the thoughts that came with this image, nothing happened.

I just finished a short chapter, only about 800 words, to be expanded. I noticed that my writing style is different, but I’m not worried yet. Anything goes in the first draft.

Un-stucking my characters over tea

I went to the Frob for lunch with a friend today. We haven’t seen each other for a year, so it took us about 20 minutes to get ready to order and then another hour to get ready to pay. Then we drove to the Fantasy Palace for more tea. I love discussing my novels in progress with C. I told her about the chapters I already wrote and where my characters were stuck. C always asks the best questions. Like, what are their motives? This helps a lot. The twin sister is hiding in the woods in a tent, with her kidnapped niece. Why did she kidnap her? For some reason when she asks me, I can start brainstorming possible solutions and everything comes together, in a fluid, organic way. When I ask the same questions myself, I often don’t have any answers. So now I feel I made major progress in terms of moving my characters in the direction of…well, I’m more aware of their motives and I think I’m good for the next several chapters.

First photos on a wet, snowy day in Iqaluit

( Click on the photos to enlarge)
If you look carefully, you'll see a small plane about to land.



An absolutely irresistible pup! Very typical for Iqaluit--no collar, no leash.




That's the playground I like, because of the view. You can't really appreciate it from this photo, but my husband got me a better camera, and on a sunnier day I'll try to take a better one.



You can see snowflakes--gray smudges. On the ice below we spotted quite a few snowmobiles, and one sled pulled by dogs.

New and Cool

"Nanoism is a new online publication dedicated to twitter-fiction: fiction of up to 140 characters. Shorter then traditional flash fiction, it’s both a challenge to write and quick as a blink to read. It’s the perfect art form for the bleeding edge of the internet revolution."

Love it! I love the challenge, I love the form. Particularly this one, by David Tallerman, from April 6.

And this: Imagine going to your favourite organic coffee shop and reading your paper placemat? And instead of the typical Welcome / Bienvenue, there's a flash piece or two? How perfect is that? My only suggestion would be to publish several flash pieces of let's say 250 words, instead of one of 1000 words. 1000 words might be a bit too long with coffee.

Flash Fiction is Free

Let's face it, most flash fiction magazines are on-line, and most of them don't pay. There are some notable exceptions, like Flashquake, Bound Off, Vestal Review (recently became mostly print) or Cezanne's Carrot (pays a stipend to one author). I 'm sure there're more , one only needs to log into dutrope.com and check the needed criteria to see the whole list. But even the best ones, like Frigg, SmokeLong, elimae--they don't.

I'm not sure why I've embraced the culture of not being paid for my work, and why I think that it is okay to publish a flash for free, while not a short story. True, flash fiction requires, in most cases, less time commitment than a 5,000 word story, but it is not like I spit them out in minutes either. But flash fiction + internet is such a perfect marriage, and I've seem amazing quality of flash on-line. Most editors run those magazines in their free time with no reimbursement. And besides the magazines are free for their readers as well--which is marvellous and celebrates true accessibility.

But then there's The Toronto Quarterly. A new Canadian print quarterly edited by Darryl Salach. It doesn'te even have a web page--their communications are done through facebook, blogger, and my space. They boldly state, scream even, that they won't offer any compensation--not even a free contributor's copy (though pdf file can be uploaded from lulu.com for free). At first I wasn't quite sure what to think about it, but then I started to like the idea. I liked their honesty. They're certainly grounded in reality. Other non-paying mags might say, in a small print, at the bottom of their submission pages, that currently they don't offer any reimbursement. Some might add that in the future they hope to be able to do so. Right. It is not that they are lying, but they are certainly dreaming. Dreaming is great, I admire it. I also admire honesty. So I submitted a 500 word flash, and to an email yesterday that it is going to appear in the Fall issue of the Toronto Quarterly. It is called "No Memory of Rats." It is one of my "early" stories, and thus obviously the issue will become a collector's item in the very near future, so make sure you (YOU! And You, and you! ) buy a dozen copies. (Psssssst, and send me one).

Row around the world

Today on the bus I met Sergei Morozov, a Russian navigator who currently lives in Halifax, who wants to row around the world. Now, that's inspirational!

He sat across from me. Sometimes we, "Russians" (i.e. former Soviet citizens), sense each other. There's something unidentifiable, ephemeral--in the eyes, or in the posture. I sensed he was one of "us," but wasn't certain until I heard him speak on his cellphone. I said hello, we talked for a few minutes. Just before I got off he gave me his card with a link to his web site.

A young man next to us asked if we were speaking German or Russian. Russian, I replied. He was close. I'm surprised how many people here think I speak French after hearing me speak Russian.

In conversation I got disoriented and almost missed my stop.

I'm humbled and inspired by this project. A writer can't afford much, but half of my Descant honorarium is going towards Sergei's project.

"dogs" by arthur bradford

this summary is from my very much loved 2000 o'henry collection, the story was short-listed, originally published in esquire, 1999.

a man has sexual relations with a dog and spawns a litter that includes one human offspring in miniature. the father casts the child off, moses-like, in a shoebox. later the child returns, disguised as a singing muskrat, and is accidentally killed by one of the other dogs in his litter. but the little man has impregnated a woman in an iron lung who gives birth to a litter of singing pooches.

the story also appears in his short story collection, Dogwalker, i just found out after googling. i've wanted to read this story for ages. well, since 2000. maybe it is the time i buy the collection.

interestingly, bradford also worked / works with adults with developmental disabilities. unlike me, however, he believes that his stories should be entertaining and easy to read. i don't know what i believe about my stories. my humber mentor has been gently prodding me towards accessibility. i'm trying. but i generally like a bit of mystery and wonder and maybe even some subtle confusion in the stories i read, and write.

oh, and i think the miniature man survives, as obviously he is Fernando, the lover of my nameless protagonist in Postcard from Brazil, my yet unpublished flash. heh heh. i actually didn't think about this summary when i wrote this story. but maybe it has been in my subconscious for too long.