Shwoe-ning

What would make me return to blogging before I have reached any goals?
Would it be that I've accomplished something great? No.
Did I get lots of writing done? No. Although, I did revise around 30 pages yesterday.
Did I get lured back by the flattering comments I received? No. (Although, that was tempting. Flattery works here at Fictionally.

No, it was this:
I have discovered via Andre Leon Talley, style maven at Vogue, the name of a shoe designer named Courtney Crawford. Page 240 of the current September 2006 Vogue with Dunsty Antoinette on the cover.

Am I ashamed to be swooning over a shoe by the same man who designed shoes for - gag - Mariah Carey? She of little-to-no style? Yes.

But the gaudy, tacky, vicious, 1980s Versace-esque gold stiletto on page 140, called MAN EATER, really took my breath away. Is it my favourite shoe of all time? No.

But it's enough to bring me back to blogging.

More soonish... or I may have some guest bloggers in for you...

All Play and No Work

All play and no work makes me low on funds. And short on word count.

I'm gonna stop blogging for a while - for as long as necessary to get my writing back in line.
When I've written a good amount, I'll be back.

Have a good weekend!

Hmmph!

Gawker's post on the Forbes nonsense

Smart Bitches/Trashy Books on the Forbes nonsense.

It's too nonsensical to write anything more about it. But yes, I decided to blog it anyways.

Bon Cop, Bad Cop

Well, it could've been soooo good. But it was okay.

Wonderful idea, but the movie was very uneven. Some parts were funny, other parts, the humour seemed to dip to thirteen-year-old boy levels. Colme Feore and Patrick Huard were both fantastic, but even the best actors can be hampered by script and directorial choices.

The script, the credits say, was written by four people. It shows. It seems like the four did not agree on the tone or the pace or even, at times, the idioms of English speakers. I don't know any sister that would say to her brother, "Oh, c'mon, brother...". Although, it may be more common in Quebecois lingo ("ah, mon frere...").

I was really hoping that this would be The Great Canadian Bilingual Movie. A succesful franchise and series spin-off. But it is not.


My friend Natalie the Incredible sent me this link. It is a list folks in "creative fields" should read. It's from a website called Gaping Void.


Had sushi tonight at Ho Su. The company was delightful, the sushi less so. It's slipping every time I go there. My Futo Maki and my spicy salmon rolls both tasted like they'd been sitting around. Not fishy or anything, but the rice seemed a touch stale, if that makes any sense. Only the hamachi nigiri I ordered at the end was really remarkable and delicious. I think Shogun is edging them out as my new fave sushi place. Maybe I should only order Korean Food at Ho Su.

Tonight's Movie

Running out to see Bon Cop, Bad Cop.

Will report later.

Your Sunday "Tough Love" Motivation

J. A. Konrath, thriller writer, has this saying on the side of his blog. It certainly shut up the whining in my head.


Fate is simply a future that you didn't try to change.

Selling Out for 100 Million Dollars

An interesting little bit of news I was previously unaware of:

Colgate-Palmolive bought Tom's of Maine.

Back when I was an idealistic teen, I often bought Tom's of Maine toothpaste in Fennel flavour. It's like cool, hip, enviro-friendly, toothpaste with mountain-climbing, hiker indie-cred! Toothpaste that the Man wouldn't brush his teeth with! I would still buy it (for the occasional change in toothpaste flavour), except that even as it's become more available, the price has never gone down. I think it still sells for around $5.50 CAD. It's a bit hard to justify when you're not rolling in money and plain old Colgate goes on sale for 59 cents.

Even though I'm sure the founders will do a lot of good with their money - I'm sure they'll conserve wetlands etc - it still struck me as a bit sad. I like having a lot of choice. And now, even though the choice to buy the product is still there, the money goes to the same people as if I buy the 59 cent Colgate. I know my logic is flawed, seeing as I haven't bought their product in years, but it affects me emotionally, not rationally.

I can't really blame them. I'm sure most contracts look really really good with $100 million attached.

"Mama, if that's selling up, then I'm sellin' out! Doo doo dee doo dee doo...."

Write from the Hip

I cannot overstress how important it is that you go see Write from the Hip, part of the Groundswell theatre festival.

Why would I have an ulterior motive? What are you implying? Ok, fine, my best friend's play is being showcased. HURRAH!

Since I can't trust you to click on the link, I have cut-and-pasted the blurb here:

"Our Write from the Hip unit will have readings of their plays on August 20 at 8 p.m. Hip participants include Christine Nicole Harris, Patricia Lee, Haley McGee, Martha Schabas, Paula Schultz, and Yaya Yao.
Tickets are Pay-What-You-Can at the door (Suggested amount $10 per person). Limited seating. No Latecomers."

That's Sunday at the Distillery District. Click on "theatre" and scroll down, if you don't see it. Nightwood's at Building 74, studio 301. I'm assuming that's where the show's gonna be.

Be there.

The Contest and the Sneaky Link

The Contest:

At Writer's Market, there's currently a short short story contest on. Do your best in 1500 words. Entry fee is twelve bucks (USD).


The Sneaky Link:

At Hip Candy, I discovered a sneaky little tool - Work Friendly. Enter a URL and ta-da - it converts the URL to look like a word document! There's a "Boss" button too, which makes the whole page look like an article on time-management. Pretty funny. See? Now you can read my bright pink blog at work! I'm here to help.

My Postcard from Melbourne!

I got my postcard! Ok, technically, I received it last Thursday, but (a) I had a guest staying with me and (b) I have no digital camera of my own, so I had to borrow one. It's taken me a week to post this. I'm very sorry.

I have to say, I love this postcard. I love that it's a real gritty little bit of Melbourne. And I really like the blogger's blog it's from too! It's from Ed at Tomato, an Australian food blog.





Hopefully one day I'll get myself to Melbourne and check out the bar that's hidden via this alleyway. Since it's called The Croft Institute, maybe I'll even dress inspired by Lara Croft. But without the shorts. Oh, shaddup, I heard that.

Thanks, Ed! This is a terrific photo-postcard, and it'll be up on my bulletin board. Happy blogging.

Hm. The only Toronto restaurant I can recommend to foodies right off the top of my head is Edward Levesque's Kitchen. I've only been there for brunch, but I'd have no qualms taking anyone there. The food and the service have never disappointed.

Blurry

Remember two posts ago, when I said I was sleeping at night?
I backslid.
I stayed up all night again. But, I revised another twenty pages of Book One, so it was not all wasted.

This morning did I did laundry, vacuumed and tidied up. Even showered and had breakfast before I went online. I'm inordinately proud. And ready to crash any minute now.

Like the title of the post, I feel "blurry". So more later.

Bonus photo. A shot I took last winter on the way from Gananoque to Toronto. I don't think I posted it, did I?

You Must Enjoy These

(1) You will watch Guest Room on Sunday August 13th. Check out "Stronger" the weekend after too.

(2) If you are female, you will submit your play to Write from the Hip

(3) You will attend this year's Groundswell Festival. The 2006 listing should be up soon. It's at the Distillery District.

You will have a good time. Trust me.

Circadian Joy

I slept at night.

Those who know me well, know that for the past few weeks, I've flipped my sleep schedule around (as usual), and have been writing all night/sleeping all day. My aunt said, "You're on Hong Kong time".

I finally stayed up a full 24 hours, and went to bed at 10:30pm. Woke up at 10:30am. This is positively thrilling. I did the coolest things this morning - like eat breakfast.

Stay tuned to see if I can sleep tonight too!

No new word count yet. I wrote 1500+ words yesterday, but it's for an online contest.

Right now, I'm busy with a 10 minute lecture I'm supposed to deliver in a week. Not freaking out at all.

And None of You Told Me

When I was away, I missed this bit of news:
The largest used bookstore in the city is going to open where that old boarded-up gothic building in the Annex was.

Bonjour, bookstore! Au revoir, money!

Back to Work, Please!

Saturn says:

Stop surfing, blogging, and watching CSI/Rodeo. Get back to work!

If you're wondering, "what's with your cat's face?" - she's a tortoise-shell.
Also known as "tortie". Here, you can learn about her genetic freakitude.

Her coloring is such that she appears to have two cream-coloured eyebrows which give her a look of perpetual worry. That's why I added the "please" in the title. She doesn't look very aggressive, does she?

And for all you dog people, yes, of course I love dogs too. One day I'll be mature enough to own one.

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I am currently following the advice from chapter one of The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile. It's by Noah Lukeman. It has exercises at the end of each chapter to apply to your manuscript. I'll keep you posted.

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Did you know some rodeo guys wear helmets instead of cowboy hats now? Ok, ok, going...

Philip Pullman on Writer's Block

What do you do about writer's block?

"I don't believe in it. All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don't get plumber's block, and doctors don't get doctor's block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it?"

A great answer - though the word associations between plumbers and blockages strikes me as icky.

Word Meter

A cool word meter I've seen on other websites from Zokutu Writer's Tools, part of a writers' group website. Their main page is here.

Work in Progress #2 is now at:

17,821 / 90,000 (19.8%)

I'm not sure if that's inspirational or depressing.

Meeta's Postcards

What's For Lunch Honey?: My Postcards

I think that's the link back to the Queen Organizer of the whole affair that I'm s'posed ta post.

A Little Bit About the Postcard Below

I am actually a postcard collector, so it was tough for me to choose from my collection. I narrowed down the postcards to four - the criteria being that both art or image on the front and the artist be Canadian. I then decided that the postcard should actually be from the city I'm in. Then I had to choose between an art card or a somewhat more touristy card. This time I opted for the more touristy. Casa Loma is a Toronto landmark. You can find out more about Casa Loma here.

"What's For Lunch, Honey?" Blog Postcard Exchange

Some lucky blogger will soon be receiving this postcard:





Sorry for the delay in putting it up. My computer was co-opted by Sister In Desperate Need of Computer today. But she lent me her camera with which to take the above picture, so no big deal.

Now, I have to go back to the blog that started the exchange and make sure I'm doing this all right. And I have to mail the postcard out, of course!

More soon.

Oh yeah - W.I.P. #2 - wrote 4000 words last night! Yipee!