Cover love, ancient carols, and the holy baby Jesus

I was really overjoyed to see the response garnered by my cover here and on Twitter and Facebook.  A novel is such a long and solitary journey that it really is wonderful to be able to share a major concrete step along the way of it becoming a book.  It really does mean a lot to a writer to have a little cheerleading along the way! 

It has been another busy set of days.  My choir concert came and went, and I was so happy when it was over.  In all my semesters of being a member, this was by far the most chaotic – maybe because of the sheer number of pieces included.  I’ve never felt so unprepared, and I could hear from my own voice and the voices around me that we weren’t quite ready.  The sopranos were not alone in missing a bunch of entries.  Some of the strings were out of tune.  But my songs in the chamber choir performance came off without a hitch, and I didn’t do that awful thing that I’ve done every other concert – where I make a brand-new, horrible mistake that I’ve never once made before in practice.  So at least there’s that!

Interior of the lovely Saint-Enfant-Jésus de Mile End

(aka Holy Baby Jesus church)

It’s also nice to sing in a lovely, falling-down-around-the-ears church.  One of my favourite things we sang this year was Zadok the Priest.  I couldn’t tell from the title, but it’s a piece I once sang as part of a massed choir at the National Arts Centre when I was younger.  It’s strange and wonderful when the melody returns to you in a song you don’t consciously remember.  

Maybe the most beautiful of the songs we sang was Entre le boeuf et l’ane gris.  I love those old, old carols. 

Post-concert, we had beer and delicious Indian food and a gender-divide night with my in-laws, where the men watched the Grey Cup and the womenfolk dined at the table before delving into deep closets.  My mother-in-law was cleaning out her closets and hoping favourite outfits from decades past could find a congenial home. 

It was fun taking a trip down wardrobe history, but given my own pressing need to purge my closets, it may not have been the wisest idea.    But I did leave with an amazing collection of shoes and a purse I suspect will become essential.  I’ll share some pics when things are a little less crazy-busy. 

Next up: looming school assignments (somehow 60% of my grade has come down to the last 8 days of term…even though another 30% has yet to be graded), a birthday party, reviewing my copy edits, finally coughing up the dough to buy some winter boots (judging by yesterday's snow still clinging to the ground, I might have to do this imminently), catching up on emails (I hope), and rejoining a gym.  

Also, I should mention that if you are thinking of giving books for Christmas this year, you could scarcely do better than purchasing some homegrown Canadian literature from Freehand Books. (Mother Superior is in really amazing company at this press.) If you use the code freehand20%, it will get you 20% off.