fortification spectrum

I had only a couple of writing-related things I really wanted to get done today. First off, respond to some friends' pages on a chapter exchange. Then maybe get back to looking at the first pages of my so-called fast novel.

Unfortunately, as soon as I sat down at the computer, I realized I couldn't make out half the screen. I shifted the monitor up, then down, then back, then started sliding back and forth in my less-than-ergonomic rolling desk chair, trying to get a new angle, before I realized that the flickering glare covering most of the left of the screen had nothing to do with the computer and everything to do with my brain.

I was a little bit scared and though I pushed through reading the pages, and even sent out one brief and probably unhelpful email with feedback, I had a hard time settling down to anything, wondering when the pain would kick in or if it would and trying to strategize when to take a Tylenol and also trying to figure out what on earth I could do with myself that wouldn't be seriously hampered by a pulsing light show.

The last checkup I had, my doctor asked me if I had ever had migraines and, not seeing what she was getting at, I rather chattily described the flickering in my field of vision I'd experienced on a couple of occasions before crippling headaches. (It's so freaky that I was kind of excited to talk about it.) She then informed me that migraines with aura were a counterindication to the prescription she was about to write for me, and instead wrote me a referral for a neurologist (an appointment I have yet to make). She offered me a one-month renewal of the medication but warned me that if it was her, she would stop taking the drugs immediately. She said, "I tend to be a very careful person. Maybe the medication increases your chances to 1 in a 100,000 instead of 1 in 300,000, but if you're that one person who does have a stroke, the odds stop mattering." Clearly, she is a very good doctor.

So I did stop, but then I started again, and now I've had the most intense aura ever -- according to Wikipedia it's sometimes called the fortification spectrum, as the flickering light starts to expand and look like the walls of a castle seen from above.

A dear friend of mine is a fiction writer who suffers migraines. A few years ago, she also had a very minor stroke, and this has made it infinitely harder for her to proofread. She just can't process the words on the page the same way she used to.

Last month in the New Yorker, Oliver Sacks wrote about the alarming case of a Canadian novelist who had a stroke and lost the ability to read. He could still write, but as soon as he put his pen down, what he just wrote looked like nonsense. It's called alexia, the inability to recognize written language.

Obviously, strokes can be a lot more serious than just losing the ability to read. But it's a frightening prospect nonetheless.

This probably won't make a difference, but I'm going to go drink a few tall glasses of water -- my go-to solution for every kind of malady, physical or psychic.

cool down and emptiness

The weather has finally cooled down here, which means a respite from tiny summer dresses back into comfy long jeans and t-shirts. It's always exciting, initially, when it's warm enough for those flirty sundresses, but I feel more like myself, somehow, when I can wear a minimum, modest amount of clothing of the sort in which I could easily undertake any of a range of possible, improbable tasks: dish washing! ditch digging! apartment fleeing! spontaneous dance partying! And truth be told, I can't remember the last time I did any writing in a rose-patterned tea dress. Jeans it is! All the cool things get done in jeans.

The heat wave also stalled me out on what I have been wishfully referring to as my "fast novel project." The concept? Write a fast novel. Sounds good, right? Well, easier said than done. (Duh, you say. To which I say, touché.) Working from a set of deadlines dubbed the "nerd grid," I've been trying to quickly turn out some pages of a novel I've had in mind, while remaining accountable to my two friends who initiated the exchange with each other in order to stay motivated through the editing progress of their own manuscripts. Deadlines are a gift, and I was (still am!) really excited about their stimulating possibilities. But absolutely no writing could get done in my apartment at 42 degrees Celsius with my one sad, whirring fan. Maybe this is not unrelated to my point about jeans above. Sitting around in fever heat in the politest alternative to underwear one can scrounge up does not inspire literary genius, or even say, a couple of average sentences, which is what I more reasonably strive for, in general. I did manage to do a bit of editing on my existing novel-in-progress, but that's it. But the problem about arbitrary, self-imposed deadlines is that once you breeze by one, it's very hard to re-conjure your existential faith in the rest of them. But we'll see.

The other problem with writing right now is that -- for prose, anyway, in my own limited experience -- one really has to be calm to write. And I'm not calm. I think a state of not calm is a great one for dreaming things up, for getting excited about a million different projects, for thinking up beginnings and endings and complications, but it is not ideal for that discipline of sitting back down (and down and down and down again) at the computer. That requires its own special kind of...I almost want to say emptiness, in which you can find enough stillness and space to let the story come on its own and fill you up.

back from the void

Even though writing and thinking about writing takes up most of my day in one form or another, writing about writing is not always something that comes easily or naturally. Maybe it's because some self-preserving part of me doesn't want to give over even more of myself to something that already dominates my life, or maybe it's because there are already so many wonderful book and writing bloggers that I don't feel compelled to add my voice to the mix. Or maybe it's because so much of working on a novel is a repetitive struggle (simply the daily alternations between emotional extremes of "The writing is going well! Hurray! Life is amazing!" and "The writing is going badly. Everything sucks.") that the documentation of the process is not always a tempting prospect. I'm not sure who wants to hear about it, let alone read about it.

So much for my excuses. Add to the above procrastination, stress, and the usual time constraints. It's hard to believe it's already July. Since January I've served on a literary jury for grants, taught an eight-week creative writing course, finished an essay for a YA anthology about fathers and teen daughters, and went to an amazing artists' colony in upstate New York. And I've finished a draft or two of the novel, too. The life-stuff in between, I don't know where that went.

That's the bare bones recap, and not at all what I sat down to write. Didn't I just finish saying that I don't want to write about writing?

Happy New Year

I'm not a huge fan of celebrating the new year in the dead of winter (here in Winnipeg, where I am right now, it's a crisp -31), but I am a big believer in new beginnings and for that reason alone it seems like a worthwhile holiday. I haven't written down any resolutions this year yet (but I should...apparently people who write down their goals are more likely, statistically, to achieve them), but I've been working on a 101 Things in 1001 Days for a while now, and my ongoing writing- and reading-related goals look something like this:

- read more American fiction
- read more British fiction
- read more poetry
- finish my novel (so close right now!)
- write another one
- try writing something in another genre (essay, poetry, etc)

In case it's not obvious from my to-do list, I mostly read contemporary Canadian fiction, and I don't plan on stopping. I've made some progress with this list (let's see, I read Netherland last year...and...uh...), but not enough that I feel I can stop making a special effort yet. If you have any recommendations for British and American writers I should be reading, I'd love to hear them.

Here's hoping that 2010 sees us reaching all our reading and writing goals!

On literary prizes

This morning I went to the announcement of the winners of the Governor General's Literary Awards at the Grande Bibliothèque. It was an interesting format in that it was part press conference, part ceremony: it was mostly attended by members of the media, but the writers and illustrators still crossed the stage and delivered acceptance speeches. The speeches were mostly decorous and deeply thankful. Some of the writers explained the origins of the ideas behind the works in question (one, I can't remember which now, started as a Grade 11 school assignment!). It was a cheery and inspiring way to start off the day, and I learned a little bit about a lot of books I might not otherwise know about.

I wanted to write about prizes today because November 17th will always be a special date for me. Exactly one year ago today, my name was called out at the Writers' Trust of Canada awards gala as it was announced I was the winner of the Journey Prize. A giant picture of my face went on the screen and I went onstage and delivered a giddy and probably mostly incoherent speech, much of which I can thankfully no longer remember. I didn't blog about it here when it happened because it seemed too magical to be real. It still does.

Somebody pinch me! (Photo courtesy of the Writers' Trust of Canada)

It felt particularly meaningful for me because I'd been buying and reading the McClelland & Stewart's Journey Prize Stories anthologies for years, and so many writers I admire have appeared in those volumes.

I know there is a lot of debate about the merits of literary prizes, and certainly the winner is always chosen by a subjective process, influenced by who-knows-what kind of internal processes between the jurors, but I think they're a good and necessary part of the literary culture in Canada. They help the writers, they help the readers make some headway in providing some guidance in what to choose, and they give us all something to talk about. Without prizes, there would be a lot less media coverage of literature in general.

And since it is awards season, after all, I'm going to go get ready to attend the QWF Awards gala (where last year I was not so lucky, but still had a fabulous time). It's not too late to come if you're in Montreal! Tickets are just $15 ($10 for students) at the door. The reception starts at 7 p.m., and the awards start at 8 p.m.

Career options for fiction writers

I've been getting a bit restless working from home all day, every day, and I've started to think about day jobs versus career matches for professional fiction writers.

I'm familiar with the concept of a day job: employment, unrelated to writing, that pays the bills. I've worked at a video store, a community centre, for the police, and as a university administrator, all while pursuing writing as a calling --- in my spare time. And I thoroughly enjoyed all of those jobs and the different skill sets they entailed. I wouldn't hesitate to do any of them again, either. Part of me really thinks that it might actually be better in a writing life to have a job that gives you a break from writing.

But part of me is a little bit envious of my peers who are developing careers as professionals in other, non-artistic fields. I've never let myself consider anything (e.g. educational choices that might lead to practical career options) that might derail myself from "becoming a writer." I didn't go to law school, or library school, or even do a Ph.D. because it seemed to me that I could probably only productively pursue one goal, the only one which has ever had real ambition behind it. (What's the point of going to law school if you don't *really* want to be a lawyer? What's the point of doing a Ph.D if you don't *really* want to be a professor?)

But with a certain (admittedly modest) amount of credibility as a writer established, I've been wondering if there's anything else I'm suited for, beyond the solely administrative-type jobs I tend to gravitate towards, given my undying love of a nice spreadsheet. What do other writers do to pay the bills (besides writing gigs of varying kinds)? What should fiction writers naturally be good at? Here's what I've come up with so far:

Teaching (literature, language, writing), library sciences (I've been thinking seriously about this), journalism, publishing, editing, communications. And what about more overtly creative communications jobs? Advertising? Marketing? These seem like they would be good fits, too.

What am I leaving out? I'm remembering now that T.S. Eliot worked for a bank.

Naming fictional characters

One of my favourite parts about writing is naming characters. Growing up, my writing consisted of little else. I'd spend ages constructing a name, a description, a family situation, only to finally start a story that would usually fizzle out after a couple dozen pages. (Though, in retrospect, the world is probably better off without the further adventures of Danya Wilkinson or Calliope Dryden --- or even those of the less outlandishly named Tessa Gilmore.)

To name something is to give it life, to make it real, to make it something in the world. A name is the strongest kind of word there is, a kind of magic word, really. Names have always been important in mythology and religion. In initiation rites, you take on a new name to signify the change you've undergone, but part of the magic of the change is worked by the name itself.

Last week I was working on a narrative essay drawing on some elements of my high school experience, and as always, when trying to write about my own life, I found myself getting hung up on the details --- things that had mattered to me, but which wouldn't matter to anyone else. I was getting especially bogged down by the people in the story, some of whom I could barely even remember. The things I did remember I wasn't sure I could trust. I found myself stumbling through half-sentences, stopping, starting again. I was using initials in place of people's real names, thinking I would sub in some pseudonyms once I had a draft. But after a few unfruitful hours, I started thinking I had better rename them sooner rather than later.

And once I'd renamed them, they became other people. Lighter, freer. Characters who were similar in some respects to the real people who inspired them, but still strangers to me in most of the ways that count. In other words, people I could write about.*

For me, a character name usually starts with a first letter, or a feeling for a letter, and an idea of syllables. I don't think I'm alone among writers in not only having strong feelings about words, but for letters, too, and rhythms. So I might have the idea of something starting with a "B," two syllables long, and I start looking from there. The naming process happens at a very early stage in the creation of a character, early enough that the relationship is symbiotic. The name suggests the character to me as much as the character suggests the name.

I've had a copy of Baby Names From Around the World since I was nine, bought for this very purpose at a long-defunct Coles bookstore on Bank Street in Ottawa. (I remember getting a lot of concerned looks and questions about it when I was toting it around as a pre-teen.) As for as choosing an appropriate name by looking up its meaning, I think it's usually overkill in fiction to be that obviously thematic. But if the meaning is secretly relevant to you as a writer, for understanding the character, then that can only be a good thing.

Of course, there's no need for a baby name book now. The internet is full of resources for this sort of thing (these days baby names sites seem to be as ubiquitous, and nearly as spammy, as song lyrics sites). I often do just use names I like, but depending on when I want the character to have been born, I consult the U.S. Social Security Administration website, which gives you a list of names by gender and popularity for every year since 1879, or I Google to find a more specific list, like "Newfoundland surnames" or "Algerian boy names." No matter what, and I'm not sure why this is or what complex circles of influence control this, but I'm always absolutely in line with or slightly ahead of the zeitgeist in terms of my favourite names (four first names from my short-story collection appear in the Top Ten of the Top 100 Baby Names in Canada in 2008). So for that reason, I feel like I have to be careful when creating characters not born within, say, the last five years.

When I'm working on different sorts of projects, something where I just need to get ideas quick for a whole host of characters, I have fun with the Random Name Generator. It uses information from the U.S. Census, and it has an adjustable obscurity factor. It's wonderful for last names in particular, especially as phone books are turning into a thing of the past.

If you have any other good tricks for finding the perfect character name, please share.


*Whether the people in question (should they ever read the essay) would make much of this distinction is less certain, and is a troublesome enough topic for another time.