"I saved Latin. What did you ever do?"

Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel is coming to a theatre near you.
If you aren't excited, then I'm sorry, but we can never be friends.

The literary sausage

It's been 71 days since I've written a word of fiction. I know this to be true because my laptop keeps begging for a backup, ticking down the days with every pop up. "IT'S BEEN 71 DAYS SINCE YOUR LAST BACKUP.... DON'T YOU LOVE ME ANYMORE?"

I haven’t plugged my neglected Mac into my external hard drive because I haven’t had a reason to. Because I haven’t produced any documents worthy of my patented quadruple-save. 

As I’ve blogged about here 117,000 times already, I was burnt out by my first novel, and still am in many ways. And while I miss feeling creative and productive, I’m not sure I want to dive back in to writing yet. I feel like I’m gambling with my sanity by hacking away at my stories. Making up characters and worlds and drama, and facing rejection constantly -- sane people don't do such things. At least not without some sort of positive reinforcement or payoff. And besides that, writing fiction is incredibly hard. Every. Word. Counts. Did you know that? I used to, but during my "time off," I somehow managed to forget. 

This morning, though, something shifted in me and I decided to break the spell I've been under. So I wrote something. And it took me an hour and a half, there or abouts. More, factoring in my lunch-hour revising. And you know what I ended up with? Just a couple little lines. Here, see for yourself:

This is me: sitting pretty like she told me to, my knees locked, ankles crossed. I'm fixing my eyes on where I came from, my mother’s tummy, and then up at the rest of her. She looms over me, scratching her lotto ticket, that silver junk falling on my forehead like rain. Rain is lucky, she says, when I whine and shake it off. Your daddy used to make rain, you know. The wettest, warmest rain there ever was.

Granted that's a better investment of my time than say The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. But it's not just the time that got invested that's the issue; it's the mental and emotional energy.

To give you an example, let's dissect the text above, shall we? Let’s delve deep into my brain and pull out all the uncertainty and work and fretting -- AKA insanity -- that goes into writing something as short as that wee chunk. You ready to see how the sausage gets made? You sure? It’s pretty horrifying. But if you insist…

Should this be in first person or third? Present or past tense? I know all the “experts” say that present tense is more interesting to read, more action-oriented, but I personally prefer past tense. Hmmm… Hmmm…. Back to that later. What about the whole “rain” thing? Kind of a cliche, isn't it? When I read the word I picture every bad movie ever made with some heart-throb experiencing a major life event in the middle of downpour, his arms spread wide, mouth open, drinking it all in, his soul being cleansed. And what is that stuff on scratch and win tickets called anyways? "Latex" is the best description I can find on Google. What did writers do before Google? Am I copping out by using Google all the time for research? What would a real writer do? Call someone at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation? Does that mean I'm not a real writer? Oh God, and then there's the word "loom." Let’s pretend -- just for a moment -- that that word doesn't suck, okay? Now here's my real problem: a little kid wouldn’t think "loom." Unless…. Maybe she’s a really smart kid? Like, gifted smart? Yeah. Yeah! That’s it! She’s a gifted child with the vocabulary of a graduate student in English and the easy wisdom of Maya Angelou! And what about the word "lotto"? I really want to write "scratch and win" but I can't think of a better word than "scratching" -- which comes directly before -- and that would be so repetitive...

I warned you. You never watch the sausage being made. Even if it's vegan.

I'm gonna buy all the straws!

I sold my first novel!

Well, not exactly. (Notice how almost all the good news on this blog is fake or some sort of tease for the less-good truth? That is %$*#ing depressing. Why do you read such a depressing blog about writing? If I were you, I'd check out this blog instead: theblabbermouthblog.com. Or this one: books.macedo.ca.) Here's what actually happened.

Aside from me and my agent Linda, my younger sister Kathleen is the only other person on the planet who has read my novel in its current form. This is her holding my other sister’s awesome new baby, Quinn:

Doesn’t Kathleen exude coolness and kindness? Standing there with a sideways baby, her soothing thumb in Quinn's gummy mouth? Kathleen is much, much cooler than me. If she had a blog, I’d refer you over there, too.

Because she has a heart of gold and is generally very savvy about how to make people feel good about themselves, she came up with a fabulous idea: she paid me for my novel! The other day, she handed me a book store gift card, telling me that she was my first sale. See? Cool.

With the proceeds of the "sale," I bought these babies:

Designer smoothie straws! And a novel, of course: The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton.

Let me be the first to tell you that a wildly inflated, pretend royalty cheque is a beautiful thing. If I ever get another one, you can bet I'll be buying the rainbow straws, too.

I know this will likely fall pancake flat in today's climate of FREE CONTENT FOR ALL! and STEALING IS FINE! -- but here's a wild idea I'd like to table. To the pleasure readers of unpublished manuscripts, why not take a page from Kathleen Saso's book and offer the author a little gift, a small token to make them feel like a professional, like what they've slaved over is worth something. Only pay the author if you like the manuscript, of course. If you don’t, then never speak to that %$*#ing loser again. 

Now who's with me?

Word clouds and soup (AKA: neat stuff I found on the Internet)

That up there is a word cloud of chapter one and two of my novel. Kind of cool, huh? A word cloud is a graphical representation of word frequency, which means I used "like" a lot. Oops. Sound the simile alarm! (Or the Valley Girl alarm.)

It's surprising, but just seeing my words presented like this has breathed new life into my exhausted little book and its equally exhausted author. If only a little bit. A puff. 

If you want to make one too, Google "word cloud." There's a few sites that will blip-bleep them together for you. (In case you didn't know, everything in computerland works either in blips or bleeps, or sometimes both simultaneously.) I made mine here.

Also, a friend of mine (hi Alana!) told me about this essay by the author Junot Diaz and I wanted to share. I can relate on a level that makes me very uncomfortable and hopeful at the same time. 

Also #2, if you haven't read the blog Literary Rejections on Display lately, it's worth a revisit. The writer shut it down a year ago but she's back. And get this: she got a book deal! How fantastic is that? So you see, there is hope out there. You just have to spend a lot of time on, like, the Internet to find it.

And here’s another fabulous thing I found on the Internet. I’ve been making this roasted red pepper soup lately and it’s really helped me make it through the polar vortex from hell. I amp up the protein by adding tofu and chickpeas. And because the only thing tastier than fat is more fat, I add in some Daiya cream cheese and cashews. Avocado would be good too. So there you go. Blip-bleep.

Emily, meet Your Worst Nightmare.

I debated about blogging about this because, well, I have good reason not to. I thought about keeping the whole debacle to myself because it was just outright embarrassing and makes me feel extremely vulnerable. Just thinking about it now makes me feel nauseous. In the end, though, I decided to share because I bet this happens more than most writers want to admit. And that’s kind of why I started this blog in the first place. So that other aspiring writers would have a place to come and read and feel a little less alone in the world. So let’s get on with it, shall we?

Something happened the other day and it threw me into an emotional tailspin. I’m talking near-tears to my husband, frantically texting my writer pal and, of course, sending my agent several over-the-top emails begging for advice, solace, peace anything to calm down the tornado of panic that I had spun into. Cutlery, small appliances, side tables, cows (sure, why not?)—all this stuff got caught in my wind tunnel vortex of anxiety.

I was sick at home last week, passing the time with a good but intensely sad novel (Life After Life by Kate Atkinson), Netflix and Googling random stuff. Suddenly, out of nowhere, an idea popped into my head: “I know! I’m going to see if that writer I like has come out with his second novel!” So I merrily clicked my way over to his web page.

That’s when the wind picked up, stirring my hair and billowing through my pajamas. I heard a cow moo mournfully in the distance.

On this author’s homepage was a description for his latest novel… and a major theme in it – hell, a very specific character-related magical realism idea, an idea that I thought was sheer original genius on my part (at least outside of X-Men) – was there on the screen, looking back at me and saying “Beat you to it, bi-atch.”

I could feel my blood heat up, my heart beat increase, could hear that cow’s mooing grow louder and louder. "Was this going to kill me?" I thought. Was this the final stage of my illness? A slow degradation by fever, mucus and sleep deprivation followed by literary redundancy and death by panic tornado and, if that failed to do me in, death by plagiarism conspiratorialists?
 

When I calmed down and the haze of my horror/respiratory distress subsided, I had a moment of clarity thanks to my infallible support system. My husband listened to me be all crazy, my friend texted me back even though she had better things to do, and my agent e-mailed me back. Here’s what she wrote:

“Just keep breathing and don’t worry. Your book is your book. So big deal! Weather Shmeather. Seriously. Your book isn’t about weather. It’s a metaphor and nobody has a patent on metaphors. Don’t. Worry. Does his book have Jehovah’s Witnesses in it? Or Greek food? Is it about the same people that yours is about?” 

Thank goodness for calmer heads than mine.

There was no malevolence here, (and no flying cow either). It’s a crazy insane what-are-the-chances kind of coincidence. But I immediately got scared that my readers—if I ever get any—will think that I stole this key concept! I mean, shit. I list this author’s* first novel on my blog as one of my all-time favorites! It’s not a totally illogical leap to think I took one look at his second book and stole some ideas. (Of course, I most certainly did not. I began writing my book long before his came out. And I would never do that anyways! That is just freaking mental!) But if you’re looking for a reason to mess with me, and you read my blog, then visit his web site, or you hear about his novel and you think “Hmmm?”

Worst. Nightmare.

I’ve always worried that this would happen. I’ve been working on this book for so long now that every time I walk by a book with a cover or a title that looks like it could be similar to my story or ideas, I panic a bit. It’s been about eight years since I began this process, and I’ve felt a little scared every single day. That’s a lot of fear to deal with. Most of it is irrational, of course, which is the most fortunate kind of fear to have, I suppose—but it’s still fear. And it’s this fear that makes me ask myself the same question over and over again: Is it worth it?

*And no, I'm not going to tell you who the author is. This way, you'll have to check out all of my favourite authors! Ha!

I have no one to blame but myself. And the CEO of Netflix.

My Christmas holidays have come and gone, and with them, a little bit of self-respect. I managed to get zero writing done in the time off work I had. Even when it came to Christmas cards I was like "Arggghhhh. Do I have to actually write something here?" Which was followed by a sort of goat sound. 

My standard 2013 Christmas card message. LAZY.

That is not my name, by the way. "Emi____." See what I'm talking about? I couldn't even be bothered to write my whole name!

Most of the time I eschewed Christmas cards altogether, opting instead for those teeny gift tags whose limited real estate make writing more than one's name impossible. Gift tags are absolutely brilliant for this very reason. I don't care how important you are to me or how much I love you -- from this day forward, you will only receive gift tags.

This writing laziness of mine stretched all the way back to my sister's early December baby shower. At the brief message I'd jotted in the card, one guest shouted, in mock horror, "But you're a writer! You should do better!" Which made me want to wrestle her to the ground and hogtie her with pink streamers.

So I feel bad about not writing. But I also feel pretty good. I needed a brain break, yes, but more than that, I needed to feel what I'm feeling right now: I miss writing. I don't feel like myself without it in my life, and the things I thought I could fill my life with if I chose to give it up, well, I don't seem to be doing those things. I mean, I had basically an entire week free, and I didn't do any of them.

Here are the things:

1. Teach myself the ukulele

2. Learn a new language

3. Enjoy winter

4. Something else that I forgot about, because that's how much I was going to follow through with it

So now all I have is a sore thumb from flipping through Netflix and a bruised sense of self-worth. Oh, and a Vitamix! (I got a Vitamix, you guys! Kale smoothies for everyone!)

I did manage to get in some outdoor exercise, though, despite the treacherous weather. For example, Anthony and I went for a walk on the trail near our place. Normally it would be clear of trees and full to the seams with joyful dogs. But post ice storm, it looked like this:

Anthony amidst trees bent and broken by the ice storm that hit
on December 22 and took 20% of Toronto's urban forest with it.

This is the kind of wintery BS that inspired my first novel. Which only served to remind me that I hadn't been working on my second novel. LAZY.

Anyways, that's me. How was your Christmas break, for those lucky enough to get one? Did you get any writing done? You can tell me, really. I promise not to hogtie you.

My Top Ten Books of 2013…

… and some from 2012—and even 2008—and some that weren't new in 2013 but I read them in 2013 (or 2012) or thought about them fondly in 2013 and so therefore thus hence am including them on this SEO-friendly list. 

Anyhoo, in no particular order, here are some reads that are well worth your time. (If you so happen to have the exact same taste in books that I do, that is.)

1. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra

War, love and the reinvention of oneself—all painfully well noticed. Perfection. I gush about this book too much (here and here) so I'll say no more. 

2. The Crooked Maid by Dan Vyleta

A dark, strangely funny, WWII-era page-turner. It’s likely an under-the-radar-novel outside of Canada, so pick this one up, my international friends, and you'll have something "undiscovered" to recommend to that guy you always end up in the sauna with at the gym.

3. Treasure Island!!! by Sara Levine

Oh how I laughed and laughed! You will hate/love the main character and you will marvel at how Levine managed to pull it off.

4. Drunk Mom by Jowita Bydlowska

I normally don’t fall all over myself for non-fiction, but Bydlowska’s memoir left me dumbfounded for weeks after reading it. The tale she tells is brutally honest and scary and illuminating. Plus, the writing knocked my socks off. Say what you will about her actions while in the grip of alcoholism and new motherhood—some members of the Canadian press certainly did—but Jowita Bydlowska is one of the most exciting up-and-coming writers writing today.

5. How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti

Some have argued that this novel is not really a novel. I think they’re just jealous that Heti came up with the idea first.

6. Orkney by Amy Sackville

A must-read for every writer of literary fiction, in my opinion. It will school you hard. 

7. The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner

I don’t care about motorcycles or the New York art scene in the 1970s, but the writing was so good and the characters so well realized that what I don't care about was quickly made irrelevant. Rachel Kushner is one of my new favorites.

8. The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

I’m half obsessed with North Korea, and the weirdness/horror presented in this brilliant book did not disappoint.

9. Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan
Featuring a spy (who didn't set out to be a spy) and a writer (who has doubts about his ability to write), this is a fun, smart romp that explores two of the things I'm most fascinated with: writing/ego and the practicalities of espionage. 

10. City of Thieves by David Benioff
This novel was published back in 2008 but my love for it still burns as white hot as the night we first met. I don't lend it often because I'd feel deeply hurt if the borrower didn't want to marry City and have its babies like I did. It's on my Must Re-Read List for 2014.