It was a wonderful night. 20 people in Studio Desjardins and another 20 online. I had a fabulous conversation with Kim Fahner, a great reading, and I signed all the books.
A big thank you to Heather and Latitude 46 publishing, to The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC) and the League of Canadian Poets (LCP) for their support, and to all my family and friends who came out to the event, watched online, or were just there in spirit. I love you all!
It’s week 11! Spring is just around the corner, and it really feels like it. More mild days of melting snowbanks and mixed precipitation that’s more rain than snow. We may not see the snow plough again this year. Crossing fingers, knocking on wood, and all that jazz.
Onto the esoterica!
From the tarot, I drew The Lovers. The Lovers represents relationship, choice, perpetual bond, cooperation, love versus infatuation, and trust. This very much where my head is at these days. I’ve settled into a kind of new normal, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of Phil as he continues to heal.
With regard to that, there’s good news and bad news. Thanks to an online search, Phil’s finally found a comfortable way to sleep in the bed that supports his arm and shoulder. So long, La-Z-Boy! He’s also been helping some with meals and even coming in for hugs (!) I’m gentle. The exercises from physio are helping, as well. He’s got a new set to add to what he’s already doing.
The bad news? Those same hospital web sites advised that it could be up to 18 MONTHS for him to fully heal, and even then, he might not have full range of motion. We’re thinking that the 18 months is for the soft tissue damage associated with the break, though, rather than the break itself.
I’m sure he’ll be nominally functional by mid-May. If not earlier.
And here’s a retcon. What I’ve been calling the Celtic oracle is actually the Shaman’s Pack. Oops. This week, I pulled the Circle of Nine. The Circle of Nine represents the second circle. It’s a veilish place where the mundane world yields a portal to elsewhere. The key word is experience.
Sorry about the lighting ….
Do I have enough experience to cross over and surrender to the other world? I don’t know, but it’s nice to have the opportunity presented, even if I ultimately decide to decline. Yaknow, due to life stuff.
The week in writing
Again, it was just blogging for the week. I did a little work on my presentation, but I’m not tracking that.
I blogged 1,875 words for the week and 4,535 words for the month to date.
My early-bird application for Your Personal Odyssey was rejected again. Though I’m still in the running for the remaining spots, I’m not hopeful. Once again, they’ve been inundated with applications. It’s their most popular program yet, I think.
But … my applicant profile to the Canada Council for the Arts, which I submitted on Sunday, was approved! I’ll be focusing for the remainder of the month on submitting a few grant applications.
The first will be to the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (CSFFA AKA the Aurora Awards). They have a professional development grant, and the application seems fairly straightforward. That deadline is March 31st. The next will be to the Access Copyright Foundation also for a professional development grant (due April 1st) and the third (and more intimidating, TBH) will be an Explore and Create grant from the CCA, due April 5th. It will be my first attempt at all three, so I don’t anticipate success, but you can’t win if you don’t play, and the experience will be worthwhile. I’ll have documentation I can use for future applications, even if I have to change out the specific details.
Next month, I’ll be shifting gears for the next Ontario Arts Council Northern Arts Grant, due May 2nd.
Maybe this is the new world I’m entering? The next phase of professional writing life?
I’ve been thinking that if my webinar goes well, of starting up a podcast about neurodivergent creatives (which may be the focus for a future grant application).
Yeah … maybe this is a new world I’m entering. Frightening, yet exciting.
Filling the well
I had no writerly events scheduled this week but did watch the replay of Dan Blank’s Find Your Ideal Audience, which I signed up for last Friday. I try to keep at least one toe in the social media/marketing/promotion pool 🙂
I had a dentist’s appointment and had a very thorough cleaning of my teeth.
And I took Phil to his physio appointment on Friday. Progress is being made. The physiotherapist and Phil are very pleased.
What I’m watching and reading
I finished watching The Flash, season 8 (Netflix). This poor show. It long ago jumped the shark (which is sad because the actors are good) and nearly every season treads familiar ground. Season 9 episodes are already populating. Fortunately, there are only 13. The completionist in me wants to see this thing through. If you want a thorough critique, I’ll refer you to Friendly Space Ninja’s analysis of the series 🙂
I also watched the last episode of season 1 of The Last of Us (HBO). I haven’t played the game and honestly don’t want to. The series was great, though. I love Bella Ramsey as Ellie and Pedro Pascale as Joel. There’s a lot of tragedy and a lot of violence, but there’s also a lot of pathos. Loved.
Then, I finished watching the third and last (ever—the series has been cancelled) season of Pennyworth (HBO/network). As bloody and wacky as ever, but the series ends on a weird cliffhanger. Alfie’s about to say “I do” to Sandra after the main cast and a group of PWEs (read enhanced—this is DC) have escaped a London gone mad on milk laced with Lullaby (a psychoactive drug with murderous side effects) when a mushroom cloud erupts in the distance. The Waynes have one child at this point. A girl. Where’s Bruce? And I don’t remember Batman having a sister ….
Next, Phil and I finished watching the second and last season of Carnival Row (Amazon). It was clear they changed tack partway through the season, eliminating the political thread in a bloody massacre. Vignette can’t decide what she wants, a life with the Ravens, with Philo, or with Tourmeline. Philo almost gets himself killed every other episode. And our runaway lovebirds are quickly corralled by a revolutionary group called the New Dawn, which has a nefarious plan that fizzles in the final episode when the main agitator kills herself rather than be taken into custody. It was all very rushed. They probably could have used a few more seasons to tell the various stories properly, but they did manage to tie things up in the end. More or less ….
Finally, I watch Three Thousand Years of Longing (Amazon). Based on A.S. Byatt’s short story collection, The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye, the movie focuses on a narratologist, Alithea Binnie, who releases a djinn from a bottle and resists the temptation to make her wishes because every wish tale is a cautionary one. Beautiful, lush, and emotionally devastating. It’s too bad it didn’t do better in NA theatres. Loved!
In books, I finished Simon Sinek’s Start with Why, a long-ago recommendation from Gabriela Pereira. Good, but repetitive. The principles can be applied to both my day job and my writing business, as well as the writing itself.
And that was the week in this writer’s life.
Until next tipsday, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!
Black lives matter. Indigenous lives matter. All lives cannot matter until Black and Indigenous lives matter. These aren’t just words. They’re fundamental truths.
I just have to sigh and shake my head. Every “plan” for returning to school is so sketchy … I can’t even. And collectively, the US has just broken five million—FIVE MILLION—cases. The president is finally trying to behave like he cares. Sometimes. But it’s so clear he’s just gesturing emphatically because the election is coming up.
I won’t waste more words we’re all living in/though this nightmare. We know the score.
SK: I apply for Toronto Arts Council (TAC), Ontario Arts Council (OAC), and Canada Council for the Arts (CCA) grants for ChiZine and as a writer. OAC runs the Writers’ Reserve. There’s also the Works in Progress (WIP) grant. There are three deadlines a year. If you’re successful, you can’t reapply for two years.
KSS: The first time I applied for a grant, I did everything wrong. Reframe your application in literary or academic terms. I went from applying for a WIP grant so I could write my science fiction novel, to applying for funding to support the creation of post-apocalyptic literature.
SK: The jury changes every round. Keep applying, even with the same application. If you’re turned down in one round, you may be successful the next depending on who’s on the jury.
CG: CCA is the most open to experimental projects, I find. The OAC is the most conservative.
SK: The Writer’s Reserve runs from September to January every year. You send your manuscript to select publishers and one form to the OAC. Publishers get a set amount. ChiZine gets $13,000. That means we can publish about nine books.
KSS: The Writer’s Reserve has funds set aside for residents of Ontario outside of the GTA.
SK: The Speculative Literature Foundation offers two grants per year.
A: Actually they’re up to four now. Check them out.
BB: For the TAC, they ask for five copies of the manuscript and your name is not supposed to be on them anywhere. The judges actually sneak a peek.
SK: Guidelines may be hazy.
Q: What can you tell us about reporting?
SK: It varies between grants and organizations.
CG: There are also literary awards. The CCA runs the Governor General’s Awards. Generally you have to have a publisher to put your book forward for awards.
AS: Register for Access Copyright and the Public Lending Right programs as well.
Mel’s notes: Municipal arts councils will vary in the amount of support they can offer. TAC has money because it’s a big city (may go without saying, but . . . ). The Sudbury Arts Council has to be more selective in the projects it supports and has more limited funding. Provincial arts councils also vary widely. I’ve heard great things about the Edmonton Arts Council and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. Other arts organizations, like the Canadian Authors Association, offer literary awards. Check out the individual sites for further details. Finally, the CCA is currently restructuring its funding programs. Check them out.
“When I feel stress and, instead, take it as a sign I need to slow down and reconnect with myself, something wonderfully strange happens. Time bends and stretches around my needs. I find there actually is enough time, where a moment ago there was none.”
Alex J. Cavanaugh guests at C.S. Lakin’s Live, Write, Thrive, on the subject of writer insecurity. Alex hosts the Insecure Writers’ Support Group on her blog and Facebook group.
It’s a long post, but it’s probably the best analyses I’ve seen of why Avengers: Age of Ultron fails its audience. Wired. I’m still going to watch it . . . when it comes out on demand, and I’m probably going to enjoy it, for what it is, but I will be able to appreciate it’s technical construction better, and understand why I may feel dissatisfied in the end.
Sunday night (in Canada) Outlander reached the pivotal Wentworth episode. Why it was both difficult to watch and critical to the story.
It’s been a while since I posted on a Sunday, and I had another literary event to report on, so I thought I’d share a Sundog snippet with you 🙂
The last time the (W)rites of spring visited Sudbury was in 1997 (!). I was a part of that event as a budding poet as was my friend Kim Fahner, who was getting her first chapbook, You must imagine the cold here, published through Your Scrivener Press.
Kim’s gone on to have two further collections published, braille on water, and The Narcoleptic Madonna, both through Penumbra Press and she’s currently working on the contents of her next collection. It wasn’t a surprise, therefore, that for this year’s National Poetry Month, she decided to bring the (W)rites of spring back to Sudbury.
On Friday evening, at Marymount Academy in Sudbury, Kim, along with Sudbury’s current poet laureate Tom Leduc, its past PL, Roger Nash, Susan McMaster, and Tanya Neumeyer did a round-robin reading of their poetry on the theme of food.
Always Looking Up 