Living off the Grid

My power was out most of yesterday and again this morning for about 3 hours. I swear. Some days I feel like I live in a 3rd world country.

I don't know what it is with the area of Toronto I live in. I had a few days last winter (a very cold stretch, too) where I didn't have power. Less than a block away, people had power. Just not me. Realy got to know a few of my fellow work at home neighbours as we fought over the one plug at our local coffee shop to charge our phones and laptops.

That time there'd been a big storm and a tree was down near me. And another one a few blocks north. And there were trees and power lines down all over the city... So I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

But this time... I wish they'd just fix whatever's wrong. This morning it went out at 7:00 am. Came on at about 7:20 for maybe three minutes and then went out again. (I have lots of things, including my alarm system and my doorbell that scream when the power goes off or on... so I notice each time.)
Did that a couple more times until I gave up and got out of bed about 9:45 when it came back on for about the fourth time in 3 hours. (I went to bed about 3:00... so with my 7:00 am rude awakening this morning. I'm going to be cranky today.)

I'll be crankier if the power goes out again. I'm lost without my computer. (Not to mention my air conditioning.)

Fingers crossed it'll stay on long enough for me to input a whack of changes to my ms and print it again.

I write paranormal, in Spanish, anyway

Someone was googling one of my book titles the other day... Interesting... Anyway, I checked out the links one gets and found this link.

Apparently, whoever did the translating for this Spanish language website announcing this year's GH finalists, had a few problems with some of the categories... Novel with Strong Romantic Elements, appears to be "with paranormal elements". And I think the inspirational one is mislabeled as "for adults". Kind of implies the opposite, don't it?

More Bio Pics

Okay, so I'm wishing I'd learned a bit more about the new Jane Austen movie before letting myself get so excited about it. I just read a review and I'm not so sure anymore...

But I did go to a wonderful bio pic this week. la Vie en Rose.

I'm not sure I'll ever be able to hear Edith Piaf's song, Non Je Ne Regrette Rien, (I don't regret anything) again without tearing up. I've heard that song before, who hasn't. Believe me, even if you think you haven't, you have. But I'd never listened to the words before, and, when she sings it at the end of the movie (and when the songwriter sings it for her, initially) there are subtitles so you don't even need to understand French for the meaning of the words to dig into you.

Edith Piaf wasn't even 50 when she died, but if the movie is even partly accurate in it's portrayal, she looked and had the health of an 90 year old for the last five or so years of her life. Certainly one of those "Don't drink or do drugs" stories. And the actress who played Edith from a teen through to the end was astounding. A little over the top, perhaps, but I have a feeling Edith was a little over the top herself.

Speaking of movies about singers that could be "don't do drugs" PSAs. I saw a poster for El Cantante at the theatre and looks like it's finally being released. I saw this film last year at the festival. And, well, didn't like it much. Instead of repeating myself, you can follow this link if you're interested.

According to today's Globe and Mail, Julie Taymor's Across the Universe will be screened at this year's festival. I expect it will be a gala, and I don't typically go to those, but if it's not, I'm there. Even if it will be in theatres soon after. It looks so cool based on the trailers (which have been playing for months, already) and I think she's an amazingly creative director. Fun, fun, fun.

Jane (and James)

Is anyone else excited about the soon-to-open movie Becoming Jane? I'm not sure what I think of Anne Hathaway (thought she was the only, but serious, weak link in Brokeback Mountain) but James McAvoy is an actor I really like. And the movie looks, well, romantic and sweet.

I'd seen McAvoy in a couple of films (including the Narnia one) without really noticing him... But then at last year's film festival I saw him in no less than three films. They were calling him the "it boy" of last year's TIFF. And it was just coincidence that I selected all three films he was in. This year, he's in one that I know of -- an adaptation of Ian McEwan's Atonement. LOVED that book. Hope I can get a ticket to the movie.

Anyway, back to James (we're on a first name basis, since I saw him in 3 films in a week) and last year's festival. Two were wonderful, and he was wonderful in them. In particular, The Last King of Scotland. Forest Whitaker deservedly got a huge amount of attention for his performance in that movie, but I think people overlooked McAvoy's character -- the narrator and core of the film, as a result. His performance was riveting and held the movie together.
The other lovely film was Starter for Ten. Very different film, and not groundbreaking, but kind of a combination coming of age/romance story that I found entertaining, but it didn't do much at the box office. (At least it wasn't open for long in Toronto.)

The third was Penelope, which I still don't think has been released (and for good reason in my opinion.) I really wanted to love this movie. Loved the premise. Loved the first half. But just didn't work. Now, watch. It'll be released later this year and do really well, proving my taste isn't everyone's. LOL) Update: I just checked IMDB.com and they list the US release date for Penelope as August 17, 2007. I actually blogged about why Penelope didn't work for me last year on Drunk Writer Talk.

All that to say... looking forward to this Jane Austen bio pic. Anyone else?

Bookshelf Revealed

Wylie Kinson tagged me for a meme.

"The rules are to provide a list of books that you have on your shelves to see if anyone can learn about you from them - but not just any books. They have to be books that you've actually paid for, nothing given, borrowed, stolen, or whatever."

Well... I have quite a monstrous number of books (Hi, I'm Maureen and I'm an book-buying addict.)

In the interest of fun, I'm going to only pick books I've bought in the past year (maybe two) and which I either have already read and loved, or fully intend to read. I find, since I've started to write, that I often buy books without the intention of reading the entire thing. Too many books, too little time...

Here goes:

• Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay
• The Unfinished Canadian, by Andrew Cohen
• The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards
• the guy not taken, by Jennifer Weiner
• A Brief History of Misogyny: The World's Oldest Prejudice, by Jack Holland
• Forgive Me, by Amanda Eyre Ward
• Catching Genius, by Kristy Kiernan
• Undercover Protector, by Molly O'Keefe
• Love Walked In, by Marisa de los Santos

Okay, that's it!

Will the real Hairspray please stand up

Okay, so I went to see the new Hairspray movie.

While it was kinda fun, as a fan of the original John Waters movie, I just can't bring myself to approve of this new silly musical version. Not that John Waters' version wasn't silly -- but on an entirely different level.

John Waters' movies were/are also subversive/experimental/strange, and while Hairspray was certainly his most accessible film, it still had some edge. The only edgy thing in the new film was Waters' own tiny cameo in the opening sequence playing a flasher. And I was the only one in the theatre who laughed at that.

I think part of the problem was the casting. John Waters is famous for off-the-wall, somewhat ironic casting, using a consistent stable of regulars (his childhood friends) including Divine and Mink Stole, but also regularly casting Patty Hearst (yes, that Patty Hearst) and Tracy Lords (yes, that Tracy Lords) and Sonny Bono, and Debbie Harry alongside some brave hollywood stars willing to take a trip on the John Waters train... like Johnny Depp, and Kathleen Turner and Edward Furlong. (Okay, Furlong was a bit of a star at the time. Did Pecker ruin his career? Perhaps.) Also funny was casting Selma Blair as a monstrosly large chested woman in A Dirty Shame. That movie didn't entirely work for me... (the first half was pretty funny) but casting probably the smallest busted actress in hollywood (one of the few slim actresses who have shunned breast enhancements) as the HUGE-chested Caprice Stickles, that, to me, was funny. (In an ironic kind of way.)

Now, some might say that casting John Travolta as Edna Turnblad was edgy, but I don't agree at all. I think casting him was the anti-edgy casting choice for that role. Edgy for me would have been casting Nicole Kidman and not putting her in a fat suit.
I kept trying to decide what really bothered me about casting John Travolta as Edna Turnblad and think I finally put my finger on the issue for me...

The part was originally played by Divine. Yes, anatomically, Divine was a man. And yes, she was grossly overweight. But she didn't typically play men as an actor. She was a transvestite. I doubt Waters said, "wouldn't it be funny if we cast a man in this role." No, I expect he wrote the part for Divine. Divine played female roles in all Waters' movies. All the ones I've seen anyway. Casting John Travolta and putting him in a fat suit just makes a joke at Divine's expense to me. And not the kind of subversive jokes John Waters always made with his bizarre castings in his movies. More of a pre-adolescent-boy snickering-at-someone's-expense joke.

On the other hand, it was fun to see Jerry Stiller, the original Wilbur Turnblad, in a tiny cameo in the new movie... but again, Divine and Jerry Stiller as an onscreen couple -- Stiller being close to two feet shorter than Divine, as well as much smaller -- was much more fun. Travolta and Walken seemed like they could barely contain their own sniggering during their love-scenes together rather than actually acting their parts.

The casting "joke", if there was one in the original Hairspray, was having Divine also play the evil and racist Arvin Hodgepile. "Look, Divine's playing a man. Isn't that funny?" And I don't remember Edna being so insecure about her weight, either. But I may be misremembering. Edna Turnblad in the first movie, like her daughter Tracy, was proud of how she looked. To make Tracy's weight such an obvious, non-subtle issue in the new version destroyed the whole idea of her character for me. Yes, her weight played a part in the original, but the charm of it was that the "good" people in the first version didn't even notice or ever mention Tracy's weight. It was a non-issue for Corny and Link and her parents. A metaphor if you will for the racial issues highlighted in the film.

I probably sound more angry about this than I am... I actually did have some fun watching the musical version. And I'm sure lots of people will like this new Hairspray who wouldn't like the original. To each their own.

And comparing the two movies is a case of apples and oranges (or transvestives vs male actors dressed up as women.) Not the same thing at all.

Can it get any better???

Okay, my favorite show on TV just keeps getting better. Yes, it's So You Think You Can Dance.

Last week, it was pretty sad when Hok got cut and the judges are clearly out to get Kameron now, in revenge for the fact they couldn't get rid of him in the top 20 because he and Lacy were so popular as a couple.

Tonight, when they said everyone was going to do the same routine I wasn't sure how entertaining that would be. The same routine, 10 times... And then Jamie went first and, for me, she's one of the best dancers, so I was worried when I wasn't blown away by her. But wow. A few of the other dancers really did blow me away. And which ones did surprised me, too. Danny was breathtaking. Neil, too. Lauren was amazing and Sara made me tear up. I really hope she lasts. She dances with so much power and feeling. And how cool is it that she's a break dancer?

Okay, done being a dance geek now.

One last note... because I'm watching it right now... A Spanish Viennese Waltz? Who's stupid idea was that? Dominic and Jamie were terrible, but I don't think it was totally their fault. What a stupid routine. Paella and sauerkraut don't mix. Know what I mean?

Coming out of a fog

Allergies suck. I've had them most of my life and for the most part, I've grown pretty used to it. It's not like they're life threatening, or anything. (That I know of.) My head just gets really fuzzy on occasion and my nostrils turn into faucets. Not pleasant, but usually manageable with drugs.

But today I had one of those scratch tests for the first time since I was a teenager. To prepare for the test, I wasn't allowed to take any antihistamines for 3 days and let me tell you, I learned I'm more addicted to my Reactine than I thought I was. I swear I don't take one everyday, I don't. I only take them when I'm feeling like I need it or when I know I'm going to be gardening or visiting a cat infested household, but being off them for 3 summer days in a row, must be one of the stages of hell.

And then there was the scratch test. That must be a higher (lower?) level. They tested about 30 foods on my left arm, and nothing really happened, so I was just left with this bizarre pattern of pin prick marks... but my right arm was a whole other story. Within seconds of the nurse scratching each evil droplet of allergen laced poison, each scratch started to bleed (the other side didn't bleed). And then they stung and then itched and then swelled. By the time the 6 hours (okay, maybe it was 10-15 minutes) of waiting passed, my forearm was a nasty, bright-red, swollen angry mass of itchiness and burning. (That 15 minutes of waiting for the reaction really did feel like hours.)
The nurse didn't think my reaction to flax seed or feathers was too bad (2 of the twenty-odd scratches on that arm), but the doctor basically took a look at my right arm and said "let's just call it everything". (All trees, flowers, weeds, grasses, dogs, cats, dust, molds, etc. etc. etc.)

Imagine being bitten by 30 mosquitoes at the same time, all on the inside of your forearm -- all within a 7x1 inch rectangle -- and then have each bite welt up so much they meld into each other. That was my arm this morning.
After I got out of there, I double dosed on my reactine so I could slow the flow of my nostril faucets, dull the redness and burning to something more in the pink range and to shrink the welts, but I was left with a foggy head all day and barely got any work done. (So I went to the movies :-)

And now my arm looks like I'm some kind of cutter or something... A very precise one.

Harry arrived (and author overdoses)

My new Harry Potter book just arrived. I don't remember ordering it. Oh, the dangerous combination of staying up too late and internet ordering. I'm itching to read it. In fact, I read the first two paragraphs a second ago and that woman does know how to grab a reader...


The problem is, I still haven't read books five and six in the series. Further confirming my late-night-ordering craziness, I pre-ordered those two to arrive on the days they were released, too.

Some backstory: I didn't read any of the the Harry Potter series until the first four books were out. I was working at the time with a woman who had pre-teen kids who were reading the Harry Potter books, she was raving about them, so I bought them mostly to see what the fuss was about.

Like so many people, I got hooked, hard and fast. I think I devoured the first four books in just a few weeks. Very fast reading for me. After finishing the fourth, I couldn't wait for the fifth to arrive. (Hence my first pre-order.) But by the time it came out, I'd moved onto other things. I'd started writing myself and was busy reading a lot in the genre I was attempting to write at the time (romance) and was burned out as a reader.

Do you ever get burned out reading one author or one genre too much?

With very few exceptions -- mostly authors I personally know -- I think I'm over reading romance. I think that's the first genre I OD'd on... But I've OD'd on specific authors in the past, too. When I first read Anne Rice, I think I read at least six of her novels back to back. Similar story with Anne Tyler (do I have a thing for writers named Anne?) Simlarly with Robertson Davies and John Irving -- although I first read Irving when he was still in his book out a year stage and so I did have gaps between those books but bought most of them in hard cover as soon as they hit the stores.

Back to my new Harry book.... Do I need to read Potter's five and six before reading seven? I'm anxious to get going...

The true north stoned and free

According to a study done by the United Nations, Canadians smoke more pot than just about every other country in the world. Yes, even more than Jamaica. (Okay, it wasn't based on total amount smoked... just the percentage of the population who admit to having smoked pot in the past year.)

What's up with that, dude? I have to say, our top ranking here surprises me a little and makes me believe one of the possible theories put forward in the article I read -- that Canadians are just more honest about answering the question.

This makes some sense to me... First, Canadians aren't as afraid of their government as Americans (based on my observations) sometimes seem to be. So, people (paranoid from all their pot smoking) wouldn't be afraid that if they tell the pollster the truth, that cops will suddenly break down their door and snatch their stash. Related to this theory, I think in the past few years, not only has the stigma about pot virtually disappeared in Canada, I'd be willing to bet that more people lied and said they did smoke pot in the last year when they didn't, than the other way around.

Not that pot is legal here. There was a law introduced five or so years ago to decriminalize possession -- such that possession of small amounts would get you a ticket, but not arrested or a criminal record -- but the government changed before the law was passed, so it's still a criminal offense. Although it does seem like the cops take a much more blase attitude toward it the past ten years or so.

Me? I've never been a pot smoker. Not that I never have, it's just never been my thing. (I'm more of a gin girl. Okay, and scotch.) I've even been in relationships with men who smoked just about every day... and still, I didn't.

But I feel kind of proud (in a very bizarre way) that Canada made the top five. The only countries in the world that smoke more than we do are Papua New Guinea, Micronesia, Ghana and Zambia.

Go Canada! Party on!

Alarm clocks and taxis and laptops, oh my!

Sorry I was missing in action all week. I really did plan to post at least once from Dallas, BUT....

Too late last Monday night, already sleep deprived (because I'm stupid and didn't get enough sleep Saturday or Sunday nights) I set my alarm for 5:45 PM.

Problem was, I had a car picking me up at 6:45 AM. Oooops. So my wake-up call was the taxi company calling wondering why I wasn't answering my door.

Luckily, I was 99.9% packed, but one thing I hadn't packed was my laptop. I figured it would be smart to leave it charging and turned on over night, so that I could check my flight information in the morning, then turn it off and pack it...

I realized I'd forgotten it before the car even hit the highway... But since I was already running later than I'd wanted (and had made the driver wait for 20 minutes while I frantically got ready) I didn't ask him to turn back.

The result was the most cut-off I've felt in a long, long time. Even when traveling in Morocco two summers ago I managed to check my e-mails several times and to read the headlines on a few news websites. This year the world could have ended and I wouldn't have known... Not that there's a lot of spare time during Nationals to blog or read e-mails... Just saying...

So, that's my long-winded apology for not blogging from the conference. I'll try to put something worthwhile re the conference on DWT later in the week to make up for it.

Stephen King -- Prince of a Man

Now I've never been a big fan of Stephen King's books. That's not true. Well, not untrue, either, but it sounded like I don't like his books. That's not it. I simply haven't read him. Horror just isn't my favorite thing. (Did you read my description of how many days(weeks) it took me to watch The Shining (movie of one of his books) on video? How could I possible read it???)

But since I've become a writer myself, I find myself admiring Stephen King more and more and more. It's not that I've actually started reading him (although I am really intrigued by Lisey's Story and will probably read that) it's more about who he seems to be as a person (through his words and actions), and how he helps other writers.

I first fell into a deep admiration of him when I read his book On Writing. When I read the speech he delivered on winning a National Book Award my admiration of him increased and his words helped me deal with my own turmoil over my decision to write genre fiction instead of "serious literature".

And today, again, on reading this article my admiration grew.

The article's a generous, objective and interesting take on the end of the Harry Potter series from the perspective of another writer and without an ounce of bitterness, criticism or jealousy. But what really stood out for me in the article and inspired me to blog, is how he TWICE mentioned a manuscript he's just read and really loved. He didn't need to do that.

How thrilling for Lauren Groff, the writer of said manuscript to a) have him read it, b) have him love it and c) have him possess the grace and generosity to use the platform of this article about the end of the Harry Potter series, to mention that he loved this woman's not yet released book. SO HUGE for her.

One classy dude.

Once

Has anyone else seen this movie? The only word I can think of to describe it is lovely (I'm thesaurused out working on my revisions).

It's billed as a kind of musical, but really it's just a movie with a lot of music in it -- where so much of what's going on, so much of the relationship developing between the two main characters (guy and girl -- never named) happens through songs. But not in an artifical break into song kind of way. They're both musicians. All the singing is organic and natural. It's more like a performance movie, with a story built around it, than a musical.

And the leads are fabulous. Glen Hansard, who plays "the guy" and wrote most of the music, is incredibly talented. I can't believe he's not famous. Perhaps he is in Ireland. And Marketa Irglova, the young Czech actress/singer who plays "the girl" was totally compelling and understated at the same time. So guileless.

This movie won the audience award at Sundance and it's no surprise why. An accessible and, well, lovely film.

Highly recommend this movie.

Scandalous

At first I was a little proud my blog was R-rated... And then I looked at the reasons why.

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

gay (5x) hell (3x) ass (2x) murder (1x)

Based on this, it seems like the biggest reason for my R-rating is that I've used the word "gay" a few times... I just searched my posts to find which ones used this "horribly offensive" word. Wow. One of them all I did was refer to the "now-cliché-in-chick-lit gay best friend" device.

Does this seem right to you?

Gah! I am so weak!

So, a few weeks ago I blogged about how appalled I was at the premise for the new show Age of Love. I swore I wouldn't watch it. But late last night (really late) I broke down and watched it. (Okay, I guess the first breakdown came earlier in the day, because I'd set my PVR to record it. In terms of being appalling, the show did not disappoint.

In fact, it elevated my sense of revulsion to all new levels. The man on the show, a 30 year old tennis player, didn't know the women he'd be meeting would be older than he is until they were paraded out to meet him! And one of them is 18 years older. And, as if it couldn't get worse, he's a guy who's only dated women much younger than him in the past, and a man who wants to have kids.

This simply isn't fair, to him or the women. I mean, the look on his face as all these women who were between 9 and 18 years older came out, it was so painful. And must have been super painful for the women to see, too. So manipulative. So cruel. I mean, is he going to have kids with the 48 year old? Who already has a son only 5 years younger than he is?????

To me, to make this show even vaguely "fair", (not that reality TV has anything to do with "fair") they should have at least picked a guy open to dating older women.

He'll look like a total ass if he simply ditches all the older women or shows an obvious preference for the younger women. And this is a guy who can't afford to look like an ass on National TV. He's already a minor celebrity, so if he comes off as a jerk on this show, he'll wreck his ability to get good endorsement contracts and stuff like that.

WHY DID I WATCH IT????? It was definitely a case of the slowing-down-driving-by-an-accident thing... But I admit it. I arranged to drive by. I looked. Mea culpa.

Cyber friendships

Wow... I really slacked of on finishing my "digression" from the previous post. Thanks to everyone for your kind words about the blog and my blogiversay. I do enjoy blogging when I have something to say. Amazing to have an outlet for some of my rants. But there are days when I think, "Boy, it's been a while since I blogged, I'd better think of something to say." And those days I'm not such a blog fan. Guess I'm realizing it's not really necessary to post every day, though. (Also realizing that these blog posts will be around in perpetuity and that one never knows who'll read them and when... Someone, for example, found my blog while searching google for "Christian Bale's shoe size". Huh? I guess have have blogged both about Christian Bale and shoes more than once... And the day Sinead talked about Dexter on Drunk Writer Talk we had something like a gazillion hits because someone linked us to the Showtime site (which we couldn't even see, because it won't let you from Canada.) But all that, while it does give me pause about some of my rants, hasn't stopped me from blogging.)

Ooops. I think I've just digressed twice while trying to get around to the digression I'd planned to expand on...

So, back to our regularly scheduled digression... My last post got me thinking about how great my blog has been for meeting other writers, or getting to know writers I'd met before better.

I suppose developing a friendship online is a little bizarre and probably should be the subject of a Phd thesis in sociology or psychology, rather than a short blog post. But that said, my experience with a few people I met first online, (Eileen Cook, Maia Caron, Barrie Summy, Misty Simon, Danita Cahill, to name just a few), and then met "in real life", would indicate that if you "get" each other's posts, chances are you'll "get" each other in real life, too.

And then there are people I met in person first, but didn't know well, and feel like I've gotten to know better via our blogs, (Mel Francis, Christine D'Abo, Margaret Moore, Michele Rowen, Nadine Dajani, Diana Peterfreund, Shannon McKelden, Amy Ruttan, Wylie Kinson).

And that doesn't count the people I've met online, feel like I know, but still haven't met in person, like Sara Hantz, and Kristy Kiernan and Mia King and many, many others.

Bottom line? I think you can develop friendships online. I know I have. Have you?

My Blogiversary

It's been a year. I can't quite believe it.

I suppose my first foray into the blogosphere actually came some time in February '06 when Diana Peterfreund had me guest blog about the weekend I signed with my agent and won 3 lottery type prizes. (4 if you count signing with an agent.)

But it took until mid-June of last year for me to attempt to create a blog of my own.

Now, I'll be the first to admit I've been a pretty inconsistent blogger. And keeping up with both my own blog and a post a week at Drunk Writer Talk has proven harder than I thought it would be, in spite of plans I'd had for "easy stuff" like posting the interview column I do for my local RWA chapter once a month. Somehow I've only managed to post a measly 3 of those. Terrible.

I suppose I'm getting to that point I've seen so many other bloggers hit. The point where you ask, "Why am I doing this?" or "Is it worth my time?".

For an unpublished author, such as myself, there's no big publicity payoff. In fact, I'm not even sure to what extent readers of books read author blogs. When I started blogging I had a few purposes in mind, although to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure these reasons were as clear to me then, as they are now. (But it sounds better to have had a reason beyond, "Everyone else seems to be doing it," which was probably closer to the truth.)

The reasons?

#1 To get my name out there in googleland. Used to be when you goolged Maureen McGowan you'd get a huge number of hits and would have to dig for several pages to find one that was actually about me. In fact, even when you added "writer" to the google search, another woman who shares my name, but writes Xena Princess Warrior fan fic, would come up way ahead of me. (At the time, the only online presence I had was my name on my local RWA chapter's site, and a few contest finalist announcements.) Now when you google my name, most of the first few pages are actually about me.

#2 To show editors who might be looking at my work that I'm serious about the business and about self-publicizing. (Although see the comment above about not really knowing how much publicity one gets from blogging.)

#3 But I think the main reason was, or at least the main pay-off has been, networking with other writers. I've met several other writers through my blog -- some who are becoming good friends -- whom I don't think I'd have otherwise met. I also feel like I've gotten to know several other writers much better and assume they feel like they know me better. (This begs the question about cyber relationships and how well you really know someone with whom 99% of your interaction has been online... I feel a major digresssion coming on... But one of my new blog-resolutions is to save my digressions for another post, so more on that next blog year.)

And finally, an unexpected side benefit of blogging has been that a few friends I don't see very often feel like they can catch with me through my blog. Of course, if they'd post comments... Maybe I'd feel more connected to them, too... Hint, hint...

All in all, I've enjoyed my year-o-blogging -- even when I started to hyperventilate on learning my mother had discovered it. Gasp. Hi Mom. The bad words I've used are just for my on-line persona. I don't use them in person. Honest.

Happy Blogiversary to me.

Stupid TV

Has anyone else seen the ads for this new Age of Love TV show? (New here in Canada, anyway. Don't know if it's already been aired in the US.)

Basically they put his 30 year old guy on a reality dating show (like The Bachelor) with a bunch of women in their 40’s. Then when he’s gotten to know some of them, and presumably some of them are falling for him… They bring in a group of women in their 20’s to compete for his affections, too.

Sick. Sick. Sick.

Possibly entertaining, but sick, and I hope I can hold out on not finding out just how sick and/or entertaining for myself.

I think what really bugs me about shows like this is the implication that the guy's choice proves anything. I mean, it seems fairly obvious that age is one factor in whether or not two people fall in love and stay in love, but it’s only one factor. And obviously couples form between people of very different ages and in those cases it just didn't matter -- other factors mattered more.

And who one young man chooses, (especially one willing to date multiple women on TV), proves nothing about whether, or how much, age matters. He's one guy, in a very artificial situation, with a limited number of women (also willing to date on TV) and picked by the producers to date him. Yes, the results of that should be published in The Journal of Psychology. It will be groundbreaking evidence about whether age matters in love.

I do think some reality TV shows do end up being interesting studies of human nature. Survivor and The Amazing Race in particular. But I think that’s because those shows aren't out to prove any particular point. They merely toss people into difficult situations and observe how they behave. Sure, the producers manipulate the participants to escalate the tension and to make the situations ever more difficult, but they aren't out (to my knowledge) to prove any particular hypothesis. It’s not like the premise of The Amazing Race is to prove that “couples argue and are hateful to each other when they travel” – even though that’s one of the things we’ve seen on the show.

I’m reminded by a failed reality TV concept of a few years ago, where a woman was supposed to be choosing between a bunch of guys (a la The Bachelorette) but half of them were gay and she had to try to guess which ones were and eliminate them. It was like hate propaganda of the worst kind. The producers staged events like cow roping and square dancing to help her decide. (Because everyone knows all straight men can rope a cow and all gay men can square dance. RIGHT!) And what the f&cK was the show supposed to prove anyway? And how the hell was the woman supposed to form a connection with any of the men (assuming such thing is possible on TV) when she knew half of them were purposefully deceiving her? I only saw the show a couple of times, but this woman was clearly in distress most of the time. (She did NOT know what the show was when she signed up and only found out half the men were gay after she’d been getting to know them all and they’d already been flirting with her and pretending to like her. Mean, mean, mean. If memory serves, the straight men didn't know half of the contestants were gay until the show started either. This show said bad things about most people involved.)

Anyway… I’ve been proved wrong by Reality TV concepts before – ones I thought sounded horrible and I ended up addicted to. Americas Next Top Model and Rock Star are two prime examples.

But I hope I can resist and not peek one night to confirm my assumption that this show will suck. I learned that lesson (I hope) with the gay dating show. (The name of which I’m pretty proud to have forgotten.)

Leaving us wanting more...

Don't stop.

The last line of The Sopranos and expressed through the lyric of the sappy Journey song playing on a jukebox... and then silence through the credits.

Still processing and not 100% sure what I think, but one thing's for certain, this final episode confirmed the makers of this series as masters. The tension that built in that final scene? The fear it generated inside me that, after how things turned out with Tony's "business" problems, he and his entire family were going to be killed? Powerful. Worked on me, anyway.

And how was the tension built? By bringing each family member in one by one. Having the camera notice (as Tony did) every other person who entered. By Meadow struggling to parallel park her car. By how happy and relaxed everyone was...

All this to make us terrified that someone was going to burst in and kill them all.

And then nothing. Black screen. No sound.

Pretty powerful.

Like I said, still processing this episode, and I'm sure some people will have found it a let down to just end things so abruptly after all that tension building, but I'm thinking I really liked the ending. I do know I wouldn't have like it if they'd just killed everyone. And it would have felt like a cop out to me if Tony had simply ended up as the head of the NY family. Too easy. So, I think I like how it ended.

Or at least I can't think of a way of ending it I would have liked better.

Scary Movies

I thought I'd grown out of my childhood inability to watch scary movies -- even some of the Disney variety used to terrify me and don't even get me started on Scooby Doo.

And then I met my good friend Sinead who's a bit of an aficionado when it comes to great thriller and horror... and she made me watch ALIEN on the IMAX screen and I lived to tell the tale. So I thought I was getting better.

But last night I tried to watch MIMIC on DVD and am still only about an hour into the film. Can't finish it. Really great scary tension like that makes me so uncomfortable I can't bear it. In fact, I'm probably better with films like that in the theatre than on DVD because turning it off isn't an option (and I'm not a big walk-out-of-a-movie kind of person.)

I'd really been looking forward to seeing MIMIC for a couple of reasons, the first and most important being Guillermo del Toro whose PAN'S LABYRINTH just blew me away when I saw it at the film festival last year (and then again when it hit theatres).

The second thing that interested me about MIMIC was that a chunk of it was filmed in a "ghost subway station" in Toronto that I only learned existed this past winter when they were doing renovations on the actually-in-use Bay Station and diverting the trains through a normally unused section of track and passed through another parallel universe Bay Station that hadn't been used since the 1950's. It was freaky. Same white tile walls, same BAY signs in black, just no staircases or escalators and no posters or ads on the walls. Surreal.

Anyway. MIMIC is creeping me out. Bugs. Kids in peril. Jeremy Northam trying to do an American accent. Horrifying.

What scares you?

Oh, and I paid my dues. Sigh. Maybe next year I'll have the courage and fortitude to let go.

Leaving the Past Behind

I've got a very important decision to make within the next 24 hours.

Some of you know that I am a Chartered Accountant, but unless I take action before 5:00 pm tomorrow, this may be the last time I'll ever be able to say that.

My annual dues must be paid by tomorrow and they are steep.
In addition, the institute has changed the rules and now, even if you don't have a license to sign audit opinons or anything (which I don't), you need to do at least 20 hours of continuing education each year. I've done well, zero. The requirement came in as of Jan 1, 2006, so to get caught up, I'll have to do 40 hours in 2007.

Now, I think requiring professionals to keep current is a good thing, in general, but it means that not only will I have to fork over a grand for my dues, I'll have to spend at least double that -- plus a few days of my life -- taking courses on topics that no longer are very practical or useful for me in order to keep my designation.

Last night a good friend -- one who understands what I went through to get the designation -- told me not to pay. To let it lapse. To stop living in the past.

Still... I feel like I'm closing such a huge door if I do this. Giving up something I worked incredibly hard to get. ACK! I know I never want to work in the corporate world again, but there may be a few options in my future, should this whole being an author thing not work out, where the CA designation might make a difference. What to do... What to do...

Do you have anything in your past you can't give up on?

Pitch Hell

Did anyone see the premiere of On The Lot last night? The first task given to the fifty (fifty!) aspiring filmmakers was to pitch a movie to Carrie Fisher, Bret Ratner and Garry Marshall based on one of five log lines.

A country mouse is captured by a phrmaceutical testing lab and must escape.
A man about to become a priest meets the woman of his dreams just before taking his vows.
A box of military equipment destined for a base is delivered to a suburban house in error.
A slacker is recruited into the CIA.
And I've totally forgotten the last one...

It was painful. (And probably not that entertaining for non-writers, non-filmmakers.) They only showed a couple of even half-way decent pitches and a lot of really terrible ones. Amazing how little most of the contestants seemed to know about storytelling. I think many of them wanted to show how creative they were and how they could think "out of the box" but that only works if you actualy come up with a story to go with your wacky idea! Ratner made it clear to them their pitches had to show their movie had a clear beginning middle and end. Some of them were so crazy. Did these people forget that the prize is a development deal with Dreamworks????

Made me think of one of the reasons I've been hesitant to consider writing screenplays instead of novels -- in spite of my obvious love for movies. In movies there are two main (often conflicting) creative people involved in developing the story. The writer and the director. (and that's before the actors and everyone else gets involved.) I'm not sure I could cope with being only one half of that equation especially because the director seems to be the one with more control, more respect (and better paid) and last night proved how some of them are SUCH IDIOTS without a clue about storytelling.

Waitress

This weekend I went to see the film Waitress knowing very little about it beforehand. I had seen a trailer. I'd seen Kerri Russell in The Upside of Anger, so I knew she could act. I'm a fan of Nathan Fillion from Firefly... so I thought why the heck not.

I was blown away. What great storytelling. I love movies where all the characters are interesting but everyone's behaving so badly that it's hard to guess how the heck the writer is going to end things on a satisfying note -- and then they do.

And this film was written and directed by one of the actors in the film -- Adrienne Shelly. I'd seen her before in some other indie-films and by the end of the movie was really looking forward to her next work.


But then I sat through to the end of the credits... The final line was:

"In loving memory of Adrienne Shelly."

What??? I started to cry. I had no idea. As soon as I got home, I looked up the story and it's so sad. In late 2006 her husband found her hanging by a sheet from a shower rod and the police initially ruled it a suicide -- but then a 19 year old construction worker, whom she'd complained about noise to, confessed to her murder after they found his footprints on the toilet seat.

How horrible is that?

But the movie is really great. So sweet. You're really rooting for the Kerri Russell character through the whole thing and the resolution to her story made me tear up, too. Teary night for me. LOL.

I'd been planning to go to Away From Her afterward, but decided I couldn't take another sad movie so went to see Spiderman instead... I could rant about how messed up the storytelling in that one is... but this was meant to be a post celebrating Waitress and the fabulously talented late Adrienne Shelly -- so I won't.

Writing for writing’s sake

I’ve attended an embarrassment of conferences and workshops over the past couple of years (love that collective noun) and hence have heard many authors, editor and agents speak about writing and the publishing industry. I’ve also read articles by many, many more—both in print and on the web. Basically, where I would never pretend to have learned all there is to learn (not even close), I’ve learned a fair bit about this business called fiction publishing. And still, I’m constantly making little revelations or realizing last week’s revelations sucked.

I’ve blogged before about conflicting advice on Drunk Writer Talk and I think this week I’ve had another kind of breakthrough in terms of one of those dichotomies. Or at least I’ve resolved to start thinking about it in a different way.

On the one hand one often hears: “You have to write for the love of writing. Writing is a tough business. Fickle. Lots of luck involved. Even if you get published the odds are against you earning a real living.” So, write because you love to write, because you have to write. (Well, I don’t totally buy that anyone HAS to write. I know I don’t. I’m happy to make up stories in my head.)

As many times as I’ve heard this “do it for the writing” advice and nodded my head in agreement, as many times as I’ve repeated it to my friends and family and other writing acquaintances, I recently realized I’ve never really committed to this idea.

From the day I decided to start writing a novel, I had publication in mind. I even chose the first genre I tried (romance) based on economics and what I saw as improved odds—there are so many published, surely it would be easier to break in and find success. Ha!

And therein lies the other side of the dichotomy. Many industry professionals will tell you to be aware of the market, to be smart about what you write, to avoid subjects or language that may offend, to react quickly to the market and adapt what you write to what’s selling.

This always sounds like good advice to me, too. I mean, my first career was a pretty conservative choice and if I should wake up tomorrow at age 18, facing the “which University, which career choice” again, even with the supposed “wisdom” I’ve garnered over the ensuing years, I’m not entirely sure I wouldn’t make the same or at least a similarly conservative choice again. I’m pretty sure I’d at least ensure I had a back up plan of sorts.

But.

What I’m realizing is that I’ve let this second piece of advice, the career planning advice, the what kind of writer do you want to be questions, the where do you see yourself in the market questions... I’ve let that advice, those questions, paralyze me when I’m in the early stages of every book I start to write (okay, until I’m in the home stretch). Molly, stop laughing. Now.

With each book, I’ll get a certain distance in and go “this is too dark to be marketable”, or conversely, “this is too silly, will be taken as chick lit and chick lit isn’t selling”, “this is too trite for literary fiction”, or “this is too heavy for commercial fiction”, or “this book won’t be a good follow up if the last one sells”, or "I should try a paranormal erotica", "maybe I should write YA", "maybe I should write an inspirational Christian romance" (okay, I've never said that one.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I still believe those career-minded questions are smart ones. I still think they encompass good advice. But I’ve decided it’s not the best advice for me right now. I’ve been in a very dark place about my writing. Very discouraged. Yes, I’m nominated for the Golden Heart. Yes, I’m happy about that and proud and know that over a thousand entrants who didn’t final—not to mention thousands of others who weren’t ready to or courageous enough to enter—would like to be in my shoes. I don’t mean to be ungrateful or to minimize this accomplishment. It’s just that I’ve been so focused since I started my first novel five years ago, on the end game. On publication. On publication with a major print publishing house.

And I know my GH nom, or even a win, won’t really affect that, especially because the nominated ms isn’t a romance. Sorry for the GH digression… Back on topic…

What I’ve decided—at least for today, this week, this month, this year, however long until I change my mind again—is that I need to write for the writing’s sake. In reaching this conclusion, I was remembering the heady days of starting my very first novel five years ago. Sure it was scary. Sure I thought I was writing something marketable. But I knew so little about the industry and I think all that ignorance freed me. Freed me to tell the story I wanted to tell. Freed me to put words down on paper and feel proud and good about those words, proud to see the word count, the page count, the chapter count piling up. Freed me to enjoy writing. These days, I’m not always enjoying it so much.

Now, I know (I hope?) that should I be lucky enough to have a career in fiction, that there may come a day when I will have to put career ahead of all other considerations when deciding what kind of stories to write, what tone to take, what themes to explore, etc. But for now? I think I just need to write.

Paris appealing to the Terminator?

Okay, I must admit this whole Paris Hilton getting sentenced to prison thing fills me with just a little more glee than it should. Okay, not glee, but a strong sense that karma is doing its thing, that a little jail time will do the girl some good, maybe even help her to grow up a bit, teach her that, all evidence to the contrary, the world does not revolve around her.

An aside here... I know many people felt a similar glee when Martha Stewart went to jail. I didn't. And I'm not a Martha fan. At all. I just felt like she'd done something so many other people (mostly men) had done and that they were making an example of her mostly because of her celebrity and party because of her gender.

I really don't feel the same way about Paris. She had a suspended license. She was on probation. She knew she wasn't supposed to drive her car. If she really believed there were circumstances under which it was okay to drive her car without a license, then her sense of entitlement, of being above the law and better than everyone else only intensifies my feeling that she had this coming to her.

I think why I gave Martha the benefit of the doubt was that, in my mind, her stock broker committed the bigger crime. He's the one who passed on insider information.

I would challenge most people not to act if they received a stock tip they knew they shouldn't have received. Getting that kind of a tip is what many of the myths and fairy tales about success in the market are based on. Real insiders must not act on this information, of course. That's the pledge/the bond they make with non-insiders to get them to invest in their company. But if they do let information leak, and it gets passed around and you hear it... I think it would take a very strong person to ignore the information. Was Martha greedy? Sure. Did she think she'd get away with it? Sure. Did she then lie about it in an attempt to cover her ass? Sure. But I don't think her belief she'd get away with it had anything to do with her celebrity. She thought she'd get away with it because most people get away with it. Because (sadly) it's an all-too-common occurance in the industry.

Now, I'm sure driving with a suspended license is all too common, too. And I'm sure many people do get away with it. But I'm also pretty sure that repeat offenders, celebrity or not, are going to get some kind of a hefty fine or jail time if they are unlucky enough to get caught. I expect the maximum hefty fine for such a crime would not teach someone like Paris Hilton a lesson. It probably isn't big enough to be a deterrent or even make a dint in her monthly credit card bill. It would not be a punishment. So, I laud the judge who gave her some jail time.

And today I read that she's appealing to Arnold Schwartzenegger for a pardon???

GET OUT!

Sad realizations

Okay, so I made a sad self-discovery tonight. In just a few short weeks I have become hopelessly dependent on my new PVR. How did I ever live without it???

My cable went out today. Who the hell knows why. It just did. And the stupid customer service person at Rogers convinced me to unplug my PVR and reboot it -- assuring me that I wouldn't lose anything I'd saved. (I kept asking her if I'd lose stuff... She insisted I wouldn't. I kept pointing out that if neither of my cable boxes were working it was highly unlikely to be the cable boxes, it must be the cable itself... But she knew better and insisted I try the evil reboot.)

After 15 minutes on the phone with her and watching my PVR try unsuccessfully to reboot, she informed me the problem wasn't my cable boxes, but the cable service into my house. Something I freakin' told her 15 minutes earlier. But it gets worse. The result of the ill-advised reboot was that not only could I not watch TV (because the cable's out) I also couldn't watch any of the shows I recorded last week when I was visiting my auntie out west because now the PVR is all fraked up. Damn it.

The rage I felt was incredible. Scary.

Hello. My name is Maureen and I am a serious TV addict.

Big purchases

I've come to the conclusion that everyone has their own definition of what constitutes a big purchase -- the ones you have to think about and analyze the hell out of before forking over the cash. I read an article recently that suggested we should use our gut/intuition for decisions our cave-person ancestors could relate to, (i.e. deciding where to live) but should use logic to make decisions our ancestors could not relate to (i.e. stocks vs bonds).

For me, I've realized over the years that my ability to make what most people would consider big purchases, and even impulse purchase, has nothing to do with the dollar amount involved. Or, at least, that's not the most important factor.

Not that I've really figured out what all the factors are. But I do know that I can fork over a scary amount of money for a fabulous pair of shoes with very little thought. Ditto on clothes. Ditto on fine craft items like ceramics, or glass or jewelery. I'm a sucker for well-made handcrafted things. (Don't even get me started on one-of-a-kind handmade shoes or clothes. Best of both worlds.) Okay, maybe I'm figuring out one of my factors here. I love beautiful things and when I see something I want, I can usually find a way to come up with the money to buy it. Self indulgent? Maybe. But I like buying nice gifts too.

Furniture is another matter... although I have a caveat. I have dining room furniture I love. And some beautiful antique pieces -- but they're all side pieces -- straight backed chairs, bookcases, consoles, sideboards. But a sofa??? Comfortable chairs to sit in??? I have never, ever, been able to fork over the bucks for anything like that. Instead, I have horrible, ugly, hand-me-down or garage sale pieces supplemented by a few pieces of cheap IKEA disposable crap.

Why can't I buy a couch? Some nice easy chairs?

My younger sister just moved into a new place and has no furniture (long story) and I've offered her the sofa-bed I inherited from the previous owners of my house (they were throwing it out) and the loveseat I bought for $50 from someone I rented from when I first moved back to Toronto. These are pieces of furniture I want to get out of my house, mostly because of the incredibly powerful inertia they seem to create. (Can inertia be created?) It's like they've a vortex sucking my decision making abilty into its depths. My hope? Once they're out of my house and I'm left with nothing to sit on, I'll finally be able to make a big decision and buy a new sofa...

Should I focus on design or comfort? Modern? Retro? Traditional? Funky? Neutral? Bright? Bold? Upolstered? Leather? Soft? Firm? Ack! What am I going to do?

What kinds of purchases are difficult for you? Which ones are just a little too easy?

Showing His True Colours.

Boy, I didn't post a blog for a week and here I am about to blog about Survivor again. Sorry.

Did anyone notice what Mookie said in his little exit interview? "Wish I could be back there, making everyone's life miserable."

Once again, this made me think about how a person's true nature comes out under pressure. One of the things that makes Survivor such an interesting study of human nature. It's one thing to go out fighting in that game. To try to convince others to not vote you out. But knowing they had no chance, that one of them was going to go, it seemed so slimy to me that Alex and Mookie just wanted to cause trouble for people. To what end exactly? Just to be mean?

Although, having said that, it may benefit Alex. If he succeeded in turning anyone against Yao or Earl then his SUPER-Slimy move to vote for Mookie may help him. But going into someone's personal belongings? That was pretty low.

But it could change the game. Should be interesting to see whether or not he can pull 3 people away from that alliance. If he goes for Stacy, Boo and Dreamz, he may just pull it off... But Dreamz and Stacy hate each other and everyone seems to dislike Boo so it seems like a long shot.

I do like how they're making all these reward challenges team challenges and forming the teams randomly. Does add something to the game. Before, the winner would get to take friends along for the reward, but they'd always take people in their alliance so it was pretty predictable.

Right now I'm actually rooting for Earl. He's played smart and he's played with integrity. Letting Yao be the one to dig for that idol when he easily could have gone for it himself says a lot about Earl. Also the fact that he and Yao didn't get into a fight about who was "holding it", unlike how Mookie, Alex and Eguardo acted with their idol...

Enough reality TV rambling...

Dreamz!

Okay. I'm still watching Survivor. The first reality TV show I ever let myself get hooked on (after stubbornly refusing to watch most of the first season).

Last night was the best episode ever. The first one where I was actually clapping and laughing during the vote at tribal council.

Why? Because the guy who no one fully trusts. The guy who seems to sway with the wind. The guy who's treated as if he were a child. The guy who seemed like a pawn in several different people's games? He changed everything. Never has their been a better liar on this game. Particularly one I was rooting for. Who wasn't lying for his own personal gain, so much, or for the pure joy in manipulation many of the past notorious liars seem to derived, but to gain the trust of others and to send a message to the people he lied to that he was not to be underestimated or patronized.

And, to me, Dreamz helped "the good guys". Hence my clapping and laughing. The expressions on everyone's faces when Edguardo's name came up more than once was priceless!

Watching that show, I'm never cheering for the ones who are so bloody arrogant about their position in the game. It's usually the strong, good looking guys and as much as it's nice to keep those guys around to look at, arrogance is the human trait I dislike most. (Another reason why the business world was uncomfortable for me. Many of the people I had to deal with were dripping in it.)

The sensitive side of me hopes the group's last minute decision to switch from Mookie to Eguardo and not tell Dreamz doesn't hurt Dreamz too much. He's already been treated badly by the so called Four Horseman. I feel badly for him. I hope Earl or Yau-Man can convince Dreamz either that they didn't have time to tell him, or that it was a test and he passed it with flying colors and they now trust him 200%.

But the not-so-sensitive side is rubbing my hands together waiting for the shit to hit the fan and wondering if that mistake, of not trusting Dreamz, will change the game all over again. Next week should be interesting.

For me, Survivor is one of the best studies in human nature on TV. They tend to cast real people. (unlike Big Brother or those dating shows like The Bachelor, where they seem to cast the women by cup-size and the men by the lowest IQ). I just wanted to slap 90% of the cast the one and only time I watched BB) And the Survivor players are all in such close proximity for so long and are thrown so many curves, forced to make big decisions, when they are emotionally and physically taxed.

As writers we know that when under pressure is when people's true nature comes out.

Intelligent choices...

I went to see The Lookout last night. And while I can't say it was the best movie I've seen this year or anything quite that strong... it did strike me once again what interesting and intelligent choices Joseph Gordon-Levitt has made in his career.

I mean, here's a kid who got famous very young and presumably made a lot of money for acting in a very silly sitcom. How easy would it have been to move from that into either another silly sitcom or into teen-exploitation movies. He's cute and looks even younger than he is, easily passing for a teenager even now. I'm sure he must have been offered tons of hollywood teen movies.
Instead? He's been doing really interesting smaller films.

(Okay, he was in 10 Things I Hate About You. But I'd argue that was, as teen movies go, a pretty smart one. I mean, doing a modern remake of Taming of the Shrew is a pretty bold idea. And that director was smart enough to cast an almost unknown at the time Heath Ledger, too.)

I first saw Gordon-Levitt, post 3rd Rock, (which, for the record, I thought was hilarious when it first came out, but quickly tired of), in a film at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival called Mysterious Skin. It's my favourite type of film to see at the festival, but a hard kind to pick just based on the programming schedule. Maybe if I knew more about directors, etc... but I usually find these ones by luck alone. By favourite type, I mean interesting, bold, smaller films -- usually with a young, new director, and often with hollywood stars or up-and-coming young actors -- but which, in spite of its impressive cast, will never be released into the theatres, or if it is released, will be hard to find because of a very short run/small number of screens.

I picked this film totally by luck. I think I was literally at the theatre, had a few hours to kill before my next screening (or was too lazy to truck over to whatever theatre my next screening was at) and there were tickets available.

What an interesting film. His performance is still with me. Now, a small warning before you go out to rent it. Here are the "Plot Keywords" listed on imdb.com for Mysterious Skin. "Gay Lead Character / Disturbing / Nose Bleed / Alien Abduction / Coming Of Age"

Interested yet? I'm re-interested and will have to see it again.

Also very interesting was Brick, made in 2005, but which I'm pretty sure I just saw last year some time. Very cool movie. The director completely transfers the film-noir genre into a high school setting. Worth it for the stylized dialogue alone.

And The Lookout, in theatres now. A slowly building suspense film with great character development and, for me anyway, tons of quiet tension.

Gordon-Levitt is either a very smart young man, or he has very smart people around him. Oh, and I just noticed on imdb that he was in A River Runs Through It when he was only 10. Huh. Must have been one of the boys as a kid? Will have to see that again. Okay. For more than just Gordon-Levitt :-)

Fitting In...

I've never read any of those "Finding your Bliss" books, although I probably should have eons ago. If I had, I may have made completely different choices in my life.

But then again, I can't possibly regret the choices I've made, they've led me to where I am now. So maybe it's a good thing I was such a late starter on the whole self-discovery thing.

What got me thinking about this? I went last night to an alumni event for my former employer. An employer I worked for for almost 17 years depending on when you start counting. (I was a co-op student with them during University so on my first day of employment, I was actually still 19 years old.) Last evening, sitting in a room of mostly men, with neat haircuts, wearing suits, talking about subjects in which I had little interest, it struck me how happy I am with the choices I'm making now and how unhappy I was for so many years struggling so hard to fit in, to play the part of aggressive business person, when that's about as far from my natural character as you can get.

I think my problem is that I don't like to be told I can't do something. I have a strong sense of pride and hate failure. So the idea that I wasn't going to be a success at the career I chose drove me a little insane and also drove me to keep trying to make it work when I knew in my heart, probably in my first year of University, that I'd chosen the wrong path for me.

Now, don't get me wrong. I met some of my very best friends in my years as an accountant. And many (most?) of the stereotypes for accounting and accountants simply aren't true. In professional public accounting anyway, there's an incredible amount of judgement involved, tons of variety in your day-to-day work, it's not routine or boring at all. It wasn't boredom or routine that I didn't like as many of my writer-friends assume. It was pretending to care about business in general. Pretending to get excited about closing a deal, or negotiating a contract, or finding ways to increase shareholder value. I just never cared. I saw the adrenaline rush in my colleagues' eyes and always thought there was something wrong with me for not feeling that way.

It simply never turned me on.

What turns you on? Have you found your bliss?

How many of you are there?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 18 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Found this cool thing which supposedly searches US census data to find out how many people have the same name as you.
According to the site, there are 138,726 people in the US with the first name Maureen. 99.9% of whom are female. Go figure.

Surprisingly (to me) only 39,205 people have the last name McGowan. I thought it was a more common name than that. And only 18 with the combination. Wow. I feel pretty unique.

Oddly, at my old job there was another Maureen McGowan. I know this because of Lotus Notes... but she was in London, England.

How common is your name?

Serious or happy?

OK. So down to two photos.

Any thoughts out there? Need to e-mail to RWA tomorrow.

Happy Easter!

New appreciation for ANTM chicks

Okay, my embarrassing love for ANTM has already been exposed in a blog on DWT last year.

Sure, the silly childish behaviour of the girls is grating, but what I like is watching the photo shoots and seeing the resulting pictures.

So, you'd think after watching a few seasons of the show. (and the first season of Canada's Next Top Model) that I'd have learned a thing or two. That I'd be able to make an expression in front of a camera that wouldn't make me look like I was insane or half asleep or on drugs.

But no.

I had a photo shoot this am to get a snap I can send in to RWA for this Golden Heart thing and wow. The photographer was great. And she probably took 40 or 50 pictures. So you'd expect half would be okay? A third? That my biggest problem would be picking my favorite? No. There were really only two, maybe 3 of the whole bunch which weren't hideous.

It's not like I've ever had an model aspirations, but seriously, I thought I could smile at a camera and not look like a moron. Who knew?

Expectations...

Got thinking about how expectations can affect someone's impression...

I was talking to some writer friends yesterday about how sometimes a book getting tons of "buzz" can generate a lot of negative backlash out there in blogland and on Amazon. "I heard this book was supposed to be really great. It wasn't that great."

And last night, holed up with a cold in a hotel room in Boston, I watched a couple of movies and had the same thoughts. The two movies were Because I Said So and Catch and Release.

I may be wrong here... but it seems to me that "Because" got more publicity/buzz than "Catch". I do remember seeing maybe one ad on TV for "Catch", but I don't think it got nearly as much hype or as many trailer spots in theatres.

Which did I like? Catch and Release. Don't know how much my super low expectations afftected me (or my strange infatuation with Timothy Olyphant) but I thought it was a really good film. Might be another example of those movies where they try to make it look like a comedy in the trailers/ads (focussing on Kevin Smith being a goof) when really it's very sad (but with a happy ending) movie about grief. And not just her grief. The men, too. Even Kevin Smith has a pretty dramatic and sad story line.

Very nice little movie. If you haven't seen it, check it out. (Whereas "Because" was just silly. It tried way too hard to be funny and just came off dumb to me and, well, desperate.)

Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Very Rewarding Experiences

Okay, so Nadine Dajani tagged me (on a Wednesday, I must point out) to participate in a Top Ten Tuesday blog... I hoped that meant I could think about it until next Tuesday... But then thought, hey, why not post it early on a Thursday instead. (I'm nothing if not a rule-breaker.)

So, Top Ten Very Rewarding Experiences...

1. Finishing my first book. Actually, finishing the first chapter of my first book was pretty damned rewarding. So was finishing my latest book. So is getting even one good page done some days.

2. Being present at the birth of my niece. I will be forever grateful to my sister for allowing me to be part of that day.

3. Watching my nephew, who has autism, learn to play with other kids. The few times he's genuinely hugged me have been pretty special, too. (He normally reserves that for his parents or his sister.)

4. Jumping out of an airplane. It was a tandem jump. But that just made it more cool because I got tossed out at 13,000 feet and got to do a free fall. (And it was easier to land with a pro on my back.)

5. Being a "Foster Parent" to a young boy in Burkina Faso. I'm not as good about writing letters and all that stuff as I should be... But I feel good knowing my small contribution is making life in his village just a little bit easier.

6. Serving on Boards of not-for-profit organizations. (Although this would also make my top 10 frustrating things list.)

7. Climbing to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite. I did this just a year after I had a ruptured Achilles tendon repaired and the last however-many-feet up (the part using chains) was the most challenging thing I'd ever done at that point of my life.

8. While I'm on physical achievements... Doing the Solvang Century (100 miles with a lot of steep hills) bike ride. Sure, it took nearly 9 hours. But I finished.

9. Helping writers less experienced than me.

10. Meeting any personal goal I set for myself.

Return of quality TV

I was so excited last week to find that Six Degrees wasn't cancelled after all. I hadn't really been following this show in terms of it's life or death status... I just assumed since it was a serious and quiet kind of drama with really good actors, that I enjoyed, but hadn't been on for months, that it was toast!

Nice to see it's still bread.

I am a sucker for the interconnected storyline format and this one does it well. Introducing lots of interesting characters and then slowly showing connections developing between them, often connections the characters have no idea are there.

In it's return last week, a few of the connections were revealed to the characters... and one was resolved in a slightly cop-out way... but it was satisfying, and the more I think of it, I don't know what else they could have done. (For those of you watching, I'm talking about the public defender/limo driver connection.) The photographer/widow storyline, however, was revealed to the characters in an interesting way and in resolving that storyline, they opened up an interesting love triangle... So, that has potential.

I mentioned great actors earlier and two of my favorite actors to watch are in this series, Campbell Scott and Hope Davies. Campbell Scott is the progeny of George C. Scott and the great late Canadian actress Colleen Dewhurst (who everyone in my country remembers seeing as Marilla in the Anne of Green Gables TV movie in the 70's. Or was that the 80's? I just looked it up. It was 1985. My memory is going.)

Hope Davies... I just think she's cool. In the early 90's I was in New York on business and went to the half price ticket booth in Times Square at lunch to see what I could get for that night. One of the available plays was Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet). It was playing off-off (probably a few more offs) Broadway with some unknown actors. I'd heard of the play. I knew the playwright was a Canadian. Anyway. I went to see it and was blown away. I thought it was the most clever, funniest play I'd ever seen.

About 4-5 years ago, the play was being done here in Toronto with the playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald (also a novelist and actor) in the lead. I jumped at the chance to see the play again... And was really let down. It just didn't click for me in the same way. Felt flat.

So what's the point of this rambling departure? And just how many degrees of separation is it from Hope Davies?

Well, after my disappointment I looked through my old theatre programs (I save stuff like that) and the reason it had been so amazing in NY became evident. The lead was Hope Davies and one of the male leads was Liev Schrieber. Talk about seeing two interesting actors before they were famous.

Anyway, always been a fan of hers. She always makes cool choices. If you've never seen The Secret Lives of Dentists, you can rent it and see her and Campbell Scott together in a film. Very strange and interesting movie... Dennis Leary's in it too...

So, I've gone totally off topic... But was really glad to see Six Degrees on TV again. (And Molly... I think I saw an ad that Friday Night Lights is back, too.

Is anyone else watching Six Degrees? Am I the show's only fan?

Back on the contest subject...

In very surprising news... THE MISEDUCATION OF APRIL HILLSON has finalled in RWA's Golden Heart competition.

Yes, this is the same ms whose publishing misadventures I described on Friday. Maybe this will breathe new life? (Not holding my breath, but one never knows!) That sounded pessimistic. I don't mean it that way. Finalling in the GH is HUGE. I'm super happy. Just trying to be realistic.

This development also reminded me of the post I did last week over at DWT, about subjectivity and contests. This particular project is one that typically gets strong reactions -- either positive or negative -- and therefore typically doesn't do well in contests. It doesn't follow "the rules". It has two time lines -- both told in first person. There is no hero evident in the first chapter... Well, the first 7 or 8 chapters if memory serves... and the heroine sleeps with other men before she finally gets around to even kissing the hero in like the second to last chapter... Also, the heroine comes off pretty weak and annoying at the start... She has a sharp character arc to climb... So, on most contest scoresheets, I'd fail. Miserably.

In fact, virtually the exact same entry--don't even know if I moved any commas--was entered in this same contest last year and barely made the top half. I did get three really high scores, but two judges HATED IT -- basically giving it a failing score.

Anyway... Grateful to have rolled some lucky dice on judges this year! Thank you to the five lovely RWA members who judged my entry in the preliminary rounds. Love you! Seroiusly. I really think I love you. We need to meet.

To agent, or not to agent

A funny thing happened to me yesterday and while I normally try to save my writer-heavy blogs for the Drunk Writer Talk blog... I just needed to share.

First, the back story. (I know, I know. But this isn't a novel.)

In January, 2005, with a very rough first draft completed, I pitched my ms THE MISEDUCATION OF APRIL HILLSON to an editor at Publisher X at a conference. She actually read the first 10 pages at the conference (different kind of pitch meeting) and asked to see more, which I immediately sent to her. Let's say in the first week of February, 2005. I also pitched to a few agents at that same conference, one of whom asked to see the full about a week after I'd sent her the partial in February 2005. (Ack! Remember the very rough first draft line?)

I went mad, worked 12 hour days and got a completed ms to that agent in April, 2005. Sometime during 2005, I found out that the editor at Publisher X I'd pitched to, and who had my partial, had changed to another publisher, so I wrote that editor submission off and concentrated on getting an agent. In July 2005, I pitched to Deidre Knight at the RWA National conference in Reno. She asked for a partial. In November, she asked for the full. And in early Feb, 2006, another agent at TKA, Pamela Harty, offered me representation. (Yippee!)

I sent a rejection letter to the agent who'd had my full by then for almost 10 months. (We had corresponded via e-mail a couple of times and she'd had a baby some time during those 10 months, slowing her down.) But that's not really the point of this post.

My new agent sent my ms to a number of editors in March 2006 and within a week we heard from one editor (at publisher X, coincidentally) that she loved it and was passing it around to other editors at the house to read. About a week later, we heard that 4 other editors at publisher X had all read the ms all the way through, also enjoyed it, but wondered about the structure and could I make some changes. I made the changes and to make this getting-to-be-a-long-story shorter, publisher X ultimately passed on the project in September 2006. (An aside. the editor then moved on to another house, asked for it again, but couldn't get it past all the hurdles at that house either. It's a tough market right now. Sigh.)

So, back to what happened yesterday? I got a package (via fed-ex no less) from publisher X rejecting the partial I'd sent more than 2 years ago. Not only did it take 2 years for them to respond, it was on a book that they'd seriously considered buying a year ago.

Bottom line? With an agent, my full ms was read in less than a week. Without an agent, a partial on the same ms took 2 years to be read. (and frankly, I don't think it was read at all.)

Movies opening in March

A couple of great films I saw at the film festival last September opened this weekend (in Canada, anyway, I think they opened across North America). I meant to post a blog about them last week, but somehow the week got away from me. These were actually two of the very first films I saw at the festival last year, so my brain wasn't even fried yet when I saw them. (so I trust my judgment more...)

VERY different films but both great.

First, FIDO. Hilarious.

Think of this movie as Far from Heaven meets Night of the Living Dead meets Lassie. Yes, Lassie. The references to Lassie were one of the funniest things about this movie for me.

Not only is it really funny, it's kind of subversive, too. Although it's set in the 1950's, or some kind of parallel universe version of the 1950's, I think it has a lot to say about our current culture of fear/paranoia. Also lots to be gleaned about cruelty and slavery and prejudice and intimacy and love. (On the topic of slavery... Amazing Grace opens soon. Do not miss this film.)

The night I saw FIDO I thought FINALLY. Finally a Canadian film that might actually have some commercial success (other than Porky's, which is frankly more than a bit embarassing, even if it has one of Kim Catrall's first on screen appearances.) FIDO was also screened at Sundance last month, so I hope it catches on in the States.

Here's a photo from the premiere (after Billy Connolly stole the mic from the director and pretty much started doing his stand up routine... I guess he doesn't get to talk in the film, so thought he was entitled... I'm kicking myself for not taking notes that night... Because one of the questions Billy was asked was how did he end up in this film... and the answer was great, because another actor was originally cast and dropped out. But I can't for the life of me remember who... But it was a big name... Robin Williams or Steve Martin or someone like that. Whoever it was, Billy was perfect. Amazing how much emotion he could get across without speaking, covered in blue/black makeup and with blood and flesh in his teeth on occasion. :-)

Anyway. Really enjoyed this film. May go see it again now it's in theatres. Hope it does well, but I expect it won't have the distribution to show on enough screens in the US to make a big impact. Fingers crossed.

The other movie I saw, I think the same night at the festival, that opened this weekend is The Wind That Shakes the Barley. WOW. This is a British film, set in Ireland, and won the Palmes D'Or in Cannes this year. I read an article in the paper this weekend that said this film actually didn't do very well when it screened in it's native Britain, and didn't get on that many screens. A pity. I suppose no country likes to look at films that cast a negative light on its past actions. And the IRA is perhaps still too touchy and current a subject to have a film focus a sympathetic eye on early members of a terrorist organization that was still causing terror so recently in the UK.

But this film is worth seeing for so many reasons. First a warning. The violence is very hard to watch. It's the hardest kind to watch in my opinion, because it's so real and so brutal and so relatable... Can violence be relatable? Maybe personal or intimate? Can't find the word I want... (I'll think of it a half hour after posting this.) That said, I don't object to this kind of violence in films. I just hate films that are full of violence for violence's sake.

I found the history in this film very interesting. Sure, I know a little about the Irish fight for independence, and of course the IRA and some of the terrible things they did, but I didn't really know about the Irish civil war that happened in the 1920's after an initial truce was signed with the British that many Republicans thought compromised too much.

But aside from all the history and politics... it's really a story of two brothers and how circumstances and evolving ideals tear them apart. Tragic story.

The heavy Irish accents are a bit difficult at times... But the performances are astounding not only from great actors like Cillian Murphy, but also from some of the minor characters some of whom had never acted before. I've read that the director, Ken Loach, never lets the actors see the script until just before shooting and he films as much in sequence as possible, so the actors can't let knowledge of what's going to happen to their characters later in the film, affect their performance in the current scene. Interesting. Whatever he does, he gets amazingly real performances from actors and knows how to tell a compelling story.

Here's a photo of Cillian Murphy at the Toronto (North American) premiere last fall. I saw him on that same stage a year earlier for Breakfast at Pluto, which I also enjoyed, but couldn't have been a different character. Very interesting actor, Mr. Murphy is...

Even his more commercial work like Batman Returns and Red Eye were interesting. Certainly someone to watch. And those eyes... (Red eye issues in this photo don't do them justice.)

Anyone else seen either of these? Seen anything else worth seeing lately?

The most annoying person on the planet.

Does anyone else watch The Amazing Race? I just watched last Sunday's episode on my PVR and it has hit me once again that Mirna is the most annoying woman on the planet.

What does she do that annoys me? Just about everything. I hate how she thinks she'll be better understood in foreign countries if she a) yells or b) speaks with a strange accent or c) both. (Her most common strategy.) I hate how she's always the wimpy one, the one not pulling her weight or whining and yet she constantly blames and complains about her cousin who appears to me to be twice as smart and twice as capable of doing most of the tasks. I hate how both of them have about the shadiest ethics of any team I've ever seen, and yet they seem to think they're such fair players and everyone else does them wrong. Annoying. On my list of people I'd least like to spend even a moment of time with? She'd be pretty high on the list.

Work and relaxation are incompatible

Once again, my mind boggles at the things that boggle my mind.

Why did I think I'd get any work done on my new book at a spa ? Am I insane? Did I not realize that post-massage euphoric hazes are best spent lazing on a sofa in front of a fire, not pouring over character development issues, hero's journey charts and psychology books? Do I still not realize (after trying so hard to convince family and non-writer friends that writing is work) that writing is, in fact, WORK???

That said, I did get a fair bit done last week... Just not as much as I'd hoped to. I read a few craft books that I'd only glanced at before and they sparked some ideas. I now have two of the main characters for my next book pretty well tied down... and the overall idea and concept for the book is solidifying... I'm just a little short on details... like what the character arcs are and -- you know -- minor things like "what happens in this book?"

With other books, I might have started at this point. Once I had the idea and main characters in my mind, I might have been so impatient to get going, to start telling the stories of these people who are becoming real to me that I'd just start typing...

But I'm planning on taking a bit more time with this one. I don't expect everything to be figured out before I start, but I do want to have enough so that when it goes off the rails 120 pages in, (which they all do), and I start to panic and doubt the story, (which I always do), maybe, just maybe, the outlining/plotting work I do now, will pull me in off the inevitable mid-way-through-the-book-ledge I'll find myself perched on. I'm actually hoping this up front planning will result in less time overall. (Tune in to a blog post in 6 months time where I explain why this didn't work. How's that for pessimism?)

On the upside... Had a couple of great massages this week and every inch of my skin is exfoliated and buffed to a high sheen.

Short sabatical

I'm heading off into the wild blue yonder for a few days to (I hope) work out the plot for my next book.

So, probably no blogs this week.

Hope to come back all ready and raring to write.