Not very terribly exciting photos today, but picture-taking is difficult with a sleepy dog who needed at least seven more hours before being even remotely ready to play in the snow. I’ve been thinking lately about a lot of the books I liked when I was younger. I had a few favourite books, but the ones that I think about the most, years later, are the ones with some …
It’s a humble PNG image, but to me it’s the most exciting one I’ve seen in a very long time. Today I finished NaNoWriMo. I wrote a novel. I almost want to put an exclamation mark on the end of that last sentence, but I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet. To me, my novel is just 28 little documents living in my computer and in my brain, nothing …
If I can’t sleep, one thing I like to do is to look at webcams of cities where it has just turned morning. Sometimes nobody is out of bed and sometimes people are already having long chats outside in the dark. Sometimes the spaces look so eerie without people. I always feel like I should preface this by saying “I’m not some weirdo,” but can it be weird to watch …
I finished this book on the way back from Montreal. It was the first time I’d ever read it (I know, I know). It was found in a laundromat by a family friend and given to my mother. Look at the gorgeous cover! Old book design is unmatched, in my opinion. Old books are great, especially when they’ve been used by a student in a mixture of relevant class notes …
My parents used to live near the beach, when there was a racetrack across the street. Now, houses are there, painted in too many colours. We walk slowly down the boardwalk and my mother points out trees to my father – “This one is so big now!” She tells me that when she was my age, when everything was new, she dreamed of living in the little building in the …
Visiting my parents is often so much like a ready-made writing retreat. The house is quiet, softly lit, often sleepy. The TV returns seven channels and there is not much in the way of distraction. I sit straight up, I do crosswords from the paper, I write hundreds of words at the kitchen table I carved my name into at age eight. — Lindsey has an amazingly good story in …
An oil lamp from Istanbul, a present from my brother. In the background are buttons with the Berlin “walk/don’t walk” symbols. My old Goose on a Moose print and various old photos of my mother and Finland. I’m not really a fan of Doris Lessing’s fiction, but I love her as a writer. If she catches me not writing, she shakes her finger at me and tells me to get …
There is no greater excitement than starting a story. Finishing a story is satisfying, but in a different way – it’s a worn-out, bleary-eyed kind of happiness. You almost don’t even care. You don’t really remember the thrilling beginning, the new idea becoming a narrative with real, live characters. Today I took myself and my laptop to a coffeeshop. I opened my Word doc called “Ideas and Beginnings” and picked …
My husband J and I were sitting on our bed in the dark, our dog snoring on her own little bed a few feet away. I was sitting with my chin on my drawn-up knees and trying to put into words why I’d had such a frustrating day. It was hard, partly because you can’t actually speak too well with your chin on your knees, but also because it’s so …
There are certain sounds that will be comforting forever: slippered feet on that creaky floor, early morning radio debates, water being poured into a kettle, screen doors sliding open. I stretch and kick the metal footboard as I had done every morning, and before I am fully myself I forget the last nine years have ever happened.