Hey everyone!
Last time I posted, I mentioned a lifestyle change. The good news is that, despite being a late-nighter most of my adult life, the transition to waking up early hasn’t been the worst – my way of saying “I kind of hate it, but it’s working.” At this point I am only getting about 45 minutes each morning, but that’s 45 minutes more than I was getting two weeks ago. If you think you could never wake up early and be creative, well, that’s what I thought, too.
It’s not all coffee and roses, though. The writing itself is difficult. I’m working on a new novel. I have both recently-written material and material written twelve years ago. I try combining it in different ways, but it’s almost always to no avail. Basically, I’m swimming in 200 pages that I want to keep and, simultaneously, I want to delete, then delete again, and then I want to tie a cinderblock around the computer and drop it into the Hamilton Harbour, and then dive down after it and delete it all again.
What do you do when you reach this point? This point where you can’t find the point anymore? I’ve never really been here before. My idea was to take stock and remind myself why I want to tell this story. I’ve drafted a document entitled – you guessed it – WHY I WANT TO TELL THIS STORY. I’m going to outline the reasons this story needs to be told. If I don’t find any reasons, then perhaps I’ll see it’s not worth the pursuit. Wish me luck!
This week’s episode of GET LIT features Rebecca Rosenblum, author of So Much Love. The book is fantastic, and critics seem to agree. Rosenblum even had some flattering things to say about me on her webpage, which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy-like. Turns out she was a fan of my Hamilton Spectator column from the 1990s. In fact, it’s one of those ridiculously small-world stories: I met poet and author Mark Sampson at an event in Toronto. He later messaged me to say that he had seen my final Generation X column – at his in-laws’ home, taped up in his wife’s childhood bedroom. That alone would have surprised me, but then I discovered that said individual was Rebecca, whose novel I had just started to read.
Life’s weird sometimes.
We’ll also talk briefly with Jennifer Villamere, about the launch party for her book Is Canada Even Real? How A Nation Built On Hobos, Beavers, Weirdos, and Hip-Hop Convinced the World to Beliebe. And that’s not a typo!
Hope you enjoy this installment.
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