Newmarket VII

So, I wonder where that leaves me now.

I’m just sitting.

I suppose I’ve become boring.

You don’t have to listen to me.

But I swear I was once wild.

I’m pretty sure.

I had a different name.

I feel it deep down under the grey.

I know I was energy.

And now here I am.

Newmarket.

Newmarket VI

I used to be everything.

That’s how people found me—

a forest trail meeting flowing water.

Or thereabouts.

I was a part of everything.

Enjoying.

What did they used to call me?

I’m not sure there is anyone left

in the world

who knows my secret name.

Maybe nobody.

Maybe not even me.

People people people.

Where is my green belt?

It is hard to find anything around here

with so many people.

I think it is sunny.

If only I could see through this fog.

It smells funny.

I seem to recall the wind telling me

about a fog a long time ago,

when it came in traveling from the sun rising.

Wind never said anything about the smell,

about the way you have to breathe more

because one inhale just isn’t as filling as it once was.

I have the sense I used to travel more.

Maybe that’s not true.

My daughter goes all over in her SUV.

But things now seem confined.

Limits keep expanding into fields,

hoses and houses and houses,

but I’m more locked down than ever. 

Newmarket Part V

I’m pretty sure Newmarket

was a 1950’s housewife

turning to the woman next door

after surveying the farm houses,

rows of corn in the distance,

bungalows closer up,

sleepiness,

and asked

‘Gladys, was I always like this?

I seem to think I used to be a little more wild.

Maybe some deer and berry bushes

and water running on its own course.

I think perhaps, over time

I’ve lost my nature.

I think there used to be more life to me.

I’m not quite sure what happened.’

Newmarket—me—I would say this

before handing over a jello salad

walking towards the clothes line,

ready to do the starching.

Newmarket Part IV

Oh but the Rebellion was fun.

That made me think that I hadn’t lost my spark.

Yelling and banging on tables.

Compact!

Gold carried to the river and buried

To keep it safe.

Don’t tell—

I took it.

What fool buries pretty shiny things like that?

Too bad it was over in the blink of an eye

and snap of a noose.

Too bad indeed.

And maybe then I became less wild.

I suppose it was tolerable

in the grand scheme of things.

Same for the train.

A different type of noise and who cared?

Shops, canals,

drugs and malls and highways

and then I forget.

After so many streaks of movement on a slow shutter speed

it becomes hard

to reach the mind back.

Did I used to be more than an economy?

What was my secret name—

the name given at birth

to save me from death and illness?

Names are power.

You don’t know my name?

Death can’t find me.

When I start monthly bleeds,

When I can take on my own demons,

Then we can say the name out loud. 

Newmarket III

Part III

I live in a building named for a man—

always men with these new people!

I think he owned a newspaper

Or a mill

Or something someone thought was important.

I might have met him sometime before he died.

The nurses here say that’s not possible,

but they don’t know how old I am,

so how can they say?

They say I’m as old as the hills.

I seem to think I recall when the hills were just babies

Babies wrapped in short green grass

And swaddled close to the earth.

People would come through me then,

traveling from water to water.

Did it so often they made a trail.

Maybe we could have been friends

if I had cared at all,

but I really didn’t.

I was too busy just being myself.

What do I care about the mills

and distillery

and rows of carrots they forced from the earth?

It was a little pinch in my side,

nothing more.

Newmarket

Part II

I forget the name I had before.

My name now doesn’t fit.

Newmarket.

Ugh. How awful.

More like gluttonous slime of spiritually devoid

self-involved illusion

of economic success.

That’s what I’d call what we’ve all become.

Or something like that.

Oh, maybe I’m being cantankerous.

I’m sure there have been good times too.

And good people.

Small children playing at school.

High school students volunteering to sit with me for 20 minutes—

I wish they weren’t afraid of shocking me with their stories.

I’d like to know who these people are

But they just tell me that they study hard

And want to be accountants.

You can’t really know a person who lies so hard

Even if they believe it themselves.

Newmarket

Part I

I remember quite a bit

even though some of the facts

are fading into Monet feelings.

Not so crisp as they once were

Water colours don’t suit

How I see.

I feel as though I used to be different.

But things don’t happen over night, no.

The changes were fun.

People coming to my tallest tree to trade.

The people I knew getting pots and beads

from the new people, just giving over a few furs.

And they would have fun and a spirit, a new spirit,

would descend

and it was different from anything we had ever felt.

And then I suppose on thing led to another.

Houses, dams, saloons, highways,

and here I am. 

Secret Order

Jung says

There is a secret order

In all disorder

And Baby! Do I ever know

Disorder

Disorder like the jagged lines

of a plot disturbed

from the flowing peace of rising action,

an arching climax,

a calm denouement.

I know that broken ragged story.

I know disorder

like all the thoughts

of I'm not good enough I'm not strong enough I'm not

in a smear of morning sickness

hurled in a straight line across the floor.

But I start to know order

when my foot steps fall

like a heart beat

in the soles of my feet

from under me

flowing up me 

to meet another heart beat

and up to meet another one

and on up.

And things start to fall

The way my foot steps fall 

into a rhythm

the way my feet fall

on the concrete, bricks, on planks of wood

on the dry cracked tar.

Disorder smoothes itself in a caress

around me,

Chaos into a cosmos,
a shawl for the cooler breezes

that drift in this time of year.

Summer is Lazy

Summer is

lazy

Even here, on the coast

            Where the steel waves in the harbour

            Smell like October

Even here

            Summer is

                        like…

Really lazy.

The grey mornings

            With criminal crows

            Only inspire me

            To pull a pillow over my head

I should be a hero

            And do what heroes do

            And get out of bed

Pen in hand, paper under that

I should

            Bring words into being

I should

But nothing lazy is heroic

Nothing heroic ever happened without some heat

            Some fire

            Some warmth

And right now the east coast

            Ain’t got none.

I think Toronto must be buzzing.

Salsa, Walking, and the Perfect Time to Write

Salsa feet slamming on a salsa floor

Spinning near stacked speakers

My new pulse matches the rhythm of the song

Keeping me dancing all hours of the night

 

Walking home

Pizza eaten on cardboard plates

The gentle voice of a friend sharing secrets

Until sleep covers us

 

Waking, legs aching and we’re happy

Water, glasses of water, and aspirin

Walking only for coffee

Slow motion day and no writing done

 

The next evening I plan to turn left

But in a rare instance the sun is uncovered

I turn right instead

Walking under trees towards the water

 

On a sloping rock just off the path

I undo shoes, take off socks

Roll up jeans, roll up sleeves

Lay back and listen to the ocean

Tumbling rocks under the waves

 

Nature is attentive

The breeze moves over me

Sunlight on my face, my legs, my arms

It is my lover’s summer touch

 

My breath flows easy

Shoulders easy, jaw easy, body easy

Ego dissolved, I am nothing to anyone else

And everything to myself

And the words flow in

And the words flow out

Smash Up: How to Write a Novel

The new novel is now coming along. Thank god. I had forgotten that I need to write the book, scene by scene, not in order, and not try to plan every scene and twist and everything else that goes into making a book. Maybe that process works for Elizabeth George, but it sure doesn’t work for me.

This is what works for me: there is a wife and a husband. Yes. Definitely those two people. And I know the husband is ambitious, but I also know that the spark of his genius always comes from his wife. And at some point she is going to loose it with him because he’s really screwed up.

It is going to be an all-out fight. Something big. A smash up. Yes. Smash. He’ll be in the kitchen pretending to be deep and successful. And she will confront him. She’s a thrower: when she is angry she throws things. I like that about her. At first she throws a few glass ornaments that were sitting on the credenza in the dining room. That’s when she tells him that he is stupid, even though the words had never once passed her lips before.

The man is surprised. Sure, his wife throws things, and he grovels & agrees, and then they’re fine again. That’s how it goes. But she’s never insulted him before. He is unprepared for this. But he sticks to his plan: grovel & agree.

Only grovel & agree isn’t working. Why not? The man wonders. A wine decanter smashes against the cupboard. He has taken cover behind the kitchen island. He is starting to think he may not be safe.  His wife is still yelling: her words are important to the plot. The man knows he messed up. His actions are relevant to his character development.

And once the punch bowl has been thrown, the scene is done.

This is how I write a novel.

Artistic Self-Doubt

The thoughts started on Sunday. It had only been about a week since I

started writing some ideas for a new mystery novel. It was still very early stages. I had a few new characters and a few characters from the first novel. I had a setting, a murder victim, and some thoughts about who the murderer was. This all sounds very positive. And to any other person the sense of accomplishment would have swelled in his or her chest.

I felt awful. The reality of the situation had started to hit. 

Shit. Could I do this at all? What if I can’t write another story? What if the first one doesn’t get published? Who are these people I’ve created? Are they even a little realistic? How do I do this? Where do I start? Shit. There is a lot of work coming up. Can I do this?

It was a terrible case of artist’s self-doubt.

Churchill talked about his black dog following him around. Black dog

was a gentle euphemism for his struggle with depression. I don’t know

if artists name their doubts, but I hear everyone has them. I don’t

call my doubts anything except for my version of reality in that moment—however unrealistic the thoughts sound to others, or even to myself in retrospect. 

The Globe and Mail featured an article on the filming of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children by Deepa Mehta (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/movies/deepa-mehta-films-rushdies-midnights-children/article2021293/). Mehta and the crew talked about threats from fundamentalists and censorship, working with a team of Canadians in Sri Lanka on a film that is based in India, and luring crows with fish heads stuffed into fake corpses for the ‘killing fields’ scene.

Mehta spoke of artistic self-doubt when one of the sets was intentionally burned after filming had been completed. Journalist Stephanie Nolan writes, “The last of the flames went out just before dawn a few days ago, and Mehta was suddenly filled with doubt. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, it’s going to be crappy. What have I done? The most beloved book of all time – I’m an idiot. Salman is going to hate it.’” Mehta texted Rushdie to tell him this.

Rushdie immediately texted back: “Every time I finish a book, I think it’s crap. And sometimes it isn’t.””

So, Mehta and Rushdie are world-renowned, they’ve won awards for their work in directing and writing respectively, and they still have moments where they wonder what it is they are doing and if they’ll be able to pull it off. Maybe they have strategies to keep their chin up (Elizabeth George, the best-selling mystery author, find it helps to read through old journals chronicling her self-doubt when she hits the same feelings with a new project). Maybe all artists just carry on, feeling as though they are bumbling through, never quite sure if they can pull off the next trick. 

 And maybe that’s where some of the beauty of art comes: from recognizing the brilliance that can come forth from searching, trying, and pushing on.

Writing the Tough Stuff.

I am starting a second mystery novel and I have a new character. I really like her. I don’t know everything about her yet, but I know that she has long black hair and she is in university. Or maybe college. I know her name and I think that she will work in a coffee shop, have tattoos, and love photography. And I know she will die. 

I didn’t have any clear ideas about who my characters would be when I started writing my first mystery novel. I hadn’t decided much about age or background or income or experiences. The only direction I had was that each character needed to serve a purpose: someone had to be killed,

someone had to find out who did it, I needed some characters to reveal certain clues, and I needed some characters to raise the stakes.  

I also followed mystery writer Louise Penny’s advice and created characters that I’d want as friends (http://www.louisepenny.com/getpublished.htm ). If you have to spend

hours with your character, creating and revising and editing, it may as well be someone you would naturally choose to spend hours with. Your character should be someone you would want to spend early mornings or late nights with (or middle of the day or whenever it is you happen to write).

Let me clarify this point. I don’t want to be friends with a sociopath. But sociopath’s aren’t all that interesting anyhow. Interesting characters are complex- there are likable parts in all of us, just as there are unlikable parts. There are good choices and bad choices. There are tough situations where all a character can do is his or her best. And that’s what makes us like them. They are human, and we identify with their humanity.

That’s the hard part about writing murder mysteries: I will create characters and because I created these people, I will care for them. Even if these characters are nearly completely unlikable, I’ll still enjoy them somewhat. There will be a phrase or a quirk or an insight and I’ll feel compassion for them. If they are the heroes, they will face danger. And if they are the murder victims, they will die.

The Slow Ride

I might be very slow. I’m not sure. It took me about 8 months of waking up early and writing for about 2 hours every weekday morning before I had a 350 page first draft of a mystery novel. Then it took another two months of reading it with a pen in hand. Then another few months to make those changes on the computer. Then the draft went to a few trusted friends and family members. Then I made some more changes. All said and done, it has been about a year and a half since I started.

I say I’m slow partially because I am truly impatient. I’ve heard that great art takes time and Rome wasn’t built in a day, but I believe that I should be able to get it done faster. I also started thinking about speedy writing after reading an interview with Alexander McCall Smith. In this interview, McCall Smith said that when he writes, very little is changed or edited ( see http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/qa-alexander-mccall-smith/article1975514/singlepage/#articlecontent). He writes his stories perfectly the first time. This might be the reason why he publishes a book each year. 

I say I’m slow because the process of writing takes a while. Even in university I started weeks in advance. The most important thing for me was getting something down on the page. I could always work with something once it was there—even if it was only a paragraph and it was full of swear words temporarily substituting for actual words I couldn’t remember or ideas I knew I needed to include. Once I had that, I could expand, revise, cut the cussing, and produce a respectable piece of work.

The same pattern applied when I wrote my mystery. I started by knowing that a young man would be killed. At the time of death he would be wearing a bathing suit, and the killer would have poured water over the body. I knew this much and then I began to figure out who this victim was. Then I wondered who would have found him, and who would have cared.

Everything was in point form. I started to write little chunks of dialogue. Then I wrote a few more characters and a few more scenes. I only wrote the scenes that felt easy to write—I didn’t force myself to write the next chronological scene or to stick with only one character . I did this until I couldn’t think of anything else to write—it took 121 pages. All that was done by hand: ink on sketchbook paper. 

Next I tackled the process of putting the scribbles onto the computer screen. As I transcribed, the scenes filled out. I filled in the unaccounted hours between scenes and the little clues that would make the revelations credible. Characters solidified. Dialogue became more natural. Small jokes were inserted as were the tiny details that would add life to the page. When I got feedback, I made those changes too. I improved my grammar. I switched phrasing to make sentences sound better. I connected characters, I deleted repeated words. And for the most part I reall enjoyed it. 

Now I’m contemplating writing another mystery; a second story in the lives of my characters. I’ve got my sketchbook ready and I’ll go shopping to get the right type of pen. I forget who said it, but I read once that writing is like driving in the fog: you can only see as far as your headlights. This image fits my own writing process very well. My own, individual, wildly curving, multi-layered, drive-off-a-cliff process. But I’ve done it before, so this time I just have to remember the basic direction of my route.

Fiction and Politics

In Canada an election is heating up... if heat is the right adjective. Where I’m living, it has been raining and foggy for 4 days straight. And I am only now starting to give a crap about an election that is 4 days away. 

Let me explain myself: I am proud of my country, I care about the democratic process, and I will vote. Despite all this, I’m freaking tired of elections, I’m tired of the sound bites, and I’m tired of feeling as though nothing may change. 

The one saving grace in this entire situation is that I have had the pleasure of reading two authors weigh in on our current Prime Minister, Steven Harper. On April 20, 2011, Margaret Atwood wrote an opinion piece for the Globe and Mail in which she compared our current Prime Minister to a vacuum sales man who uses rhetoric and bullying to avoid answering any questions the potential vacuum buyer may have (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/election-2011-a-dark-fiction/article1991748). The fictional story becomes startling realistic as Atwood’s words echo Harper’s rhetoric on fiscal accountability and transparency and relates it to the potential this has to further undermine Canada’s economic stability and social institutions. Atwood’s piece paints a picture of the reality we do have and one we may soon have if Harper’s rhetoric and actions are allowed to continue unchallenged.

While Atwood’s piece is presented as fiction, Nino Ricci has posted an open letter on his website applauding Harper’s use of fiction as a political strategy (http://ninoricci.com/news/an-open-letter-to-stephen-harper). Ricci notes that Harper uses this creative medium for a number of purposes including taking credit for the results of policies he didn’t create and, as a conservative, wouldn’t support. Ricci then applauds Harper for using fiction, thus sparing us from reality. Isn’t it neat that Ricci exposes truth by unraveling Harper’s fiction.

Each author uses his or her own writing-and specifically the notion of fiction- to illustrate his or her understanding of the political reality. And after all the fiction I’ve been hearing, a bit of truth is going a long way to revitalizing my confidence in the democratic process. In fact, perhaps Ms. Atwood and Mr. Ricci would consider entering politics. 

I think they’d both have a good shot at winning. As Ricci so astutely  points out, “Politics is nothing if not the art of making others believe.”