A change is coming...

As you can see, things are beginning to shift...change is coming to this blog...

The RRQ FAIL!

I got my Canada Day present a little late:

From Le Soleil. English commentary by Moi.

Une vingtaine de manifestants du Réseau de résistance du Québécois (RRQ) et du Mouvement de libération nationale du Québec (MLNQ) ont présenté leur butin de drapeaux canadiens (150 petits et une dizaine de grands) aux médias mercredi midi, devant le Musée des beaux-arts.

Well, that's a lot less than the 2000 flags that our friends in the RRQ claimed! I assume that they didn't bother to take their shoes and socks off before they started counting.

Ces drapeaux, «pas achetés, pas donnés, mais qui ont été pris», seront retournés au gouvernement fédéral.

Good news for Canada! Not only will they now have two hundred flags to recycle and/or reuse, but as the flags were, by the admission of the RRQ STOLEN.

This means three things:

(1) The Canadian environment will benefit from less pollution as these flags are reintroduced into the Canadian industry, in one form or another.

(2) As they have now admitted to having committed acts of vandalism and theft, these RRQ members are now all guilty of criminal acts! We can therefore file police reports against them, and take legal civil action against them on behalf of the victims of these acts of vandalism and theft. Canada benefits once again, when they are jailed and/or fined for their actions.

(3) The Canadian flag industry will now have that many more orders to fill for Canadian flags. From manufacture to distribution, to wholesale and onto retail, all levels of the Canadian and World economies (given most of our flags are made in China) will now benefit!

Keep it up, brave men and boys of the RRQ! You're doing Canada proud!

Summertime News

Well, I've done it again, haven't I? Not updated in a number of weeks, been preoccupied with other matters, forgotten about this blog...

I only have myself to blame for the minimal readership, I suppose, given that I don't keep this blog as faithfully as I used to--nor do I keep it nearly as faithfully as it deserves. Such is life...

Ironically, I've been contemplating updating this blog for about two weeks now...kept putting it off...I blame it all on StumbleUpon: my productivity has plummeted since installing that one. Well, that and highly addictive Flash games...

In any event, this weblog post is the first actual writing-related work of any kind that I've managed to do this past weekend; lately I can't seem to focus much on writing. As I'm on holiday for the next little while, I'm hoping to change that around...hopefully even get out to the cafe a few times more often than normal.

But, onto writing related projects, I've been in touch with my partner for the Nevermind screenplay project, and that is coming along well.

Likewise, I've been checking around, and much to my delight and surprise, there are several new websites distributing The Unearthing, and the downloads now are up around the 10 000 mark from the various points of distribution all combined.

Given the continuing popularity of ebooks, and the number of smartphones, ebook readers and other quaint gadgets coming out almost weekly, it looks like ebooks are gaining in popularity. Despite the elitists who still sneer at the idea of ebooks and epublishing, I've had far more success as an e-novellist than I ever did in print publishing.

To that end, I've decided that the follow-up novel to The Unearthing will be published solely as an ebook. I've got a few things to do before I'm ready to distribute it; some legal, some technical and a whole lot of promotional, but I do intend to release it electronically before the end of the year.

I have a couple of other projects up on deck once more, and there's also my ongoing work with CONFRONT Magazine, and a few other surprises in store.

I promise, I'll update again sooner.

Screenplay Status

Well, it's been a while, hasn't it?

I promise, I've been busy.

This week I completed work on the first draft of the beat sheet for the Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind screenplay and delivered it to my producer.

As to my other writing projects, I have decided it is best to see how things play out with the screenplay before turning my focus onto anything else. It is a simple, unfortunate truth that between my job, my commitment to CONFRONT Magazine and life, itself, I just don't have time, energy or the capacity to focus very well on multiple projects; at least, not at this juncture.

I'm exploring options that may eventually lead to me being able to write professionally full time, but that is still very, very much up in the air.

I continue to be amazed at this journey. Nothing ever goes as expected, and the things that do happen are wholly surprising. But, I'm beginning to ramble, now, so time to cut it short.

My Vault in Limbo

Limbo is neither a graveyard nor a gaol. It is a place of waiting. In Christian myth, Limbo is where the souls of the unbaptized babies go. Tainted by Original Sin, the sin of desiring knowledge of Good and Evil, yet innocent of actual transgression, these creatures are not pure enough to enter God’s presence, nor tainted enough to be exiled in Hell.

Where am I going with this, you may wonder.

I believe Limbo, as described above perfectly describes the condition of all the stories, either lost or incomplete, from all the storytellers, poets, bards, minstrels, writers and dreamers of the world. Each storyteller has a vault there, where we each keep our own lost and abandoned tales.

Throughout our lives we continue to fill this vault. Sometimes, we withdraw stories from within, bring them to life anew or reinvent them. More often than not, we consign stories to this place, and leave them here.

But I don’t believe anyone ever forgets a story that they send here.

Whenever I send a project here, I take the time to go through the inventory of my vault in Limbo. Everything I ever wrote is here. The high flying adventures of Captain Jock Stone and the crew of his best friend’s spaceship; the story of mutated children of a government experiment escaping and evolving into something else; the man who steals a time machine in an attempt to change his destiny; the tortured, unromantic life of street-urchin vampires. They were among the first residents of my vault. They came here in the decade between my thirteenth and twenty-third birthdays, and more and more have joined their ranks in the decade and a half since.

Three and a half years of poor sales have seen my publishers decide to pull “The Unearthing” from production. That means that the other four volumes of the story, “Through Darkness and Stars”, “The Aeons War”, “The Destroyer of Worlds” and “Artifacts of Forgotten Gods” have been shipped there, as well.

I was certain that the “Nevermind” screenplay would soon be counted among the residents of this vault. I was so convinced, in fact, that I had begun my grim tour of its contents. Several weeks had passed, during which time I heard nothing from the filmmaker to whom “Nevermind” was to have been optioned. Like so much of my work since I was laid off from my old job in 2006, I found that the project was running out of steam: self-doubt eclipsed my ability to write; anxiety and worry usurped my imagination. I couldn’t maintain my writing.

Likewise, my work with CONFRONT Magazine and my ongoing work with Anglo rights groups in Quebec began taking up more and more of my free time. I wasn’t sleeping properly (no surprise there) and I was continually exhausted at and by my job.

Since 2006, several projects have gone into my vault: a fiction piece about the events leading up to and the aftermath of a school shooting; a retelling of the Frankenstein’s Monster story; the constantly-promised revival of “Crossroads”, which keeps rolling over and going back into hibernation after every unsuccessful attempt to revive it; a story about a daughter who seduces her father, just to see if she can; a “ghost ship” story set in space; a military coup d’etat in the United States; a spy story about a plot to bankrupt Cuba, and several others that never made it past page One.

Never in my life have I gone through the kind of creative agony that I faced from 2006 to 2008. Five months in, I have to admit that 2009 hasn’t been much easier. I had plans to publish two novels; I was supposed to have had one or both of them ready to go, by now. Unfortunately, “Through Darkness and Stars” is on indefinite hold (though I hope to revive it as an ebook) and “Nevermind” got side-tracked into the aforementioned screenplay project.

The best laid plans of mice and men...

However, this past week I heard back from my filmmaker partner-to-be. We have settled on a draft agreement for the option to produce “Nevermind”, and I am back at work on the project, crafting a beat sheet while continuing to peck away at the screenplay. I’m still keeping a light load with CONFRONT so I can concentrate on the script, and if things go well, I’ll hopefully be done with it before the fall.

I will continue to post my regular, if intermittent, updates to this weblog, Twitter and elsewhere. Best thing would be for you, readers, to subscribe to the RSS feed; that’s your best tool, I think, to keep track of those updates.

Until next time!

Language War

Please, everyone, take the time to read the vulgar interview on page 7 of today's journal Métro - the free daily.

It is with Michel Brulé, who has written--and published--a hateful book, an anti-English diatribe that is nothing short of hate speech.

By definition, hate speech is anything that incites discrimination or violence against anyone on the basis of their race, gender, sex, sexual orientation or religious or political affiliation.

I believe that definition includes language, culture, history and heritage. These are the things that are now at stake for the anglo communities of Quebec. We must stand united.

His book is the definition of hate speech. It is there, in black and white. We MUST challenge this book, it's author and it's publishers. We must boycott anyone who sells this thing, we must boycott anyone who advertises it or who allocates this swine any license to spread his hate.

He is an avowed "Enemy of English" and he considers himself to be "At WAR" against the English. This man is an obviously deranged and hate-filled individual, and a danger to our community's survival.

This will also test the resolve of the Canadian government. If they let this kind of sewage stand, they are in fact condoning our continued ethnic cleansing by attrition.

War has been declared on us. As they want to spread propaganda and lies akin to the anti-Jewish books, leaflets and beer-hall speeches of Germany in the 1920s, we must use the same media, internet, cable television, print, radio, celebrity, etc to spread the simple truth of our peoples, our histories, our heritage and our plight.

Here is the link to the fucking story:

http://www.journalmetro.com/linfo/article/216309--michel-brule-celui-qui-a-l-anglais-comme-ennemi

We must stop this.

We are out of time.

A message to the Anglo Community

Friends,

Right now, I should be doing one of two things.

One, I should be working on a certain screenplay, because I am in negotiations to option it to a producer.

Two, I should be getting some sleep, because I have work in a few scant hours.

Instead, I am doing something out of a sense of civic duty. It is an unwholesome feeling and I cannot recommend against it enough.

There are some among us, including myself, who have recently been banished as fringe elements, from the ranks and privileges of the Facebook group of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Our expulsion was due for many reasons. These included posting the simple facts as seen from the front line on Quebec’s War on Anglos. This underreported and ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing by attrition has continued to be ignored by the Liberal Party. They have ignored us and they have denied us, by silencing the voices raised in dissent of that Official Party Line.

Sit back and contemplate that Machiavellian concept a moment, then we shall continue.

The Liberals have long since become our alleged last best hope. But let us face the truth: neither in the ranks of the Provincial nor the Federal Liberals are there any Anglophone Quebecers to be seen nor heard. If they are there, they are silent, token chair moisteners for the most cynical of reasons. Beyond these harem castratos, we have no voice in government.

Nor have we any true presence of note in Federal or Provincial civil service, though we do come close with a few Ottawa transplants living in the City Formerly Known as Hull.

The death of Hull for the rise of Gatineau is one of the most flagrant examples of the cultural erasure of the Anglophone Communities of Quebec. Our schools, our churches, our temples have been closed. Our municipal services have dried up, and good luck finding much English text at the UQAM Library. Oh, it may be available, but it’s certainly not available to nous, les autres. We would be auslander—I’m sorry, I meant l’etranger, and not in any Bohemian Paris Anais Nin kind of way.

How many of our neighbourhoods have buildings where our parents and grandparents once went to school, where they played, where they grew up and fell in love, buildings that are closed to us and our children? How many of these buildings still retain any benefit to our community? Sun Youth, to be sure, but who else? How many of us have alma maters that no longer exist? How many of our schools have been erased? How many of us didn’t even get to graduate from one school because it was closed and we were shipped off to another school?

After the 1995 referendum, how many of our hospitals were closed in unnecessary reprisal cuts? What is often never said about the goddamn health care crisis in Quebec is that it was Parizeau, Landry, Marois and Harel who created the crisis to begin with, laying off nurses, forcing doctors to retire or move out of province and closing scores of hospitals.

And let us not forget Louise Harel’s language Gestapo, what she turned the Office de la Langue Francaise into, that saw attacks on Greek, Jewish and Chinese businesses in their respective communities. The response from our so called community was pathetic, at best: a bunch of mumbling passive aggressive yuppies banded together to strut and fret their hour for the camera and sound-bites on CJAD.

What we need, ladies and gentlemen, is true leadership. Not the blunt aggressiveness of Howard Galganov, and certainly not the passive aggressive smile-for-the-camera-boys photo op of Alliance Quebec.

What we need is to unite our diverse communities, Black, Jewish, Muslim, Italian, Mohawk, Innu, Greek, Asian, Catholic, Protestant, Irish, Scot, English, Polish, Ukrainian, Hindu, Sikh, and all those I have failed to mention, to get each and every English-speaking natural-born and immigrant citizen of Quebec, starting in Montreal and growing outwards to all our community strongholds, and join together to speak—and vote—with one voice.

We need to do this with plain talk about hard facts. We need to do this by putting truth to the lies told to cover up our ongoing deletion. Oppressed minorities the world over have only ever garnered sympathy or attention when they united, when the cried out with one voice. Even as our heritage, cultures, histories and communities continue to be eroded by the Franco-supremacist laws and attitudes, there are groups who compare the Francophone Quebecer to the Tibetans and the Chechens, even to the Palestinians and Darfur.

Not only is that attitude insulting to the Anglophones of Quebec given the scourging of the last 40 years, but it is extremely offensive to the Tibetan, Palestinian, Chechen and Darfur refugees, and all those who have suffered under such brutal oppression.

In no way can we compare ourselves to these communities, either. However, in no way are we the best-treated minority in the world, as the Separatists like to claim. What outreach to the English-speaking Quebecers have the Francophone communities ever made? What outreach from either successive Liberal or Pequiste governments have we been offered? We have been wholeheartedly rejected by the Power Elite in Quebec.

Likewise, what has been offered us from Canada? What have the Federal Liberals done for us? The last constitutional crisis in Canada was set off by the ineptitude of the Conservatives under the flailing Lyin’ Brian Mulroney. His disastrous and patently absurd Meech Lake accords were the genesis of the Bloc Quebecois, who broke away from the Tories.

It is time we united our communities and did the same. We will offer the hand of friendship to those in Francophone Quebec who offer it. We will likewise do the same for those from the so-called Rest of Canada who do the same. But it is time to rebuke those who have rejected and denied us. It is time to stand up against all those who have failed us in Ottawa and in Quebec City.

We must unite our communities under the banner of our own political party, both Provincial and Federal. We must strive to take enough votes away from the other parties to ensure that no majority government can be formed, and that our so-called “traditional allies” in Parliament and Provincial Assembly cannot hope to form a coalition without us.

Our democratic rights have been stolen from us. We must therefore seize them back, and the best way to return democratic force to our communities is to elect enough representatives to office to ensure our voice is heard and our rights and heritage protected.

All it took to defeat Meech Lake were a handful of no votes. That’s all that kept the separatists from stealing the referendum in 1995. Let us make our voices be heard, again.

But how? Oh, I have read that phrase in all its splendid forms these last several hours, as I read group messages and message board threads, wall posts and weblogs. Thou fools, you cannot see the forest for the trees!

We have Facebook groups. We have weblogs. We have message boards, we have email. We have Google, Wikipedia, we have radio-bloody-phone-in shows, newspapers, spraypaint and blank walls, printers, faxes, stores and shops, schools and churches, and yet you all scratch your heads and wonder how to do it?

We are the voices of our community! Join Montreal Hellenic Society Facebook groups. Join Montreal Jewish Facebook groups. Join the Asian groups, the Black groups, the Queer groups and every other goddamn English-speaking Montreal or Quebec-oriented internetz group you can fucking find! Talk to people who are ready to speak to their communities! Talk to students at McGill, Concordia, at Bishop’s, at Dawson and Marianapolis, at John Abbott; talk to people at the fucking Fairview Mall parking lot if that’s what it takes!

The price of failure to act is nothing short of our erasure from Quebec culture and history. They’ve already taken away most of our topography. How long before Valleyfield is renamed, or Sherbrooke Street overwritten? How long before another school closes, another friend or family member moves west, or south?

Our communities must unite, and take back what is ours. But it starts with us reaching out to one another. It starts with us.