Back on Track

So I got my computer back on Monday, only to find that the promised backup of all my data that was to have been done before the nitwits at Furture Shop reformatted and reinstalled everything on my computer wasn't done.

What limited bakcups I had did not cover everything I had, and it looked as though I had lost all my photos, two novels and everything I've ever written for CONFRONT Magazine. Needless to say I wasn't impressed.

It took me complaining to two different managers and telling customers coming to the repair counter at Future Shop to take their computers elsewhere - and why - before they agreed to do anything to help me.

Finally after an hour-long pissing contest with the idiots in charge of computer repairs at Future Shop before they finally acquiesced and did a data recovery - for free, and in under two hours - of the files I lost.

I recovered everything, thank God.

So, moving on.

This week I finished writing the seventh chapter of the third book of The Omniverse, 'The Aeons War' and last night I hit a wall while trying to start chapter eight. Well, I hit a couple of walls. I don't like the flow of chapter six (which relates directly to chapter eight) so I'll be going back and giving it a rewrite before going forward with chapter eight.

However, 'Aeons War' has been taking most of my writing attention of late, and I am trying to get another e-book out before the end of the ear, namely 'Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind'. So, I'm going to take a break from one to work on the other. I've discovered I've got a little bit of a rewrite to do on certain chapters of 'Nevermind', and so I'm going to start working on that for a while.

What about 'Through Darkness and Stars', you ask? I know a lot of you have read 'The Unearthing' and are anxious for the follow-up. As I've said, I am waiting on some legal work related to The Omniverse and specifically to 'Darkness' to work through; once it's done, I will be launching 'Darkness'. However, before the end of the month I promise to release a preview chapter or two, which you will be able to link to from the link bar on the left.

That's it for now--right now I've got places to go, things to see and people to do, so I'll post again soon.

Life Continues its Pesky Interruptions

So despite my hopes, I'm not yet back on schedule.

The crap and chaos of the last couple of weeks continues, apparently unabated despite everything being done to prevent it.

Those who follow my Tweets above know that thanks to the psychotic imbecile in the basement apartment--who incessantly hoards junk--the entire building was infested with bedbugs.

We were given two days to prep for the fumigation. Two days, in which we had to wash absolutely every scrap of clothing, bedding, towels and fabric in super-hot water, hot-dry and then then seal everything into plastic bags, move all the furniture away from all the walls.

Not to mention that this damnable fumigation cost me the opportunity to visit with some dear, old friends who were premiering their first film, the documentary Shwatarded at the Toronto International Film Festival. Needless to say the junk-hoarding schizoid in my basement is now at the top of my shit list.

On the day of the fumigation, Angel had to pack off to a hotel for 24 hours, I had to evacuate the cats into the pouring rain then waiting 4 hours before it was safe for me to go back in and put everything back together again.

After the fumigation and a much-needed day of rest, I managed to finish the transcript of my conversation with Will and Simon from Amazing Baby, for CONFRONT Magazine as well as my usual weekly music review. I've had no time to work on the "Nevermind" ebook, or anything else since. I'm hoping to get to the cafe tomorrow, but that will depend on a few other factors.

However, the fumigation story is far from over, as we've just been notified that they have to come back in two weeks to fumigate again, because there are at LEAST two apartments that still have bedbugs, including the bastard in the basement, who apparently had (presumably still has) a considerably large colony of the things living in his soiled mattress.

That vulgar little outrage aside, things have been going great. Once this asinine shit is dealt with, maybe I'll be able to get back to my life.

Either way, I'll keep you all posted.

Life Interrupts Again

A chain of avoidable and wholly unforeseen circumstances has seen me having to put all current writing projects on hold.

With a brief respite tomorrow only from the chaos that is currently at the heart of this maelstrom, it looks like things will only begin to return to normal this Friday.

I might try to sneak in some writing tomorrow, but right now I just need some rest and recuperation.

I hope to be back on schedule before the end of next week.

I will keep you posted in any case.

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!

The long awaited update on everything, well almost.

So, this was to have been a very busy weekend for me, originally. Certainly, it was to have been a better one.

CONFRONT Magazine was supposed to have a staff meeting / house party, hosted by Angel and me. I would have gone to the Cafe for a day, as usual, to work on and hopefully finish the second act of the screenplay adaptation of Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind. I was also supposed to finish going over the option agreement and draft up a list of my proposed conditions, and I was supposed to finish transcribing my interview recordings with Empire Isis, for CONFRONT Magazine, as well.

Yeah, none of that happened.

At some point in the last seven days, I got infected with a particularly nasty strain of the flu. Since Thursday I've been sick, with Friday and Saturday being particularly hellish. I'm still sick, still not feeling well, still need at least another day's bedrest, but tomorrow I've got to be back at work, at the paying job.

The problem with the paying job right now, is that I'm STILL the only fucking person there who has full knowledge of the general operations software now running our sales and sales finance departments. For the last three months I've come in no matter what, because there's never been time to train anyone else (Christ knows why no one else was trained when I was--that was a colossal error in judgment). Now in all that time, I've thrown my back out three times and alternately I've been progressively sick, sicker and sickest. Still, I've dragged myself in to work. The one time I tried to show initiative and advance the training myself, I was reprimanded for "acting unilaterally". I stayed home one day the last time I was sick and spent most of the day asleep--except for the two times people had to call me because they couldn't figure anything out despite the detailed instructions I had written months ago, as a precaution.

But, I digress.

I've not managed to get anything done this weekend other than cough, sneeze, blow my noze hack up scary looking shit, freeze, be too warm, sleep fitfully and pop cold tablets that did sweet fuck all. The one time I did manage to try and focus on getting work done, I was in too much pain to maintain.

And tomorrow I'm supposed to go in to work?

I need sleep.

More soon...

All is Quiet on New Year's Day

2009 begins.

The holidays are behind us at last, and by Monday the stores will have Valentine's Day and Easter crap on the shelves and decorating the malls. The United States will celebrate the end of an error when Bush is finally kicked out on his ignominious ass and Obama takes one of the most historic and important oaths of office of our generation.

Here in Canada we will hopefully be rid of Stephen Harper in a few weeks' time, although I'm not holding out much hope for that, given that the new Liberal leader doesn't seem to care much for the coalition or the will of the Canadian electorate--which puts him on an even keel with the Wrong and Dishonourable Stephen Harper, who is possibly the worst and most hated Prime Minister since the King of Graft, Lyin' Brian Mulroney.

I will absolutely continue to post my opinions on the state of Canadian and Quebec politics--it is my right and obligation to do so. However, I intend on focusing my energies and my time on other things, in 2009.

First and foremost, it is my intention to see more of my work get published, this year. The Darkness and the Stars is, for all intents and purposes, ready to roll. I will be submitting that the publishers of The Unearthing, and it is also my intention to finalize Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind and find a publisher for that book, by the Summer. Both books are, for all intents and purposes, ready to sell. I have spent too much time procrastinating over them, because of The Unearthing's lack of commercial success.

The Unearthing has been successful as an ebook; it has been downloaded thousands of times since being put online in March of last year. While that proves to me I have the skills to write an engrossing story, it is obvious to me I do not have the know-how to successfully market one. Therefore, I am going to be looking for marketing assistance, possibly even representation. An agent or a publicist will go a long way to help me move my "brand" forward, and so this will be an ongoing effort of the New Year.

CONFRONT Magazine continues to be and will continue to be a priority for me. I've just written my first cover article for the magazine, chronicling the up and coming band, Bad Flirt. I will continue to write for the magazine and I will dedicate one blog post per week to CONFRONT; pending Editor approval, I will cross-post that weekly blog to CONFRONT, as well.

I will also continue to reorganize this weblog, to make the Chronicles of an Independent Author more prominent, and as I will once again be working to see my writing published, there will be more updates to the Chronicles.

I intend to post more entries to the blog, as well. Last year I averaged 1 post per week, but I don't feel that that is necessarily adequate. Part of the problem has been that I've spent so much time over the last year and a half since The Unearthing was published worrying about the book's failure and what it means for me. I'm over it now, and I'm working on getting more work out to readers.

So that's it for my first post of the New Year. I hope everyone's had a great holiday, I wish you all the best for 2009 and I promise that there will be more to come, soon.

Work: The REAL enemy of productivity

So for the last few weeks I have been working on stuff for CONFRONT Magazine, most notably a piece on the Andy Warhol Live exhibit, at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. That involved a lot of my writing time, and required multiple trips to the museum. However, I'm quite pleased with the end result of my labours, which will be going live on Thursday at CONFRONT Magazine.

Also this week, I have been listening to the new Guns & Roses album, also for CONFRONT, for this week's Views and Reviews column. I am a fan of G&R, but I have to say that the latest CD is a letdown. Of course, you'll just have to go to CONFRONT on Thursday to find out my full opinion.

Alas, my work for CONFRONT hasn't been the only drain on my free writing time of late. Last weekend I had a corporate retreat to go to, and though I had one hell of a good time, I did not get my weekly fix of Cagibi lattes and excellent writing atmosphere.

These events have conspired against me to stall my creative efforts, though I can honestly say that sometimes nothing is more important than getting out from behind the desk and getting back to living life. However, it means that my rewrite of Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind and my work on the tentatively-titled Length of Love have been stalled.

All this is especially frustrating, because I had wanted to be done with Nevermind before the end of the year (Which is looking less and less likely) so that I could start shopping it around to agents and publishers in early 2009. Douglas Adams once said he loved the wooshing sound deadlines made as they zipped by. I imagine I should take that concept to heart, but still. It's been four years since I finished the initial draft of Nevermind and I hate how much time has slipped past from that first writing to now.

Equally frustrating, I've been stalled with Length of Love. Granted, I've not had much to say about the project, but that's because it is still in its first draft stage, and the subject matter is bound to be so controversial that I don't want to share with others until I've gotten the initial writing done. That's me suffering for my writing idiosyncracies I suppose.

I would also like to send up another flare about beta readers. I am still looking for people who would be interested in reading the final revision of The Darkness and the Stars, which is the follow-up to The Unearthing. As I've said previously, I'm looking as much for the opinions of readers as I am the opinions of my fellow writers. The story takes place 18 months after the close of The Unearthing, and is not so much a sequel as it is the continuation of the story. If anyone is interested, please email me or post a reply to this entry. The only requirement is having read The Unearthing already. As it is available as a free PDF format ebook from this and many other sites, I don't think I'm asking for too much--plus, you get to read not one, but two books free of charge.

Anyway, I'm off to get shut-eye. I still have to get up for the paying job in a few.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Stephen Harper: Fuck Culture.

Stephen Harper, the Conservative Party’s Canadian Prime Minister by Default, leader of a minority government (which means that a majority of people voted for anyone else but him and his party), recently slashed 45 million dollars from Canada’s arts funding. Under the guise of fiscal responsibility and moral leadership, Harper attempted to justify this attack on Canadian ideals.

The question is, why slash 45 million dollars from arts funding, but maintain 50 BILLION dollars in corporate welfare-subsidies given out to some of Canada’s richest corporations? This wasn’t money to bail out a bankrupted industry; this was cash giveaways to “encourage” business.

Is it that much more fiscally responsible to cut culture programs than it is to stop profitable corporations sucking at the taxpayer’s teat?

Which brings us to the next problem: the government imposition of morality. This isn’t the Harper Conservative’s first attack against culture on moral grounds. Earlier this year, they pushed through legislation that allowed them to deny Canadian films public funds, if the films were found to contravene “public morals”. What contravenes public morals? Well, the Harper Conservatives seem to take particular offence with the word “Fuck”. One of the films they cited as justifying their cuts was “Young People Fucking” which, according to them was an obscene and immoral film. Ironically, there are shows on television with more graphic portrayals of sex and sexuality. Likewise, the fuckophobia of the Harper Conservatives continued, when they claimed that music acts like Canadian rockers Holy Fuck were what was wrong with Canadian culture, and singled them out as one of the reasons for the 45 million dollar funding cut.

Here in the province of Quebec, we have always been militant when it comes to culture, and we have always elevated our artists to the status of cultural icons. In the last couple of weeks, a series of free concerts have been held in protest of the Harper Conservative arts funding cuts, featuring many of Quebec’s greatest and most respected artists.

Upon learning of this, Harper said “I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people at, you know, a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren’t high enough, when they know those subsidies have actually gone up - I’m not sure that’s something that resonates with ordinary people.”

In so doing Harper betrayed not only his own anti-intellectual temperament, but his complete ignorance of what it is to be an artist, particularly a musician in Canada. To say Harper is out of touch with reality is nothing short of hyperbole. Harper demonstrates the ingnorant’s disdain for anything intellectual, creative, or to use a favourite word of Harper’s Conservative cronies in the United States, “elitist”.

That Harper, who has never done a hard day’s labour in his life, has the audacity to claim these funding cuts in the name of the “working people” is offensive, for several reasons.

First, anyone involved with the arts on any level knows how difficult it is for artists to make a living in their chosen field-if they even can. Musicians must practice constantly, learning new songs; they usually have to provide their own transport and accommodation when on tour; at CONFRONT Magazine we’ve spoken with countless musicians who spend their tours sleeping in the back of a battered Econoline van. Likewise, the cost of supplies, be it guitar strings, musical instruments, what have you, can be exorbitant. More than one band has folded for want of being able to afford to replace lost, stolen or damaged equipment.

One need only look at the faces of the young men and women who are working artists-be they musicians, actors, painters, sculptors, or God help them, writers-to see how tiring it is to live an artist’s life. It’s certainly not the life of excess and delights that Harper and his gang of anti-cultural bigots would have us believe. These men and women work diligently and tirelessly, not just to be able to afford to practice their art, but to be able to afford food, clothing, shelter…the basic necessities of life. On average, working artists earn less than 27 thousand dollars a year. That’s less than most people make. Professional artists depend on those government subsidies to survive.

If Harper does not think that the struggles of artists resonates with ordinary people, then he is ignorant of the vital and ever-present role that art in all its many forms plays, not only with what we label “Culture”, but in our everyday lives.

How many of us drop earbuds into our ears in the morning, and crank up the MP3 player as we head out on our commute? How many of us adorn our walls with photographs, paintings, pictures? How many of us buy little odds and ends from street-corner vendors, like decorative sculptures, hand-made bracelets, necklaces, earrings or pendants? How many of you go to museums, or stop to look at public-display sculptures? How many of you go to movies, watch television, go to plays, go to the outdoor summer festivals? Art and culture is all around us. Art and culture saturate our daily lives. Whether we notice it, appreciate it, take it for granted or ignore it, whether we love it, hate it, are passionate about it or outraged by it, art and culture affects each and every one of us profoundly, regularly, constantly.

Subsequently, Harper has claimed that 45 million dollars is a paltry amount, that it is a small cut to cultural funding. If that is true, then why has he repeatedly claimed that these cuts are of such importance to fiscal policy? If that 45 million is so desperately needed, why are corporate handouts in the excess of 50 billion still allowed to continue?

The anti-cultural bigotry of the Harper Conservatives is vile, outrageous, and is an attack on Canada’s ideals as a nation, as a society, as a people. His disdain towards artists and arts programs smacks of ignorance, of the very sort of elitism he supposedly derides. For who else but elitists so ignorantly assume artists to be decadent, lazy, arrogant low-lifes? Who else but elitists think they know what is in the best interests of the “ordinary” person? These cuts were not merely the deletion of a few line items from an invoice. Vital programs have been affected:

• PromArt, a grant program supporting foreign travel for artists ($4.7 million)

• Canadian Memory Fund, which gives federal agencies money to digitize collections and mount them online ($11.7 million)

• Culture.ca Web portal ($3.8 million)

• Canadian Cultural Observatory ($560,000)

• Research and Development component of Canadian Culture Online ($5.64-million)

• Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund ($1.5 million)

• Audio Visual Trust ($300,000)

• National Training Program for the Film and Video Sector ($2.5 million)

• Trade Routes, supporting international tours by Canadian performers ($7.8 million)

• Northern Distribution Program, which distributes the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network signal to 96 Northern communities. ($2.1 million)

These decisions are supposed to be fiscally sound, but yet they fly in the face of any real understanding of the revenues generated by cultural programs, arts, music, film, theatre and television. According to ACTRA spokeswoman Taborra Johnson, “The arts contribute $85 billion per year to our gross domestic product. It creates 1.1 million jobs, which is 7.2 per cent of our employment.”

The arts don’t just contribute to Canadian culture; they contribute to the Canadian economy. When you consider the residual sales of merchandise, memorabilia, food, beverages, hotel and tourism dollars that festivals, concerts, exhibits, productions and plays generate, when you consider the multitude of spin-off income generated by such things, not to mention the jobs for technicians, service people, maintenance professionals and others, it becomes clear that cuts to cultural programmes are not only myopic, but imbecilic in the extreme.

Canada is currently in the midst of a Federal election. This election was called by Harper, in an attempt to change his minority government into a majority government. The funding cuts that Harper has so cavalierly justified have become one of the elections major issues.

It is incumbent upon all Canadians who care about culture, be they fans of music, patrons of the Arts, theatre-goers or festival fans, to send a clear message to the Canadian government that these funding cuts are unacceptable, and far more obscene than the use of the word “Fuck”.

Stephen Harper and his gang of Conservatives have shown a callous disregard for public opinion on this, and on several other issues. The fact of the matter is, nothing less than our Canadian identity is at stake in this election. Anyone who cares about that identity must take action. There is only one way to remedy this situation, and that is to ensure that Stephen Harper does not return to Parliament as Prime Minister. If we care about culture in this country, if we care about our friends and family who toil to make a living in the creative fields, there is only one thing we can do: On October 14th, we must vote against the Conservatives; we must ensure that they are not re-elected to Government. This is a war on Canadian culture. We cannot afford to let the Conservatives win.

The Decline of Canadian Society

It has been said, by better men than I, that a society that does not value art does not have any value. Canada’s societal value has come into question this week, after the federal Conservative minority government passed funding cuts to Canada’s arts programs.

Once upon a time, the Conservative Party of Canada’s platform was about encouraging economic growth through measures designed to promote business. Granted, such measures were usually to the detriment of worker’s rights and the environment, but for the most part they generally kept their hands off things like the arts and social programmes.

Those halcyon days of yore are long gone, it seems. This funding cut represents just the latest attack on Canadian culture to be launched from Harper’s New Canadian Government. Several months back, the Conservatives passed legislation that limits or removes funding for films found to be “indecent” or “against public morals”; there’s next to no arts funding in the 2008-2009 Federal budget; likewise, the Harper Conservatives have cut funding to museums and even to Hockey Canada, one of the most quintessentially Canadian of institutions.

The Harper Conservatives continue to attempt to justify these cultural attacks either as fiscal responsibility or as in the interest of the public trust, but the evidence speaks for itself: the Harper Conservatives are anti-intellectual, plainly dumbing down Canada’s rich cultural heritage.

These funding cuts are hitting the music industry particularly hard: The East Coast music scene in Canada depends heavily on public funding, as do the Montreal Pop festival and programmes like PromArt, Trade Routes, and the Audiovisual Conservation Trust.

When we consider the calibre of artists Canada has produced over the years, the number of Canadian success stories in all level of arts, from authors, playwrights, filmmakers, painters, sculptors, to actors and especially musicians, it is unconscionable for the Canadian government to slash funding to our cultural programs. It is a move wholly based on the Harper government’s own anti-intellectualism and ignorance.

What is particularly appalling about these funding cuts is how vital and yet how fragile our arts programmes in Canada are. For certain festivals, such as the Montreal Jazz festival, there is private funding. But the private sector in Canada doesn’t have the wherewithal to produce and aggressively promote new works. Less money for the arts means fewer artists receive funding, which means fewer new artists can emerge. The more private money that funds the arts, the less of a gamble the people ponying up the cash will be willing to make, which translates to less Canadian innovation. Less Canadian innovation means more market share will be given over to American artists, which means the Canadian talent pool shrinks even further.

The music industry in particular relies heavily on public funds, and these cuts to our cultural programs are nothing less than a betrayal of Canada’s heritage. Denial of these funds is denying the chance for the next Simple Plan, the next Barenaked Ladies, the next Avril Lavigne, to emerge. Denial of these funds denies new musicians the chance to shine, and reduces our chief musical export to the world to Celine Dion and Canadian Idol.

It appears that the Harper Conservative's idea of culture is running fiction commercials about how wonderful Stephen Harper is--and having people boast about how they'll be voting for him. Point of fact is that in Canada, we do not vote to elect the Prime Minister, we vote to elect our Member of Parliament. The political party with the most votes then forms the government. The only people who would vote for Stephen Harper are the poor saps who have him as their MP. Of course, the Harper Conservatives have a long history of assuming the people are stupid enough to believe everything they say...despite all evidence to the contrary.

Canada is less of a nation because of the arrogance of the Harper Conservatives. And our society has that much less value because of it. In violation of his own law against snap elections, Harper is determined to go to the polls. These funding cuts are just one more reason that sane Canadians should do everything they can to make sure that the Harper government gets booted out, and send the son of a bitch and his redneck jamboree packing back to Alberta.

News About Me And My Writing

So there's a whole lot of little things going on right now...first, my review of the new Alanis Morissette CD for Confront Magazine was until recently being referenced on the Wikipedia page for the new album, so that was fun--while it lasted.

Second, I'm up for a job as a reporter for CJAD 800 AM Radio here in Montreal, so that's tres cool. It's not that I'm unhappy at the newspaper; in fact I love my job. However, I would like to get in on the journalism side of things; unfortunately my spelling and grammar in French aren't good enough for me to get a job as a reporter with the paper.

Also going on, my interview with Craig Chaney of the Metal band Evergreen Terrace has been posted over on Confront Magazine; it was a fun conversation and I'm glad to finally be able to share it with the readers.

The latest stats for The Unearthing are pretty good; roughly 1750 downloads since the free ebook download went live in March. Ugh...I've got to do so much housecleaning on this and my sister site for the novel; update the links and such, as Chapters Indigo are now selling it here in Canada for the US list price instead of the 30% markup it used to be selling for. My publisher has had a falling out with Amazon.com over the latter's ridiculous demands...that's something else I've got to get around to. But, if you haven't already bought the book odds are you won't. If you have bought it you don't need to buy another, and if you do want to buy it, the links on the left all still work in the meantime, so that's on the low-priority list.

...I smell a small lecture about the above paragraph wending its way from the keyboard of my personal Jimminy Cricket...

CONFRONT Magazine is also branching out, musically speaking. In association with MAP Music (Musicians Against Parkinson's) CONFRONT Presents will be hosting an awareness concert to benefit people living with Parkinson's Disease. The event is August 23rd, at Club Soda here in Montreal. The line-up for the show includes Arthur Kall, Monday Rose, Polar Eyes, La Confrerie, and The New Cities, as well as presentations by musician and MAP Music founder Robbie Tucker and Canadian Pairs Bronze medalist, Craig Buntin.

I guess that's the most immediately relevant stuff. So, for want of a better concluding paragraph for this post, let me just say

The insane day which is in the midst of extremeness using

Amazingly, after midnight and as tired as I am, I can't fall asleep. Funny, I can remember as far back as six or seven years old, oftentimes not being able to sleep at night, until 2 or 3 in the morning.

It's not that I don't want to sleep...I just need to unwind.

The day started in its usual way for a Friday: me going up to go to work at the newspaper, Fridays being my super-busy crazy day (or, as translated into Japanese and then back into English by the Babelfish translation engine, my The insane day which is in the midst of extremeness using) followed by two interviews I'd had scheduled for CONFRONT Magazine, at Le National.

Let me just pause here to plug the Babelfish translator. It is hilarious. You take a block of text, any text, and then translate it from English into Japanese. Then, copy the Japanese text back into the translator, and translated it back into English. The results are hilarious.

For example, you probably recognize the opening lines of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.

Well, this is what English-to-Japanese-to-English makes it read as:

As for that before us the best of the time, as for that at the time of age of intelligence it was worst before us, the light/write which is the infidelity and that new era which are conviction and that new era which are foolishness and that age which that are, the darkness which is that season, the winter of the despair which is desire and that spring which are that season, us what which us it did not have everything which it had, entirely was we who go to the heaven which is we directly, it was the other method of going and indicating entirely

You can have a lot of fun with this software. I imagine that fans of Battlestar Galactica could use this to actually make sense of the jabberings of the Hybrids.

Anyway, back to my insane day which is in the midst of extremeness using. I can't complain about my job, because I enjoy it so much. Oh yes, the coffee is shit, but at least it's free, and although it's high pressure because of newspaper deadlines and such, the end result is still a feeling of having accomplished something worthwhile.

Plus, I get an hour for lunch, which I usually spend sitting in the Quad at the nearby McGill University, writing and looking at all the girls go by dressed in their summer clothes...short skirts and pantyhose, windy days and games of hacki sack...I love this city.

Oh, and the fresh air is nice and the writing I get done at lunch is usually good.

But because of the day job, I had to have my interviews--with the bands As I Lay Dying and Evergreen Terrace--scheduled for after work. They were supposed to be at 7:00 and 7:30, but in the music world things like scheduled interview times tend to change.

Also, I had a Hunter S. Thompson moment (No, not one of THOSE Hunter S. Thompson moments, the other kind) in which, as I was going into the venue, a burly security guy stopped me and wanted to go through my backpack.

Now, although it has been a number of years of (relative) sobriety for me, I have nevertheless an absolute hatred for People of Authority searching my things, especially my backpack. And with the last name I have, that means when I go on a trip, I'm usually pretty annoyed by the time I get through at customs. I'm on a Department of Homeland Security "He Has a Funny Last Name" watch list.

But anyway, the guy was sort of being a dick about it, so I just looked at him flatly and said "I'm Press!" Which of course I am. But as these two magic words (and verification of my press pass) did their trick, he let me through...and in my head I heard Johnny Depp shouting that line from the film version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "I'm a doctor of Journalism, dammit!" and it was just...unreal.

So, I did my first interview about half an hour before showtime at eight, with the second originally to be right after the second. Usually these interviews are short affairs, ten, fifteen minutes, though sometimes you get into a zone with the person you're interviewing and lose track of time.

The first interview I did was over and done with in less than twelve minutes, according to my digital recorder. It looked like I was going to complete a tactical surgical strike: get in, get the interviews, get out.

Of course, you know what they say about plans only working until they're actually attempted...

After my interview with Tim from As I Lay Dying ended, the label rep then told me that the next interview was rescheduled and now would be after Evergreen Terrace did their set.

This was a tad annoying, as I was tired from a month's worth of not sleeping properly (Case in point it's a quarter of one and I'm still writing this post) and a long day's night, the fact that I walked from University Street to Ste Catherine's and Montcalm, where Le National is. That's over 16 city blocks, and several kilometers. Also, I'm perhaps not old, but old enough to want to go home and rest after being out and about since 7:30 in the morning.

However, I had to stay for Evergreen Terrace's set, so I did. They put on one hell of a live show, and they did a cover of Mad World, which most of you know from the film Donnie Darko, as performed by Gary Jules, although it is in fact an old Tears for Fears song.

Then, instead of being right after their set, some other unforeseen circumstances delayed things further, but finally, about two hours after I got to the venue (nearly four hours after I finished work--and no, it didn't take me that long to walk to the venue from work; I stopped to have supper and a coffee before the show) I was going into my second interview.

Anyway, the interview with Craig of Evergreen Terrace (which, along with my interview with Tim you'll just have to wait for the relaunch of CONFRONT Magazine on May 29th to read about) ran long...coming in at 45 minutes. It was a great interview, don't get me wrong, but this crotchety, set-in-his ways geezer was wanting to get home early enough for a shower, a cup of tea, some quiet time with my wife and to watch Battlestar Galactica.

Didn't happen that way. Sometimes in an interview, reporter and subject just end up having a conversation. Conversations are long things, so it was nine thirty by the time we'd finished talking (and he went off to help the band finish loading the gear and I went off to call my wife and let her know I was still alive) .

I live 25, 30 minutes from downtown, when the public transit is on peak hours. 9:30 at night is not peak time. It took me an hour to get home. At this point, I've been up since 6:00, worked all day, walked 20 blocks and spent two and a half hours doing music journalist stuff, then making the sojourn home.

If I'd have dropped a gold ring into a molten pit, well then the Tolkienian undertones of my day would have been complete.

I did get the tea, quiet time with my wife and the shower, but I'm going through some serious BSG withdrawal. Thank God the show repeats tomorrow at eight PM...I'd be inconsolable if I missed it.

I love working as a journalist, talking to the bands, listening to new music all the time, seeing shows for free (usually) and just the whole atmosphere of the lifestyle. It does take a lot out of you, though, especially when you have a day job. I wouldn't change a thing. Except of course to be a full-time journalist, of course. Or, to be a full-time novelist. Full-time anything involving writing, other than technical writing, of course...Hell, I have a couple of ideas for graphic novels that I'm kicking around, now...on top of my rewrite of The Darkness and the Stars, coming up with the next phase of promoting The Unearthing, and the work I'm doing on Lengths of Love (The TENTATIVE title for the story I'm working on now) and rewriting Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind, I'm very busy creatively speaking.

Which may explain why, at 1:30 I'm still nowhere near ready to shut the laptop down and pull the covers up over my head and get some fucking sleep.

Fortunately, it's a long weekend here in Canada, so I have three days instead of two to recuperate. God bless the long weekend!

On that note, Happy Victoria Day, Canada!