Coffee Shop Perils

 

“You never loved me, Victoria. I’m a good-looking man, not too old yet. I make a decent living. Enough to eat, pay my mortgage, and drive my car. I’m kind. Generous. Women adore me. Why should I go back to you?”

“Who is she? Tell me who she is! It’s her, isn’t it? I saw you with her and I knew it!”

“No!” Slams hand down on table. “You misread the situation. There is no one. But you don’t want me.”

“I’m trying to lose the weight! Please. It’s so hard!”

“You’ve been saying this for years!”

“Please!”

“Tell my why I should be with you?”

“Because I can’t imagine spending my life with anyone else. Is it someone you work with? Tell me!”

And this went on and on and on and on and on at the table right behind me, which unfortunately was so close my chair was actually touching hers. They yelled, she cried, he cried, they yelled some more–as though they were alone in their living room–until I felt the table shift and heard him say, “Let’s get out of here.”

Relief. Finally. I. Could. Get. Some. Work. Done.

I love working out of the house. The coffee shop generally provides me just the right amount of background noise and activity to keep me focused and centered. But not that day!

Too much time wasted, this had to be prevented from happening again!

What was I to do?

Low and behold: magic! 

How come I hadn’t figured this out long ago? I was a kid / teen in the eighties–when no one would be caught dead without ear buds, we even strung them through our uniform and looped them over top of the ear instead of under, so our teachers wouldn’t see–how had I forgotten about these? About how they block out the world?

I’m all set now.

 

Any coffee shop stories to share? 

A birthday and a first time at budokon yoga

I’ve been bogged down by edits this last while, and I’m feeling a little expressive this morning, so here goes a little free flow:

 

Today I lay flat on my belly and wiggle myself across the wooden floor like a caterpillar.

My muscles strain, my lungs expand, and I giggle as I finish the movement, feeling like a child. Feeling like you.

Seven years ago you came and have inhabited my focus ever since, imprinted on my soul. Today, I take the day to contemplate me. For a birthdate is as important for the bearer as to the one being born. I wonder —  what metamorphosis have I undergone in this time?

Seven years ago I walked until me feet bled, readying my body to release you, and two hours later you were here.

Today, I wiggle, ready to release myself. What will I be? Will my wings be red, emerald, turquoise, fuchsia? Perhaps they will never settle into one colour, but will shift and tremble with each passing mood.

My metamorphosis would have been very different had you not come into my life. Your smile, laughter, they are contagious, seeds scattered in the wind, spreading wide. Your endless thrive for experience, for life, your desire to share, your interpretations and wonder. You. All of you. Thank you for you teaching me, for showing me, how full of joy life can be, how much fun it can be.

Happy birthday, daughter.

The sign says, “Quiet! Writer at work!”

I don’t have an office. I don’t have a room that I call my own, that I can go in and be in left in peace while I work.

For a few months now I’ve been trying to decide if I want to put two of my kids together and turn one of their rooms into an office. For me–and me alone!!!

At the moment I’m working on my second floor landing where we have a desk set-up. It’s situated right at the top of the stairs so I hear the vacuum going, my daughter practicing her violin, and my two boys chasing each and screaming “Aaaaghhhhhhh” with swords playing pirates. All at the same time.

My focus?

Non-existent.

I’m tempted to go down and say, “That’s it–today we’re switching the house around, and giving mommy an office!”

But, I’ve gotta ask–would it make a difference? Would a closed door help?

I used to be able to tune the family out. I could literally sit at a full kitchen table, and if my laptop was in front of me, I was gone. Lately, this just isn’t happening. Even when I’m alone I have trouble concentrating for extended periods of time. Partly due to the fact that I’m working on final edits and my brain is being used in an intense way, but also partly just because. Because it’s that time of year when we get antsy for spring (even though it was SNOWING YESTERDAY and today we are BELOW ZERO temperatures), and because sometimes it’s just hard to sit and concentrate.

For today, I’ve turned the radio up full blast and try to ignore all the activity underfoot. And I long for an office. But then I think, if I close the door, will it stay closed, or will those little feet barrel straight through? Most likely, but it sure does seem like paradise.

How about you: Do you have  a working space?

Spring Resolution

 

 

New Year’s eve is supposed to be the day we declare a life changing resolution. We’re supposed to raise our glass of creamy bubbly champagne, smile, and reveal a promise to do something–something momentous, something we need to do that will change us for the better–that we’ve been waiting for just the right moment to endure. And in return, those who we share New Year’s Eve with us will reveal their own resolutions.

Or catastrophes.

Who decided that January 1 was the best date to begin that resolution? Who??? Well, whoever it was certainly doesn’t live in the northern hemisphere, where it’s windy and cold and for many of us snowy. Where the day light hours are reduced to a bare minimum. And all we want to do is hibernate and eat carbs. And it certainly wasn’t someone in the southern hemisphere who is perspiring from the peak of heat, and who just wants to sit indoors and be cool eating watermelon and drinking lemon water. Whoever it was certainly didn’t take any of this into consideration!

Now spring–the time of rebirth, regeneration–wouldn’t that be perfect time for a resolution? We’re coming out of our cubby, stretching, yawning, looking around, and seeing things fresh, including ourselves.

Outside are bikers, joggers, skaters, even though they have to wear a coat and hat, they’re out there. And loving it. People are walking around eating apples, talking to each other, laughing–and yes, this is city life I’m talking about, not commune.

Everyone wants to do something new, something fresh–not because they have to, but because they want to feel good.

Including me: I became a member of a gym and a yoga studio because I’m becoming too inactive and I want to get moving before it catches up to me. I’ve been buying more fresh produce, especially greens, and me and my family are devouring them. And I’ve been experimenting more with super foods, remembering what it means to eat for energy.

I’ve also been more positive towards my work–sitting down to write and giving myself a little inner speech, about what I want to accomplish and that I will accomplish it. And do you know what? It’s working!

Am I sounding a little hokey? I think I am–but I’ll allow it.

It’s spring!

So, come on, raise a glass of green smoothie, and declare your resolution!

 PS. My in-laws are preparing for winter in South Africa, as are some of you way down there–happy hibernating. That feeling of slowing down, getting out the thick sweaters, it’s one of my favourites

 

Snow day

Believe it or not yesterday there was grass in my backyard. Sure, it was yellow dead grass, but it was grass. And it meant that spring was almost here. Ha ha. Not so! Overnight winter came and reclaimed Montreal–and this photo was taken hour ago, it’s a few inches higher now! Yes, inches! If you look closely at the above picture you will see a bird feeder on a post, and you will see the black tip of the post sticking out. Well, right now–about three hours later–the snow on the bird feeder is higher than the black tip!

The school board called a snow day, because, you know, it doesn’t snow very often in Montreal (yes, you are detecting irony in my tone today!). I think someone woke up, looked out their window, and said “No way!” and called a snow day. The kids are now labouring through it, up to their knees, building a fort with all the  kids in our immediate vicinity–now that is fun to watch, from indoors, with a mug of steaming tea–but my toddler is screaming to go out–so out we will go. Wish me luck.

Hope you’re enjoying the weather–and if it’s not snowy and cold, enjoy it even more for ME!

Did I write that? Well, I certainly can’t read it!

Not so long ago, someone asked me an unusual question: Since I spent so many hours a week writing on the computer, did I not miss seeing my own handwriting?

“I write by hand all the time,” I replied. “The trick is being able to read back what I wrote.”

I do write by hand all the time. Every day. Some days pass that I do more writing by hand than on the computer. Every note, every thought, every nuance–big and small, every detail, and every time I need to figure something out (which, trust me, is on a continuous basis) I handle by writing on paper. The only thing I do on the computer is the actual writing of the novel, which for me, is a small fraction of the whole process.

I have notebooks, spiral bound books, loose leaf papers, index cards, multi-colored index cards, sticky notes of almost every colour found in the rainbow, and a giant roll of plain paper that I use to map out time frames that I stick to my wall as needed. To top that off, I have a variety of coloured pens, highlighters, and pencils.

Unfortunately for my family, I tend to work in the dining room. It has great lighting, good acoustics (for my blaring music), is kinda on its own so the through-traffic is not that bad, and looks onto the backyard (with a window bench were I can sit and ruminate–yes, I do a lot of that too). This just means that I’m the only one who gets to enjoy this room, as most of the time it’s taken up with all the said paperwork, plus much more, including reference books, cups of water, a multitude of mugs holding tea and coffee at various stages, a tissue box, and the occasional remnant of a snack.

Before anyone asks, no, I won’t take a picture. Maybe one day when it’s cleaned out.

I don’t miss seeing my handwriting. In fact, sometimes the sight of it drives me mad! Especially when I have no inkling as to what in the world my scribbling means.

How about you: Do you every write by hand? Or do you do all your thinking in your head or on the computer? And most importantly, if you do write by hand–can you read your own writing? 

A lucky coin

I’ll share a little story I found unexpectedly in a book that Santa delivered to my daughter this year:

 

Our story began over a century ago when seventeen-year-old Egmont Harald Peterson found a coin in the street. 

 

He was on his way to buy a flyswatter, a small hand-operated printing machine that he then set up in his tiny apartment.

The coin brought him such good luck that today Egmont has offices in over 30 countries around the world. And that lucky coin in still kept at the company’s head office in Denmark.

 

This little success story was stuck in among the publication credits of a gorgeous children’s book entitled, A Flower in the Snow, a story about the joys of discovery, its loss, and re-discovery.

 

Sometimes it pays to read publication credits .

 

A flower in the snow.

A lucky coin.

I wish you each find your own in the New Year, and always.

Attitude check please

We are all writers (well most of us anyway) here, so I can be perfectly candid when I speak of the love/hate relationship that seems to come with the creative territory.

Those exhilarating moments when we just know–know–that we are doing what we were meant to be doing. When we sit, and are overtaken, and the story pours forth. Those moments when we are high, soaring, and nothing can pull us down.

And bam–we fall. And it hurts. And we want to go and hide in the dark and rip our manuscript into shreds after taking a big fat sharpy and blackening out every horrible word. And then, slowly, we begin to rub our behind, and think, okay, I can do this. Why am I being so hard on myself? There’s always a solution, a way out. I can fix my manuscript, I can make it work.

So, folks, I’m crawling out of my deep dark hole, and as I was mixing my granola–yes, I homemake it, there’s almost nothing that pleases me more than the scent of cinnamon, oats, and vanilla–a sure way to tantalize me out of hibernation, I realized that one of the things I like most about writing is the fact that the learning never ends. That I can be an eternal student. I will never ever get bored, because there will always be something more.

Yes, I’m having to replot a large portion of my manuscript–which is the event that send me hiding in my deep dark hole–but I see the problem. Now I will find a solution.

I have learned.

And this, my creative friends, is nothing to wallow in self-pity about.

 

 

Really, it’s not very romantic at all…or is it?

I was spotted by some mommies when I was sitting with my laptop writing in one of our local coffee shops.

 

“Ohhhhh,” they said. “Look at you. You have the best job ever!”

I couldn’t stop myself–laughter poured out of me, until both ladies were looking at each other, questioning my sanity I could only suppose.

You see, people–non-writers that is–have a romantic notion of what it is to be a writer. They see me curled up alone at a table. My hair piled up in a high bun, a thick scarf wrapped tightly around my shoulders and neck, a large latte in front of me. They see comfort, coziness, self-indulgence. They imagine me spending my days idly writing to my heart’s content while the real world continues on with its demands.

They don’t see me screaming inside because I’ve rewritten a scene a hundred times minimum and it’s still not quite right. Or lying awake at night figuring out plot structures that have been evading me for what feels like eternity. Or when I get super grumpy (on an almost daily basis) because there is just not enough waking hours for me to accomplish what I aim to, because–yes, the demands of the real world still affect writers. And they don’t see me wondering what the &*^&* I’m doing this for–because it’s not like any money is involved. So, in a sense, it’s not a job at all.

They only see me doing exactly what I want.

And do you know what? They’re right.

I get to disappear into a world, one that lets me explore it fully. Nowhere else do I get to go inside people’s heads and know them as I do my characters. Nowhere else do I get to stop and look around, and decide what’s best, and what obstacles are needed. And nowhere else do I get to play with words and story.

I stopped laughing and said,

“It’s hard. Writing is not easy. But, yes, it’s the best job ever.”

 

Free e-book Today Only

In case you missed it–today is the LAST DAY to download Dead Bishops Don’t Lie for FREE.

I was at the launch at Chapters over the weekend, and there was quite a crowd gathered around Andre–it was wonderful to see the support and interest in his work! The thriller has gotten a lot of press and excellent reviews. Go get it while you can! 

 

FREE KINDLE THRILLER : André K. Baby, former Crown prosecutor and international business lawyer is offering his thriller “Dead Bishops Don’t Lie” FREE on Tuesday October 23^rd and Wednesday October 24^th. Based on historical facts, “Dead Bishops Don’t Lie” takes you to the dark side of Vatican politics, where an explosive, secret pact must remain buried forever. Before this truth is revealed, The Church will do everything to suppress it. Read it before they do!!

The reviews:

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it to any aficionado of smart thrillers. ”L.D. Douglas

“ The plot is a marvelous story that kept me engaged and caring about what happens next. ”

Peter K.

 “ The intrigue is layered and well done. ”

Deacon Pete  |

 

“…What makes Baby’s writing so strong and believable is that, as a former 

prosecutor, he insists on testing every link in the chain of evidence… I made the mistake of cracking open the book on a Friday evening. I finished it Sunday at the expense of a briefcase full of work I’d brought home…”—
Jim Duff, Editor, The Hudson Gazette

 

For more information, see his website at http://www.andrekbaby.com/