The sun is singing, the birds are shining, and everything's pushing up daisies...

So, first day of my vacation from school, I've taken it very easy. I've written about four and a half pages with more on the way, read a little Carl Jung. There's snow outside. Add a little green tea or white chocolate, and this day would be perfect ^_^

I'm a man of fairly simple pleasures.

Writing is going well. The runaway background-writing in my novel continues. I have about thirty pages on my main character's background which, unfortunately, is better written, more exciting, more poetic, and generally more interesting than the rest of the novel -- some of it is some of the best stuff I've read, much less written, and since I generally have a much lower opinion than others about my work, I have high hopes for it.

Weird thing was that dozens of characters stitched themselves perfectly together in hours, out of whole cloth, and one of them is one of the most interesting ever. And thing is, he's not based on anyone I've met.

Timothy Findley has compared writing to schizophrenia, because both involve listening to different voices. The difference between a hack writer and a good writer is that the hack creates characters, and the good writer's characters are born -- or summoned.

Election

Those of you who watch montrealais's journal probably have seen this, but it looks like the Libs are up to their usual dirty tricks. They have an election commercial where they have "average Canadians" explaining why they're voting Liberal. All of them work for the Liberal Party or Canada or have close ties to the party.