felis_ultharus

I'm not dead, and I did make it back safely from the Wet Coast. I've had very little internetting time, though, and what I've had I've used to go back through my friends-list and read. I wanted to read everything I missed, but LJ only lets you go back 480 posts.

(I'm beginning to think I should maybe re-think my policy of not posting until I'm up-to-date on friends' posts. But it just seems attention-whorish to post but never read.)

The trip was good. I got to see a lot of node357, though not as much as I would've liked. I also finally got to see my sister and infinitecomplex. They've got a lovely new home, all windows with a sundeck that gives a beautiful view of Vancouver's mountains.

We also saw Stanley Park, which was much more wild and primal that I'd remembered it. I got to thinking of it like Montreal's parks, where the trees are so small and feel so tame by comparison. I'll have to re-write some scenes in my novel.

Last week was stressful, for reasons I'd rather not get into on LJ. This week has been calm so far, so I've caught up on my editing -- four-fifths finished version six so far -- and let myself finish Persona 4. But I'll post more about that some other time.

We had a good going-away party for em_fish yesterday at Café L'Étranger. It was good to see her again. I'm going to miss her during her year in Australia, but I'm happy she's she's coming back (and with sassysairs!).

Except for the party, I've been mostly indoors since the weekend, working on editing. I'm about two-thirds through the current edit. It's come a long way, this version, and I find I'm comparing myself favourably to some of my favourite writers, which I haven't done before.

ETA: And this song from a Dutch kids' show is so sweet it almost made me cry:

I seem to have picked a bad day for my birthday party, as only four of my friends were able to make it in the end.

But there was good food and good conversation and nice gifts. I've actually got a certificate to get get some decent clothes thanks to the lovely em_fish, and another from montrealais for my first massage. scottevil was also there -- I haven't seen him much lately -- and maidenofirisa actually made it in spite of a very late work schedule, which made me happy.

After spending yesterday tidying, scrubbing, mopping, and shopping in the lead-up to the party, I don't think I want to do much of anything today except write. I want to be four-fifths through this edit by the end of the day.

One nice thing about the Daylight Savings shift is leaving the house at dawn and getting to work in the golden hour. From my desk on the eighth floor, all the office towers of Montreal's business district shine like towers in a Fairyland. And I get to work before most people so the streets are abandoned and beautifully lonely.

It's been a good few days, though I'm still half asleep. But my writing progresses. The sixth re-write is almost done -- well behind schedule -- and I'm already planning my the coming months of edits.

I've been gone from cyberspace for the most part for weeks, though occasionally I've been checking up on friends' journals -- skimming mostly. It's been a stressful few weeks, what with a financial report to be prepared through a haze of a flu, and the two contributing to a serious case of writer's block that's held me back to about two pages a day.

I had to mostly sit out a party on Sunday, and Monday after turning in my report I collapsed and slept for eleven hours. Yesterday and today I've been taking it very easy.

Other than that, there's not much to say. Scott Symons just died. He wrote the most influential work of Canadian lit you've never heard of, Combat Journal: Place d'Armes. It was an experimental, very autobiographical novel narrated by a man who's clearly had some sort of break reality because he can't deal with his homosexuality, or with the cultural change around him in the 1960s.

Malcolm Ross, who pretty much invented the study of Canadian literature, once said that every book he'd read after 1967 was influenced by either Place d'Armes or Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers. Both came out in the same year, and are similar in being experimental, stream-of-consciousness novels by men who've lost touch with reality and which deal heavily and explicitly with sex, but Place d'Armes is far superior and more readable.

But Place d'Armes got forgotten while Beautiful Losers is remembered. Partly that's because of Cohen's fame as a singer, but also because Canada wasn't really ready for a gay novel outside the bohemian set of up-and-coming writers.

(Homosexuality was not only still illegal in Canada in 1967, and not only was the law still enforced, but it was probably the must brutal in the Western world. A man in 1967 was arrested for consensual gay sex, and sentenced to spend his natural life in jail without any chance of parole as a "dangerous offender.")

Symons eventually left the country, and continued to write about his two favourite subjects -- gay sex and antiques. He was largely forgotten, and still not remembered now the literary establishment of the country is eager to make the Canadian canon more diverse.

I'd say rest in peace, but if there's one thing hit home hard in Place d'Armes, it's that the ancestors and the past are always present. So I doubt he'll be far.

So I got back to Montreal a few days ago. I was half-expecting to have to spend a night at the Toronto airport, which has been happening to people all week, but luckily we got out between snowstorms.

I wound up last night at Sky for their New Year's Madonna-themed drag show. I was happy, though not at all surprised to see link2lando there. The dancers were professional-caliber -- they really knew what they were doing, and they were the best I've seen on any local stage.

But y'know, you really know you're Scottish if the dancers are gorgeous men of astonishing talent, dressed only in thin undershirts and kilts slit up the side, and you're thinking, "What clan is that kilt?"

Otherwise, it's been very quiet. I've been working on my writing, reading, and cleaning house. I'm not back at work until Monday because the office is closed this week, so it's still a little like vacation for me.

( 2008 meme )

I just wanted to extend my sympathies here to em_fish, whose mother passed away last night.

I only met her once, but she seemed like a wonderful person. I'm sorry I won't get the chance to know her better.

I'll be lighting a candle for her tonight.

The second request for something outside-the-ordinary in my journal came from infinitecomplex:

"Blog about your plans for the future, and the steps you're taking to get yourself there..."

Actually, in a way I do that all the time. But in greater detail:

I've known what I wanted to do with my life since the age of six, when I wrote my first twelve-page fantasy novel. Problem is, it took me a very long time to admit that because I thought it was impractical.

At the age of 12 -- when all my classmates in the gifted program wanted to be world-class musicians, authors, painters, or rocket scientists, or find the cure for cancer -- I told people I was going to be a computer programmer, because it seemed like a nice, stable profession.

By the time I graduated, they all went into law and accounting, and I'd figured out I wanted to write fiction, and even made publishing a novel one of my goals. But I still insisted on trying to bend that gift to something safe commercially -- writing as a journalist, or analyzing fiction as an English professor. Finding out what goes on behind the scenes in the Canadian media killed the first goal, Postmodernism killed the second.

By the time I was thirty, and re-evaluating my life, I realized that there was only one thing I wanted to do and which felt engaging: writing fiction. By then I'd found a stable job at 20 hours a week that allowed me lots of leisure time, and being very frugal, it didn't really matter much that I wasn't above the poverty line.

I've cut back my hours on writing since I finished the last draft of that novel, down from 34 a week to about 20. I'll put it back up when I'm ready for the next re-write. Right now, I'm editing the current version while three long-suffering friends do the same, so I'll have four edited versions by the time it's ready and will be able to compare them. I guess that answers the "steps I'm taking..." part of the question.

That's pretty much it -- that one goal consumes so much focus and energy that there's little left for anything else.

The only other long-term goal I have is to find some guy and settle down, and toward that end I'm gradually getting myself used to interacting with people -- it's usually very painful for me -- and trying to be not so cut off emotionally when I am around others.

I have smaller goals, too -- learning all I can about x subject, learning a bit more of y language, and generally becoming more spiritual, and also more politically aware and engaged. I work on those consistently between work and editing.

Work

I'm on lunch at work right now. Life is quiet, and generally good. It's beginning to look like I won't be unemployed this summer for once, since my coworkers' summer vacations and paternity leave are likely going to coincide.

Lit

Still reading Moby Dick. I like Melville, but he's frustrating -- you can tell he's trying to make a point, but the point is so vague and given to you by people he doesn't seem to want you to trust, so it's hard to tell what that point is. I mean, Ishmael is constantly undermining his own claims in bluntly obvious ways, and narrates things he couldn't possibly know, so how's the reader to supposed to buy his version?

Politics

The province is gearing up for an election. Rather than vote for one of the three stooges -- who only differ on the sovreignty question -- I'll be voting for Québec Solidaire.

This is the first time I'll be voting for a separatist party,though I'm a federalist. But the way I see it, separation is the least-important issue -- it's the only one we get direct democracy on. I can vote for Québec solidaire, then vote "no" in a referendum, but Charest, Boisclair, and Dumont would never give me a referendum on health-care and education-slashing, social-safety-net ripping, or any of the other right-wing policies they've championed in the past.

To many of my fellow anglos, this amounts to treason. But the way to put this issue behind us is to ignore it by voting with other issues in mind. The PQ and the Liberals keep harping on this subject because they know they can bring people to the polls election after election for them no matter how badly they perform. The province is being held hostage on both sides.

And I've restarted the rewrite of my novel, with a heavy overhaul. Don't hate me, oh ye who've been following my progress!

So last night was a lovely birthday party at rougemacabre's, who was a marvellous hostess as always. The dinner was marvellous, and I had curry for the first time.

I'm gradually coming out of Internet detox, though it shall be some time before I can catch up on all my friends' pages. I've been moving slowly through, but I'm about two weeks behind for everyone.

I've been mostly procrastinating, but I am still ahead on my Shakespeare course, and I've been playing around with a fantasy short story that wants to grow into a fantasy novel. Trying not to get too far ahead of myself, since I still have another novel to revise once all the feedback comes in, but it's just too tempting to go ahead and write ^_^

Looking forward to seeing terren_divided on Saturday, and to our first game in many an age on Sunday. I'll give advanced warning that there will be no game the week after, because I have to work the first weekend every month.