Blogging is hard. I hardly ever do it. Why? Because I don't like talking about myself. Don't get me wrong, I'm as narcissistic as anyone else on the internet, but when I sit down to blog I'm faced with the truth:  my everyday brain activity is not exactly an adrenaline fuelled thrill ride.

Don't worry, people more bloggity than I say, just write what's on your mind. What's on my mind? Well, this morning I was wondering how much hair people normally lose each day and if I'm losing more than that. Then I wondered what happens to all the loose hair in the world. If everyone is losing gobs of hair off their heads each day, where does it go? How quickly does hair break down into its base materials? How has the earth not turned into a massive nest of hair?

You see what I mean? It's a little funny, but there are more entertaining and less neurotic ways to waste your time than reading my musings on global hair accumulation, or whether scrambled egg breath smells as bad as it tastes. There's a reason I've never kept a journal. Actually, I did once. When I was ten I got a big blue journal for my birthday and I wrote in it three times. The first two entries were a meticulous recounting of what I had for supper that day (I did not care for Highliner fish sticks). The third was a rather confusing confession about a boy I had a crush on, except I clearly remember that I didn't have a crush on this boy, I was making it up because I figured that was the kind of thing you were supposed to write in your journal, when you weren't keeping a weirdly detailed food diary.

Can I ask you all something? What do you blog about when you're bored? What do you say when all you can think is that for breakfast you had five cups of coffee and the english muffin your kid didn't finish before going to school?

​S.

Here's the thing, Linda (can I call you Linda?), I don't know you personally. Or professionally. You were one of those insanely hot '90s supermodels, gliding down runways and posing for sexy black and white fragrance ads in Cosmo. I was a teenager, in flannel and Doc Martens, playing the clarinet in a high school that reeked of CK One. I bet it smelled better on you than a hoard of small town adolescents because you look like sophistication must smell.  Sorry, I'm making it weird. Maybe you weren't in that ad at all. Maybe it was Kate Moss. The point is that is that we're basically different species, Linda.

But there's a quote attributed to you and since I don't feel like fact checking I'm just going to assume that it's correct.

"We don't wake up for less than $10 000."

Damn, girl. Did you really say that? I mean, I absolutely agree. For you to shift your gorgeous ass an inch without a hefty paycheque would be an outrage because you are a queen. But going on the record like that takes some cast iron ovaries. And we have something in common, Linda. I don't get out of bed for less than 10K either.

Of course you were referring to the kind of cash unlikely to be shoved my way to make sultry faces while clad in only a man's dress shirt. My play on your words started as a joke about running. I don't get out of bed for less than ten kilometres, hahaha... and depending on the crowd, someone pipes up with, you mean fewer than, and I laughingly concede while mentally lowering this person's ranking on my tolerability index.

A lot of people interpreted your quote as an example of the ultimate diva 'tude. Those people are wrong, Linda. To me those words are the wisdom of a woman who works hard, acknowledges her worth, and is not interested in the nonsense of those unwilling to give her what she deserves.

That was the '90s, but as a woman in 2016 it's still hard to ask for what you want. It's even harder to take it without feeling like you have to apologize. Thankfully there have always been badasses like you setting a great example. Linda, I've got a busy unglamorous life, but every time I feel like I should skip or cut my run short because kids/work/fatigue/miscellaneous bullshit, I think of your words. I remind myself that I'm worth it, that I deserve to dedicate this time and energy to my own well being.

So thank you, Linda. I hope you're still demanding a fortune just to wake up.

​S.

Why? I dunno. Owl pellets are cool and there are worse things life could be like...the owl itself, for instance.

Thing is, I've wanted to write an owl pellet story for a long time and I had an idea once, but it turned into Loud As A Murder. A fine story, but it's got nothing at all to do with owl pellets, and it took me a really long time to write. This brings me to the buried lead of the post: how long should it take to write a short story? In my case, three years. There are exceptions, but on average, from the initial spark of an idea to hitting the submit button, three years.

Apparently, this is excessive.

But is it? I'm not working on that story and only that story for three years. I'm doing other stuff. Still, I've been at this long enough to see a pattern and I've broken my short story writing process down into a 36 month timeline.

Month 1

- Have idea. Idea is kickin' rad. Make notes. Do research. Start writing. Stall out at 1200 words. 

Month 2-32

- Open the document from time to time, usually when you're avoiding other work. Smile as you read because there's something special there. You've got a hook, voice, characterization, an inciting event...and no fucking idea where it goes next.

Month 33

- Finish a project you started roughly 3 yrs ago and wonder what you ought to work on next. Hey, you've got that beginning of a story languishing on your hard drive. The problem is you're trying to write it around owl pellets and you need to let that go. Power through and complete a rough draft.

Month 34

- Your rough draft sucks. You suck. You suck like a mongoose with an emotional eating problem. Do it again, but better.

Month 35

- Send 5th draft to crit partner. Crit partner understands the anxious egg-sucking mammal version of you, and also knows stuff about good writing. She offers thoughtful feedback and talks you out of becoming a bricklayer. Rewrite. Suck less.

Month 36

- More rewriting. You could do this forever. Maybe another 3 years. Didn't this story originally involve owl pellets? Now there's a good idea...


​

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A much-loved friend pushed me out of my no-writing slump by challenging me to write a single page. She even gave me a bunch of exercises, which I didn't do properly, but I ended up with two pages of new writing, so I call that success.

Apparently, when you start writing after a long time of not writing, feelings come out. I mean FEELINGS. Those fucked up little monsters I usually keep in sound-proof cages. This is why I don't write non-fiction. Better to hide behind a character who is totally made up and just happens to possess all my worst traits. The weird part is that this time, I didn't realize what I was doing.

Nothing is ever totally made up. My friend saw those FEELINGS right away. She already knows what a peevish icicle of a person I can be, but I still felt exposed. It's a two-page vignette. Good voice, but otherwise not particularly brilliant. It's just an exercise for pete's sake. It doesn't deserve to be this dangerous.

What about you? Have you ever written something you thought was inconsequential when you were writing it, but when you stepped back, or god forbid showed it to someone, it made you want to fucking scream?

Tell me. I want to know.

S.

And by 'this', I mean work outside the home at a job where you are subjected to the unusual torment of being on someone else's schedule?

Seriously? How the hell do you do it?

I only work outside the home part time, but I also do freelance editing and manuscript review, and then there's my own writing. Between those things and being a parent, I've got a lot going on and btw, I'm a terrible multi-tasker. The part time job has made my life a lot more difficult. Don't get me wrong, I love the work and the people I work with are fantastic (shout out for indie bookstores!) but I'm struggling to find balance.

Here are the major challenges.

1. Janked up sleep patterns from working events until 10pm, and having to be up early with the kids in the morning.

2. Turning down freelance work which pays well but isn't a steady source of income, because my part time job, which is steady but pays a lot less, takes up a big chunk of my time.

3. Sick kids means last minute unavailability, which majorly inconveniences co-workers and makes me feel terrible. That's not even considering my own illnesses. I have never been sick so often as I have since starting this job.

4. My kids miss me and my house is a disaster.

5.  I don't write much anymore.

But there are benefits too.

1. Steady, if modest, income.

2. I get to be with my people (authors and book lovers). I love organizing and hosting literary events, and for an introvert and borderline misanthrope, I'm surprisingly good at it.

3. I've become better at coping with social anxiety.

4. I work with generous and kind people that are so smart they scare me a little and inspire me a lot.

5. Two words: Staff Discount


Since vodka is not a great stress management strategy, at least not in the long term, I'm trying to devise better ways of organizing and prioritizing. And it's hard, you guys. I'm good at some things, but it turns out work/life balance is not one of them. Fortunately I have a legendary stubborn streak. I'll keep trying figure it out. Until then, there's vodka, and good books.

1. Grow up a little weird, maybe in a devout Mormon household.

2. Have parents who subvert religious indoctrination by imposing no restrictions whatsoever on the kind of books you check out of the library.

3. Read The Thorn Birds when you are thirteen, understand little, but enough to develop a lifelong appreciation for anything lurid.

4. Spend 4-5 years in your room listening to 90's alt-rock. 

5. Graduate high school with honours because your worth is defined by academic success.

6. Complete a post-secondary education because same.

7. Receive your credential. Do the thing. Realize that thing isn't at all what you want to do. Go back to your part-time job in an artisanal bakery. Congrats, you have failed at being an adult.

8. Recreational drugs.

9. Meet the man you will eventually hitch your wagon to.

10. Do less drugs...do no drugs...drugs are stupid, why did you do all those drugs?

11. Experience a five year interval of relative normality. Marriage, mortgage, larvae.

12. Become acutely aware that you don't fit in with the other moms. Congrats, you've failed at normal.

13. Read Twilight for some reason.

14. With haughty disgust, claim that you can do better.

15. Write a fucking terrible novel.

16. Write more. Take classes. Drink wine. Meet other writers. These are your people, and just like you, they are exhausting and adorable.

17. Sell a few stories. Make a little money.

18. It's not enough money. You have larvae to feed, and you're out of wine.

19. Get a job in a bookstore, and know that you are living a cliché comparable to that of actor-slash-waiter.
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20. Blog on a sporadic basis. Try doing it in list form because you heard somewhere that people like lists. The list is too long. You have no idea what you're doing. Congrats, you're a writer.

I don't know a lot about publishing. I imagine all publisher headquarters as the classroom from A Christmas Story where Miss Shields gouges a bloody red 'F' on paper after paper, groaning in operatic fury over the literary incompetence of her pupils. Beyond hitting the send button on the submission form and waiting patiently for my rejection, I am imaginatively ignorant. Which is why my forthcoming short story collection, SUICIDE STITCH, with EMP Publishing, surprised me the way it did.

Many months ago I submitted to an open anthology call. My piece got rejected for the antho, but the senior acquisitions editor asked me some questions. Did I have any other stories? How many? Were they all in the horror/dark fiction genre? Would I consider letting her have a look at them?

I didn't reply right away. I didn't reply for a couple months, for many reasons, none of them reasonable. Laziness. Apathy. An aversion to human interaction. A belief that I lack the knowledge and business acumen to properly navigate such an opportunity. After a lot of dithering, I brought the dilemma to my primary confessor: Spousal Unit.

He called me a coward.

I hate it when he's right.

I replied. I submitted a bunch of stories, and I eventually signed a traditional publishing contract with competitive royalties and no funny business in the fine print. This isn't to say I signed without hesitation. EMP is a small press, a new press, unproven and without an extensive backlist. They could go under tomorrow. But the editor and I share a common desire: to change the landscape of women writing in male dominated genres, and that's what sold me. There's always some element of risk, but this is something I believe in so strongly that I'm thrilled to be taking that plunge with a publisher who walks the walk when it comes to diversity.

Right about now you probably want to tell me to take my feminist rhetoric and go fuck myself because short story collections are notoriously difficult to sell, and I unfairly bypassed all the hard work, heartbreak, and rejection of trying to get mine published. Well, you're right. It isn't fair. I got incredibly lucky.

Then again, these stories are not the product of luck. I do not care to count how many hours I've spent writing. How it started in secret, scrawling stories by hand in the middle of the night while breast-feeding, and carried on in broad daylight consuming more and more of my existence until I finally had to admit I was a writer and open myself to the flood of rejection that comes with the writing life.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I know enough about Miss Shields School of Publishing to know that getting something in print is largely out of your hands as a writer. It's all about getting the right story to the right person at the right time. Really all you can do is be stubborn - and as Spousal Unit often points out, I've got that on lock. So write the best stories you can and submit, submit, submit, because accidents do happen.

S.

You've been here before: the Canmore Rocky Mountain Half-Marathon. This year the weather is rainy and cold. And speaking of cold, you have one. You and your dad eat granola bars in the car before hitting the cluster of portapotties where you void your anxious bladder to the distinctive rudiment of dozens of plastic doors opening and slamming, opening and slamming. In the starting chute runners assemble in a sea of cutely patterned  tights, beeping gps watches, man-buns, and gooseflesh. Your 50km ultra marathon shirt makes you feel like a badass, but it's under your zipped jacket so you are humbled, weather permitting.

The air horn is a whine rather than a blast...a sound you liken to erectile dysfunction. But a race off to a limp start is still a race, so you shuffle with the herd to the start line where you are then able to actually begin running.

Five or so kilometres in town, then cross the bridge over the creek, zip past the electrical transformer (that's where Mrs. Buzzy lives) and it's out onto the trails. You feel like shit, but forbid yourself from voicing a word of complaint until you are past the 11km mark.

Some paths are paved, some are not, and some are always swampy no matter how dry the weather has been, but you don't care about mud seeping into your $200 shoes because trail running is glorious. Along the scenic stretch through a meadow, smudges of morning fog both obscure and enhance the breathtaking view of the mountains. Then you take a loop around the sewer outfall that reeks so sharply of sulphur you can actually taste it.

Once past the Bog of Eternal Stench it's time to pack up your gentle awe of your surroundings because you've reached the dreaded switchbacks. These hills are steep and long. The best strategy is to put your head down and try to blot out the wail of ultimate suffering that echoes through the valley from countless achilles tendons brought to the very brink of rupture.

After the cliffs of insanity, it's a bit of downhill, which is pleasant, unless you're coughing like a consumptive textile worker from the industrial age because you chose to run 21.1km while in somewhat ill health. Even you don't understand your own madness. Although a psychologist friend recently told you that a balanced life involves a good mix of self-abuse as well as self-care. This is the most attractive professional theory on mental and physical health that you've ever come across.

At the 12km marker, you finally mutter something about needing to slow down, but it doesn't feel as good as you'd hoped. It's okay though, because you're more than halfway to the finish. Just a few more hills.

Then it's back down into the valley, around the stinky sewer pond, through the meadow, across the bridge, and follow the creek until you turn onto the street where the finish is three blocks away.

You cross the line and look for your dad, who finished several minutes before you because you are weak and sickly. Father is found, congratulations exchanged, and diluted orange Ultima is sipped from a cup made of corn or something because this is Canmore, a former coal mining town now mindful of its carbon footprint.

With a raw throat and aching chest, you suggest ditching the dry post-race bagels and heading to the place that makes awesome Quebecois style poutine instead. Shivering in your wet gear, you and your dad share a huge dish of gravy drenched cheese curd and fries.

Somehow, it's the best day.


S.






  

Hey, all. I'm teaching a noir workshop at AWCS this fall. If you're in the Calgary area, you may want to check it out here under November workshops.

Sometimes you have to go to a dark place in order to write with authenticity. Usually I can do this without getting too fucked up over it. But sometimes, some stories...well, they've got little barbs and they stick, you know?

My current project is a short story about sisters. One of them dies suddenly and the other is left to close off her life. Of course there's a lot more to it than that.

Or maybe there isn't.

The relationship between sisters is a secret language. But it doesn't translate. I'm trying to capture the truth of it through writing, but it's eluding me. I have a sister, and to suddenly lose her would be a unique disaster scenario. When I go to that place, my brain has a strange reaction. It can't separate us. It can't stitch together a reality in which I am alive and my sister is not. Oddly, I can imagine us both dead with relative ease. Yeah, I'm morbid, but that's not the point. What a strange thing my brain has done, forming mysterious defensive neural connections and pathways around that relationship. I can't even get properly devastated thinking about the possibility, because my brain regards this scenario as impossible.

Sometimes I work myself into a state from lingering too long in those lightless corners of the mind. That's when I need to lay on the floor. But this is a far weirder situation, trying to access the ugly place and finding the way barred.

This is my first attempt to explore the sister bond in my writing. Now I wonder if I've been subconsciously avoiding it.

What weird things have surprised you when you tried to write about them?