Exquisite Words

Happy Fourth of July, ye who celebrate!

This is a bit of an infodump, but it’s also a good observation about human nature, wittily expressed. This is the ‘spoonful of sugar’ method of infodumping: you share the desired knowledge and make it fun by adding humor.

[Morrill] Goddard’s more daring assertions begin from the premise that it is hard to make people think. He agrees that the power of abstract thought is the highest human faculty, but he nevertheless sees a lot of flattery in the notion that man is a rational animal. In Goddard’s observation, people are far more interested in their sense perceptions and emotions than in their thoughts. He sees nothing particularly wrong or shameful in this, but puts it down to the fact that we have been sensing, feeling and emoting since we lived in caves, while we have only lately begun to cultivate our rational faculties, public education and mass literacy being last minute innovations in the life of man. Thus, while all mankind is capable of rational thought, most of us only use it with deliberate effort, after a good night’s sleep, and for remuneration. Even then, our efforts are often halfhearted and the results mixed.

Kenneth Whyte, THE UNCROWNED KING: THE SENSATIONAL RISE OF WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST

Looking for miracles in the app store

Happy Canada Day, fellow northerners!

I am a firm believer in stepping away from the Internet when trying to write. I think better when I don’t face temptation in the form of a quick check of the Twitter feeds, status pages, Google reader, etcetera blah blah. One part of Cafe Calabria’s allure, for me, is that it hasn’t really got wireless.

Calabria is not an entirely distraction-free environment, but its diversions feel more human and, somehow, worthwhile. I don’t begrudge the occasional moment spent trying to comprehend the italian lyrics of Frank Senior’s eclectic musical choices, for example, or eavesdropping on the other early-morning regulars. As I write this, the fellows I think of as “Chatty Guy,” “Brother of Chatty Guy” and “Their Friend” are chewing over the ethics of hunting. They’re good with it in cases of self-defense, I’ll have you know and mostly all right with the idea of hunting for food. (“There’s something so right about killing something and eating it,” one of them opines.)

The conversation has bogged down, though, over the issue of sport fishing and catch-and-release. It is a typical morning jaw over java, and the longer the conversation goes on, the less sense it makes. Friend Of seems to be saying that you might as well eat fish because you don’t know they wouldn’t attack you if they could.

(Obviously that isn’t what he is actually saying, but it sounds funny as hell. Usually they talk about Celine Dion or Arnold’s Divorce or the Canucks. I find this topic preferable.)

Calabria is across the street from a Starbucks with fairly robust Wi-Fi, which has been tricky as I adapt to writing on my newest toy, an iPad. I can just barely pick up a feed if there are no big trucks parked on the corner. And the pad will sync if I’m online, which is a nice little hedge against data loss. So every now and then I get sucked into checking: is there Wifi after all? From there, it’s a short hop to The Forbidden: checking my Inbox.

In other words, I have not perfected my new regime.

I did write 187 words on Thursday–revising again, and adding as little as possible–which brings me to 35% of my Write-A-Thon goal of 20K words. And not having the 5 pound laptop on my back wherever I go is a very nice lifestyle change. Having got the weight of the laptop off my shoulders, the next goal is to give my hands a break as much as possible, so I’m working to make more effort to dictate things like e-mails and blog posts. I like the iPad version of Dragon, especially the part whereby I don’t need a tangly-corded external microphone to use it.

Of course, though I am trying to make the gadget serve my writing and health needs, I really spent the three months saving for the thing because I wanted a damn TOY. I spend a lot of time in the App Store, looking for the two dollar piece of software that will change my life forever. Have you found it? I am a fan of Simplenote and Dropbox, but I was already using them on the iPod. And though I love Flipboard, and am having fun with Sketchclub, I have yet to find anything, you know, miraculous.

Cafe Calabria

Words for birds

My Clarion West Write-a-Thon Word Counts so far…

Total= 6813 words
July 29 – 616 (revision on novel)
July 28 – 712 (novel)
June 27 – 987 (novel)

The 616 Wednesday were a bit of a surprise… it’s what got added to a rough draft of a chapter after I’d refined it a bit. I know my work tends to get longer as I go through it, but it had felt like I was cutting.

Snip:

Her private chamber was as luxuriously appointed as a five star hotel. A fresh plate of the bland food–mourning fare, the Conto had called it–sat on a low table in a little… sitting room? Or parlor? She tried to muddle through the difference, if there was one. Then she caught a whiff of humidity, and followed her nose to a steaming bath. The same servant who’d wrapped her in the long gray cloak before the burial was waiting to remove it.
*It’s as if she’s been here the whole time, just waiting*, Sophie thought.

I also shot a Northern Flicker last week–they’re a lot less camera-shy when they’ve dug into an ant hill–and got a pretty decent close-up, complete with bugs on the beak. There’s video of it peck-peck-pecking away, if you prefer action:

Northern Flicker

Exquisite Words

Voice, characterization, backstory, all in two lovely and quite-dense paragraphs.

Since Olivia got sense and kicked me out, I live on the quays, in a massive apartment block built in the nineties by, apparently, David Lynch. The carpets are so deep that I’ve never heard a foodstep, but even at four in the morning you can hear the hum of five hundred minds buzzing on every side of you: people dreaming, hoping, worrying, planning, thinking. I grew up in a tenement house, so you would think I’d be good with the factory-farm lifestyle, but this is difference. I don’t know these people; I never even see these people. I have no idea how or when they get in and out of the place. For all I know they never leave, just stay barricaded in their apartments, thinking. Even in my sleep I’ve got one ear tuned to that buzz, ready to leap out of bed and defend my territory if I need to.

The décor in my personal corner of Twin Peaks is divorce chic, by which I mean that, four years on, it still looks like the moving van hasn’t arrived yet. The exception is Holly’s room, which is loaded with every fluffy pastel object known to man. The day we went looking for furniture together, I had finally managed to wrestle one weekend a month out of Olivia, and wanted to buy Holly everything on three floors of the shopping center. A part of me had believed I’d never see her again.

Tana French, FAITHFUL PLACE

Sunday’s word count was 385, for a total of 4,498. My Clarion West Write-A-Thon page is here.

Adventures and spiderlings

Saturday’s word count came to all of 89 words before it turned out the relatives coming into town late Saturday night had meant to arrive in the morning, and had rebooked their flights accordingly. Using Twitter, of all things, we mixmastered our entire weekend schedule on the fly. Kelly shot off to the airport; I kept a twice-rescheduled date with my mother. Three hours later, we converged for a run to Granville Island (where, as I predicted, it was like LORD OF THE FLIES, but with tourists fighting tooth and nail for parking and places vendors’ attention) and then dinner in the West End.

For a final blast of excitement we ended up chasing the Modo car to the city impound after dinner. This was an experience that turned out better than I’d have expected, as Impound is more or less directly on the route to our house. (It could have been at the end of the Skytrain tracks or something!)

Anyway, as much of today as possible has been allocated to some much-needed chilling out. It looks sunny and gorgeous, an entirely promising day. I am frankly hoping the house gets stupidly warm.

Here’s a snippet from one of the works-in-progress:

Isle of Gold is one of five nations formerly known as the Piracy. A barren rock unfit for agriculture and without much of a fishery, its difficult-to-navigate coastal waters and dense military fortifications led to its becoming the treasury of the alliance of thieves, smugglers and raiders during the decades of warfare that plagued the seas…

Finally, for those of you who saw my tweets about the baby spiders, here’s a picture.
Spiderlings