Thinking of Art

This plein air watercolour was painted by Keiko Tanabe. It is titled Lake Hodges. Lake Hodges is a reservoir near San Diego, California. Clicking the link will take you to the artist's blog. She has won many awards for her paintings.

Revision Advice

Well, now that the first draft of my novel is finished (and apparently too long already at 114,329 words in Times New Roman), it is time to start revising. I do not write in the NaNoWriMo style, which involves putting as many words down on paper as fast as possible without editing, but instead I have been editing and revising as I have gone along. However, the revisions have mostly pertained to each small section that I was working on at the time, not to the overall structure of the story.

Another way that my story differs from a NaNo story is that I have written most of it over a period of three years (except for a small core section that started as four short stories written in 2003). So rather than springing out of my head in one short month, my story has had time to percolate and develop over a period of years.

Nevertheless, I do know that it needs revisions. For example, as I was writing, if I came to something that needed research or fact checking, often I just simply inserted asterisks as a reminder to go back later and correct the details, rather than stopping the flow and getting distracted with research right at that moment. (Note: I did not do this for facts that were critical to the plot, just for details and minor events.) As well, I know that there were some shifts in characterization as the book evolved.

What I need to do is sit down and read the whole thing at a sitting to see how it holds together. One of my concerns about revising is that I know that I hate to cut (but am happy to add!). But this manuscript already is too long; I'm going to have to be brutal and cut, cut, cut. Another concern is that I am not sure how to keep it coherent and consistent, given that it is so long. I am used to writing and revising much shorter pieces.

So, if you were hoping for revision advice, that's not really what this post is about. It's more about me looking for advice. I have come across one site that looks very helpful: HollyLisle.com.

writing sites

I'm just putting a few good writing/publishing links here that I don't want to lose. (That's one of the joys of getting older; you lose things.)

Bookends LLC - A Literary Agency

NaNoPubYe

Words on Top

It's past my bedtime, so more on this to follow...

Absentee blogger

Sorry, I haven't been around. That's because I have been spending every spare minute over at NaNoWriMo. Visit me there at AnnaHarvey's page.

NaNoWriMo calls

November is National Novel Writing Month. People from around the world hunker down and go into a frenzy of novel writing in November, with the aim of getting 50,000 words down on paper (or on screen) -- draft quality, of course. I participated in 2007 (when I had a leave from work), then kind of half participated in 2008. This year, I had sadly concluded that I am just way too busy with work to sign up. Missed deadlines! Travel for meetings! Looming obligations! Signing up will just be an exercise in frustration, I told myself.

But this morning, I awoke, and it was November 1. How could I not sign up? It was the first day of NaNoWriMo, and it was a Sunday! So I did register, but I am not going to push myself to pump out 50,000 words. All I really wanna do is finish a first draft of the novel I started in Nano 2007. I know myself, and the structure and camaraderie of Nano help me to sit down and write. I figure that some writing is better than no writing. My starting count is 95,008.

Circular

I have been playing with my sketchpad again. This one is titled Circular, and I made it with the acrylic brush and ink pen tools. I like the way a random doodle just kind of evolves until it becomes its own unique thing. I need to work more with layers so that I feel less constrained in experimenting with different effects.

I'm so tired this weekend. The last two weeks have been an orgy of excessive work -- very grueling. I'm getting too old for this work, work, working.

Pol Ledent

I spent a long time tonight looking at the gallery and blog of Pol Lendent, an artist from Belgium. This is an artist who does amazing, colourful paintings. I especially love his landscapes in oils, like this amazing painting of Provence.


Go check out his blog. He also puts his paintings on The Daily Painters Art Gallery (see link in sidebar). He sells his paintings via the web too.

Vehicle Emissions

Take a look at this video on vehicle emissions testing. This story ran on CKPG-TV last week and it profiles the excellent work being done by Prince George Air Improvement Roundtable (PGAIR).

Lettuce, Fruit Trees, and Apple Butter

This week I bought lettuce. This might seem unremarkable, unless you understand that this is the first time I have bought salad greens since May. This is possible because I have a little greenhouse. Here in our northern climate where there is snow on the ground often from late October to April, having a greenhouse means that I can grow our own vegetables that we eat all summer long. Recently, I have developed and expanded my outdoor garden as well. It is mostly devoted to raspberries, strawberries, herbs, and potatoes.

Now, I am not a super duper gardener. I like digging and planting. I am not so good at weeding and watering. And I'm really bad at thinning. I always plant too many seeds (because probably most of them won't grow), then I don't want to thin them (because they managed to grow and I want each and every one of those little plants to survive...). Weeds thrive in my greenhouse much more than they should. And every summer I go away for a few weeks on a holiday, and whoever I hire to look after the gardens never waters enough. Don't even get me started on the topic of slugs.

But nevertheless, I have enough fresh-picked organically grown veggies to feed my family all summer. We eat seasonally -- radishes, spinach, lettuce, green onions, and sorrel show up first, then peas, swiss chard, sui choy, carrots, beets, kohlrabi, beans, cucumbers, kale, tomatoes, and hot peppers. (This year, the cabbage worm decimated most of the sui choy, rutabagas, kohlrabi, and kale. Every year something fails to thrive.)

Growing vegetables is very satisfying. I love picking and preparing food that I have grown myself. For example, tonight we had lasagna (made with onions, swiss chard, and tomatoes from the garden, and locally raised organic beef). From the garden, we also had green beans, and cucumber salad, and a tomato, onion, & basil salad.

One trouble, though, is that it is hard to keep up with whatever is in season. I try to use or preserve or give away everything that I grow. I have a busy working life, so my gardening and food preparation is relegated to evenings and weekends, where it competes with hikes, bike riding, seeing friends, and all the fun stuff.

Right now, apples are in season, and I have three heritage apple trees. I spent every spare moment this weekend doing things with apples. Yesterday I picked up all the usable windfalls. I sorted out and washed all the good eating apples. I made apple-plum clafouti for yesterday's dessert. I made a batch of apple jelly. Then tonight I made a batch of apple-rhubarb butter. But there are still bags of apples waiting to be dealt with -- and we haven't even started actually picking them yet!

Just a word about apple butter-- don't make it. Every time I make it, I say to myself that I will never make apple butter again. It just takes way too long to push the pulp through a sieve. I have tried many different methods, and all of them are time consuming. (Tonight I used cheesecloth and a colander.) Once you've finally got some strained pulp to work with, it takes a long, long time to cook down, and you have to stir it constantly or it will scorch. Altogether, sterilizing the jars and equipment, chopping the apples and rhubarb, the initial cooking, the sieving process, cooking down the butter, filling jars, and processing in the hot water bath took about two and a half hours tonight, all for six little jars! But it is delicious. I guess that's why each year I "forget" and make it once again.

Thai Seascapes

I came across a wonderful set of paintings of boats, water, and shore posted by Thai artist Asnee. His amazing use of bright jewel-like colour in his seascapes especially caught my notice. Take a look at this slide show, Seas of Thailand, and you will see what I mean.

As well as his use of colour, he also does some really interesting things with texture and line. He works in a variety of media.

As I am beginning to dabble just a bit in making images again, I am curious about exploring other media. Oils are my usual medium of choice. . . but I am thinking about branching out. Maybe it will help me get out of this very long "dry" period.

Digital Doodle

I played with my new graphics tablet for a little while this evening (birthday present), and this is the image I created -- my first digital art (more of a doodle really).

Water and Sky

I went on a week-long canoing expedition in August. In between hauling the canoe over portages, braving thunder storms, looking after my blisters, and trying to choose the least stinky clothing left in my pack, I got into some photography. Besides the usual snapshots and sneaky candid shots, I'd say sky reflections in the water was my theme. Here are a couple:

A Painting a Day

Tonight I found a cool website by Painting a Day Artists at: http://www.dailypainters.com/. Everyday members post a painting that they did that day. Viewers can view the thumbnails or snap to large versions of specific paintings, or directly to each artist's website. The paintings are for sale, too. I've attached a wee clip to wet your appetite.

A painting a day. . . I am green with envy.

Black Dogs of August

In folklore, there are phantom black dogs that roam through graveyards and patrol boundaries like roads and footpaths. Large and shaggy, with glowing red eyes, these ghost dogs may appear just prior to a death. Some say that if they look directly at you, you will die. In other myths, they appear to play the role of protector, for example, of the souls of the dead buried in a graveyard.

A myth dating from August 4, 1577, tells of a black dog appearing during a thunderstorm in a church in Bungay, Suffolk, killing two people and injuring a third. The same day, a similar black dog appeared in a church in nearby Blythburgh and people died there as well. Bob Trubshaw summarizes a number of folkloric accounts of black dogs, and another interesting website specifically on the August 4 events is at everything2.

Our black dog is medium sized, has brown eyes rather than red ones, and is merely high strung -- not ghostly and ominous. She's not a hell hound, just a brat.

More on Writer's Voice

If you haven't read Jack Ross's rant in the previous post, do so now. He has an interesting take on the topic of writer's voice. He first acknowledges common descriptions of writer's voice as a writer's literary fingerprint or personal writing style. He remarks that many creative writing courses emphasize the importance of finding one's voice. This is what concerns him, and is the main focus of his rant.

Essentially, he points out that going on a quest to "find one's voice" is counterproductive; it will have precisely the opposite of the desired effect and will yield writing that is bland and twice chewed over. Instead of navel gazing and fretting about how one appears to others (I am taking liberties with my paraphrasing here), he instructs writers to focus on what they want to write about, and to be aware of who their readers are. He cites portions of an essay written by Kathy Acker, who describes the quest for writer's voice as akin to wanting to be godlike and control the meanings that can be taken from one's writing -- something that narrows possibilities and puts writing in a cage. In contrast, Acker sees writing as play, and eschews all rules.

I think that Ross and Acker are onto something. In most forms of human endeavor, being overly concerned about how one appears to others and others' opinions about oneself is truly a motivation killer. Just think of the NaNoWriMo mantra -- Get it down on paper. Don't edit. Don't worry about how bad it is. It's just a first draft, so get those words down!

So getting caught up in trying find one's voice in the first place, then trying to replicate it, and worrying what others will think of it does seem like a pointless kind of digression. I mean, how many of us actually are any good at self awareness in the first place? It seems to me that a characteristic writer's voice is something that is easier to notice in others than to observe in oneself.

That said, I *do* pay attention to the tone I am taking in a piece of writing. Moreover, I think that my "writer's voice" varies depending on the kind of writing that I am doing and the way that I position myself in a piece. I write in a variety of different forms and genres -- nonfiction, including scholarly chapters and articles; long fiction; poetry; and life writing/memoir. I think my voice might be quite different across these genres. I don't think that I have one consistent "fingerprint" voice.

Finally, I consciously attend to characters' voices and strive to let them speak for themselves. Character voices differ from my narrator voice (whether omniscient or not). Yet, because they come from me, they are part of my repertoire of voices and registers.

I wonder if the quest for one's unique writer's voice is simply an artifact of creative writing instruction. So many beginning writers start by emulating the style of writers that they admire (and generally they do so badly). So, instructors have to point out not to copy -- "Try to find your own voice," they say. It sounds more palatable than, "Quit copying other writers all the time."

Writer's Voice

I have been mulling over the notion of "writer's voice." Personal writing style? An individual writer's fingerprint? Something fundamental to strive for, or something that the writer can and does alter depending on the genre, the story, the characters? More on this later, but for the moment, I just want to put a link here to Jack Ross's rant on the topic of writer's voice.

Blue Earth Lake

Blue Earth Lake is located in a provincial park in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. You climb high into the hills above the desert and find this gem of a lake and (almost) no people.

There is a story. The road gets much much, worse. Do not believe the maps of the area. If you keep going, soon there is no road, and nowhere to turn around. You will need to drive through creeks, bottom out in mud holes, and chop down trees that block the way. Eventually (if you make it through), you will find yourself on a ranch, with a heavy chain preventing the possibility of exiting to the road.

As going back the way you came is not an option, here is a hint. Combination = 4000.

Scary Literary Agents

I came across a link to Janet Reid's blog. She is a literary agent who publishes advice on her blog for writers who aspire to publish their work. The blog is fascinating in a chilling kind of way. And useful, and very funny. . . .

How Much Editing?

A member of my writing group is in the process of rewriting a draft of her novel. She recently wrote on her blog about the dilemma of editing. How much is enough? When do you stop? Of course, she wrote about this question in a way more eloquent manner than this. You can read her post here.

So here are some of my thought on editing:

I think it really depends. When I write a poem, I write in bursts. Words and images come, I set them down, then contemplate, and put down a few more words. It's word by word and line by line. I write slowly, but then when I have written the draft of the poem, it is close to being finished; I do very little editing.

When I write nonfiction, articles and chapters, I also write slowly, crafting each sentence as I go. Each time I sit down to write some more, I reread what I have already written, and edit it. So then by the time I have completed a draft, it needs little editing. Usually, I package it up and send it off quickly. Partly this is because I have *no time in my life* so I am forced to be efficient, and partly it is to prevent myself from adding any more to it (because, invariably, my editing takes the form of adding, and the manuscripts are always too long already). The reviewers always have suggestions for revisions, and by the time it comes back, I have some distance from my piece, and usually I make a number of editorial changes then. (Sometimes I even cut a bit!)

But for my (almost completed) novel, I am way less sure about how I will accomplish the editing. I have tried not to get stuck into editing mode while still getting the first draft down on the page. But, as with the other genres, I still have written very slowly, crafting as I go. (I thought I was finished some time ago except for a short transition between sections, but the transition keeps growing, chapter by chapter.) The challenge that I am finding is figuring out how to keep the coherence and flow consistent in such a long manuscript. I think my editing problems will be at that level more than at the word-by-word level.

Writers' Conference

Here's a link to the Surrey International Writers' Conference in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. I have never attended, but have heard great things about it.

Narratives online

I have spent most of the last six weeks travelling (for work). I am back home again, tired, and way behind on everything, including posting to this blog.

I have been spending some time surfing the net looking at examples of work by young people that involves constructing narratives using multiple modalities (e.g., text, images, animation, voiceover) and posting them online. Very typically what people do is use resources in existing software utilities, like role-playing games. They draw upon the game to create characters (robotic soldier), settings (futuristic battleground), and actions (jumping, shooting), then put together a storyline or short episode. Machinima (machine + cinema) is an example of this creative genre.

The video below provides a tutorial of how to create machinima using the game World of Warcraft. It also models character creation, and plays with the boundary between exposition and fantasy.



I find it fascinating that the power of story is such that people find ways to create narratives using whatever is at hand. Around each of these types of creativity, a community springs up, offering an audience, critique, and suggestions. At the same time, commercial enterprises that create the games, films, and products (all interlinked) have a huge role in shaping the fantasy worlds, character options, and narrative themes that are possible. Hmmm.

I am trying to get my head around how this fits with the traditions of written literature (e.g., novels) especially, and also oral storytelling, performance, and film.

We are storying beings.

Another Alessandro Andreuccetti Watercolour

Here is another painting by Alessandro Andreuccetti that I just love. What first strikes me is the movement, like autumn leaves in a breeze. The theme (autumn trees), the colour palette, and the impressionistic looseness are characteristic of my own painting style (when I used to paint, although I work in oils, not watercolours).

Free write: A Rock

Here is the beginning of a story. What would you write next?

Evan stood on the beach facing the grey inhospitable sea. At the farthest distance, the rough woolen sky was separated from the clay-coloured ocean by the merest smudge of a horizon line. In the middle distance, the ocean was like stippled granite. Then closer to him, grey-green waves with foamy tops rose up and raced toward him up the beach, stopped just short of his dirty canvas runners, then slid back down carrying away little rivers of beach pebbles.

Pebbles. Rocks. In his pocket, a weight against the top of his thigh. A rock. A rock like the heat of an egg yolk, an eyeball, a heart pulsing in his pocket. . . .

Tuscan Hills landscapes

This watercolour was painted by Alessandro Andreuccetti. Images from his recent show were profiled on the Urban Sketchers site. I especially like this painting because of the sense of spaciousness and the quality of the light.


You can go to his blog at: http://aandreuccetti.altervista.org/blog/ and view other images of his paintings.

Excerpt from WIP

Lately, I have been thinking about, but not writing much on my novel in progress. However, tonight, after a happy, tiring day of digging in the garden, I actually worked on the novel for a while. Here's a short excerpt from the evening's writing:

It is amazing what happens to time when you are having a major life experience like your first relationship. It gets completely filled up. Every single moment becomes intensely saturated with significance. Later, when you look back, there are all these events, emotions, and significant moments packed in one after another and you remember them all perfectly. So it seems incredible when you realize that only, say, three weeks have gone by, yet more has happened than in three normal months. And those three months that you would have typically had in the past seem so pale, empty, and pathetic compared to every colourful, jam-packed hour in your current eventful life.

That’s how it felt for me when Percy and I began going out together. It’s like all my senses got switched from sleep mode to full on. I smelled coffee with an intensity that almost made me faint, and suddenly I could see things around me with the clarity of an artist – the colours, the composition, the pattern of twigs against a winter sky. Yet at the same time, every little nerve ending was like an antenna tuned to the frequency of Percy; every part of my body was alike an octopus tentacle reaching towards Percy. The pop music singers always sing about the “electricity” of love, or the “magnetism” of their lover, and I totally discovered what they meant. I felt astonishingly alive, the blood pulsing under my skin, and I could hardly even recall how dull and vacant my life had been only weeks before.

Yummy chicken recipe

Chicken with Dark Beer (Coq à la Bière)

"Southerners in France like their chicken cooked in wine, preferably a rich red, but northerners go for the caramel intensity of dark beer laced with plenty of onions. The sweetness of the beer is enhanced with a spicing of juniper berries and a shot of gin, the local tipple. I enjoy a puree of celery root or lentils on the side, but the traditional accompaniment would be mashed or boiled potatoes. The chicken can be prepared ahead and refrigerated in its sauce up to three days, or freeze it up to one month. Thaw, reheat, and add the yogurt and vinegar before serving." —AW

Yield

4 servings

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 bone-in chicken breast halves, skinned
• 2 bone-in chicken thighs, skinned
• 2 chicken drumsticks, skinned
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 3 tablespoons dry gin
• 3/4 cup chopped celery
• 3/4 cup chopped peeled carrot
• 1/2 cup chopped shallots (about 3 medium)
• 3 juniper berries, crushed
• 1 (8-ounce) package mushrooms, halved
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme
• 3 sprigs fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 cup dark beer
• 1/4 cup whole-milk Greek-style yogurt
• 2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Preparation

1. Combine first 3 ingredients; sprinkle evenly over both sides of chicken. Heat butter and oil in a large deep skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken to pan; sauté 5 minutes on each side or until browned. Remove pan from heat. Pour gin into one side of pan; return pan to heat. Ignite gin with a long match; let flames die down. Remove chicken from pan; keep warm.

2. Add celery, carrot, shallots, and juniper berries to pan; sauté 5 minutes or until vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally. Add mushrooms. Place thyme, parsley, and bay leaf on a double layer of cheesecloth. Gather edges of cheesecloth together; tie securely. Add cheesecloth bag to pan. Return chicken to pan, nestling into vegetable mixture. Stir in beer; bring to a simmer. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 45 minutes or until a thermometer inserted in the meaty parts of chicken registers 160°. (Breasts may cook more quickly. Check them after 35 minutes, and remove them when they're done; keep warm.)

3. Discard cheesecloth bag. Remove chicken from pan; keep warm. Place pan over medium heat; stir in yogurt. Cook 1 minute or until thoroughly heated (do not boil, as the yogurt may curdle). Remove from heat; stir in vinegar. Taste and adjust seasoning, if desired. Place 1 chicken breast half or 1 drumstick and 1 thigh on each of 4 plates; top each serving with about 3/4 cup sauce and vegetable mixture. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Nutritional Information

Calories: 370

Fat: 16g (sat 6.6g,mono 5g,poly 3g)

Protein: 30.8g

Carbohydrate: 15.1g

Fiber: 1.4g

Cholesterol: 103mg

Iron: 2mg

Sodium: 465mg

Calcium: 55mg

Anne Willan, Cooking Light, JANUARY 2009

Okay, I haven't tried this recipe from Cooking Light yet, but I plan to. . . .

bobble head poem

Here is the first draft of a poem I wrote last night:

band-aid diagonal across my red magnetic
lips can speak no
intertextual references
chinese bobble heads
rubberneck swivel for slim waisted girls
hot my thighs kiss
across your lap round paunch
warm as bath blood
content in
wordless middle age
boundaries signified by
skin soft as
limb length of touch
me and snooze entangled
in somnolent
couch
complete it is
enough



I had a set of kissing bobble heads when I was a child, but mine wore red.

This image comes from the Flickr photostream of MacaDamien.

Stepping Out

Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get to the other side.
Okay, okay. I know it's a rooster. And it's crossing a stream, not a road.
But the point is the same -- ya do what ya gotta do.

But wait! This rooster is visualizing something. Faced with a problem -- a body of water between him and his destination -- he saw the board and employed the praxis of using it as a bridge.

Behind him is a clutch of hens, waiting, wondering, "Will he make it?" " Will he fall in?" Perhaps they are considering stepping out onto the bridge, fretting about the possibility of falling in, not wanting to look a fool in front of their hen house mates.

It can be read as leadership versus conformity. It can be read along gender lines. After all, is whatever is on the other side worth risking one's feathered self? The breed is not entirely flightless (although flighty), but does one really want to test it in such a high stakes situation?

The other side -- we are all heading there. Some of us embrace new landscapes, and others hang around the chicken yard as much as possible pecking at bugs in the familiar patch of dirt. I'd like to think that I am one of those exploratory other side type of birds.

The photo is from Robot Nine.

Silly Pigs and Poem

I wanted to post this picture of pigs that amused me. There is something about pigs -- especially ones with very pink noses, dog paddling in twos across a very green stretch of water -- that needs to be noted. Sadly, this image came to me in an email with no info about where it came from, so I can't attribute the source. Thanks, photographer, wherever you are.

The other thing I wanted to mention tonight has nothing to do with pigs. I came across a blog by Tony Mancus called Into the Headland. He writes an entry every day, and every entry is a poem. That is inspiring. Much better than my strategy of just waiting for inspiration to strike! Here is a small fragment of one of his recent poems:

"i will speak encryption with tiny keys.
my tongue a salt lick--the animals come rushing."

Go check out his blog to read the whole thing.

Dark and Light

I want to post some of my favourite photos from Ericalokichicken's Flickr photostream. The first one, Sailboats, is incredible because of the patterns of light and dark. As well, I like the contrast between the spikey linear masts and the round shapes of the boat hulls. Finally the wavery reflections suggest the emphemeral aspect of this moment in time.










This next photo, The Drive Home, also uses light/dark contrasts in monochromatic blue to create a haunting and dramatic mood. The interior shot, the shade of blue, and the childlike reflected face suggest the psychological interior of memory.













This next one is called Shadow Reflection. As the title tells us, it is another exploration of reflection -- self in the world. This photo is a lovely use of negative space, with the body shadow appearing as a transparent silhouette against trees, which as themselves are silhouetted against the sky. All of these layered images are but reflections themselves. I think. It is very interesting and complex, both as an image and also in terms of the ideas the photographer is playing with.

sock puppet art from robot nine

I was looking for images of sock puppets, and came across this great photo of sock monkeys on the website Robot Nine. This website has lots of interesting photographs and arty images.








Here is another great photograph from Robot Nine. It is from a series called "Lonely Trees." This site especially focuses on quirky themes, like "Food Art," "Trailer Trash Dolls," and "Skeleton Sculptures."

Making Pizza

Food, and the making of it, has always been an important part of my daily life. Cooking is an act of creativity and a gesture of love for the people that I care about. It is also work, especially at the end of a long, exasperating day, when I am hungry and haven't given a thought to what's for supper until the minute that I walk in the door.

It is also work in a satisfying way. With the work of my hands and creative mind, I use the bounty of the earth to fashion something to please the appetite and all the senses. Together, we sit down and share food, talk, and tell the stories of each of our days.

I have always believed that it is important for a family to sit down and eat together. I also believe in cooking from scratch (although I am not dogmatic about this; yes, I do use canned tomato sauce). I like to use food that I have grown or gathered. But winters are long here.

So it is pleasing to me that each of my children has grown up appreciating food. Each of them enjoys cooking and is, or is becoming a good cook.


These pictures that I have included here show a pizza that my son made when he was fourteen. He made the pizza dough, spread the sauce, found various things in the fridge to use as toppings, grated cheese, and added herbs.

(Cheese, of course, is one of the fundamental food groups for teenagers.)

He baked it and served it to us for supper. What a satisfying meal, and what a great way to be a family together! It also was a wonderful lesson for him about the value and rewards of daily work.

Urban Sketchers

The images above, titled Bounty Hunters, were created by Cathy Gatland from South Africa. This art is posted on Urban Sketchers, a cool art blog that includes artists from all over the world. Participation on Urban Sketchers (USk) is by invitation. All of the images are sketched on location and must have an urban theme. There is also a Flickr group that is open to all, and a Google discussion group.

The Canadian Rocky Mountains

This is a photo of the Rocky Mountains near Banff/Lake Louise. I drove through this area in October and took this picture.


I love mountains, and am fortunate to live in a mountainous area. Sometimes after sitting in an office all day at my computer solving problems, I come away grumpy and full of worries. But it only takes a long look out the window at the mountains to put things back in perspective again. On a sunny day, I can see mountains from my office window.


Even better, I can do more than look out the window. I can and do spend lots of time outdoors. In the winter, I ski, both downhill and cross-country. Recently I have started back-country touring, and also I am learning how to do telemark turns. The photo above is a view from our local ski hill -- spectacular!

Landscapes often inspire my photography and also my painting. In fact, quite a few of my poems include landscape imagery as well. Place, and the natural landscapes that surround me, are very important to me and influence the choices I make about where to live, work, and play.

The Realist Dreamer

This is a painting by Erica, published on her blog, The Realist Dreamer. The title is Colourful Nudes. I like the feeling of movement in this painting.

Crossing the Unknown Sea

In his book, Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity, David Whyte writes:

Work is where we can make ourselves; work is where we can break ourselves. It is a making and an unmaking that can ultimately never be measured by money alone. In work we can indeed, and in a moment, build or ruin our fiscal fortunes, or we can slowly and imperceptibly, over long years, destroy the inner complexion of our character. Sometimes to our despair, we know instinctively that work is never done. At its worst we are Sisyphus, pushing the boulder over the last incline only to see it fall back and away, out of our grasp, to the very bottom of the slope, to be pushed back up with the same despairing effort the following Monday morning.
At its best, work seems never-ending only because, like life, it is a pilgrimage, a journey in which we progress not only through the world but through stages of understanding (2001, p. 12).

This quotation speaks to me. I find myself suddenly at this stage of life going through a transition -- a midlife crisis of sorts -- in which I am asking if the work that I am doing is the right work for me, or if it is "a sleep and a forgetting" that is distracting me from the true purpose of my life.

character sketch

Holy wow, time has passed and I have had a horrible two months of excessive unpleasant overwhelming work. No time for life. Stress and all that.

I finally made it to my writing group tonight. We did a writing exercise in which we wrote a character sketch with the aim of portraying a sense of who the character was primarily through sensory description. This what I wrote:

Kevin stood in the doorway, poised with his weight on one leg, uncommitted to enter, already, one imagines, on his way down the hall. This was as much as could be hoped for -- a moment of pause, a dry observation intoned nasally, delivered with a wicked hook disguised as humour. Then down the hall he'd go, as quiet as a big cat, taut as a bicep, moving as if he were invisible, as if his steroid-built body was hidden by the Indian cotton shirt, as if there was not an electric four inches of impenetrable air space between him and anyone else passing down the hallway.

Okay -- one paragraph. That's a start.