The Books are Free Again

You know who a library strike hurts? Me. Not only is it the only city resource (water and waste removal aside) I use on a weekly basis.  It has a direct impact on my quality of life.  So when the library workers go on strike, it throws a spanner into my carefully ordered routines.

The day before the strike began, I taught the kidlet how to go online and reserve books.  So every day of the strike the little kiddo pumped me for information on when her requests were going to be filled.  Every. Day.  Often multiple times a day. There was no placating her, as labour disputes are beyond the horizon of a not-quite-four-year-old's world view.  All she knew was that the library promised Froggy and Olivia, and was taking a suspicious amount of time to follow through.

This afternoon we were able to go and renew our love affair with mashed dead trees.  I resisted the urge to grab as many books as possible and kept the consumption of word stuffs down to a manageable bunch.  This cache of books will keep us going, and likely keep me from buying Hunger Games for another week.  

An actual outline!

This is a first: weeks before the opening day of Script Frenzy, I have an actual idea and a starting outline.  I am taken aback by this remarkable turn of events.  I know what I want to do and I am actively taking steps to execute it.  It is so virtuous, I might pollute the atmosphere with my air of self-satisfaction. 

Please do not think this means I have no room for crazy exploration.  There are HUNDREDS if not THOUSAND of ways I can run this sucker off the tracks.  But the fact I have been able to focus enough to structure a roadmap of the project gives me a warm tingle inside, like drinking some very sweet liqueur. Sometimes just the act of planning gives a strange satisfaction. 

Execution may prove to be another problem, but I am curious to see if there is any difference in the motivation department when I already have a plan in place and can project what I need to write each day  - not just how much I need to write.  It should be interesting. 

I am also going to explore a new writing convention: the monologue cycle.  I am going to write one hundred monologues on a single theme.  The theme is KISS.  Hopefully there will be enough in that to keep me going forward. 

This Script Frenzy marks the first time I will crack out and really use the Scrivener software.  So far I have been impressed with the outlining and organizing capacity.  To be honest I doubt I would be working so dilligently on the outline if I didn't want to somehow impress the software that despite my months of letting it gather dust, I am in fact a serious person who intends to use it to write lots of things, lovely things, valuable and important things.  Or at least things that do not suck. 

Script Frenzy

Script Frenzy:

Gulp.  It's back.  And so am I.  Another year, another 100 pages of script.  I am still scoping out the project I want to throw down, but I am back on board.  I am determined to have a proper working outline done this time before I rush madly into the fray.  I fly by the seat of my pants too often.  Also, my butt is not what yoouwould call aerodynamic.  I think it will be a good experience to work off a strong outline.

So...go work on your outline, Laura.  Quit chatting about it and get to work.

'via Blog this'

Stop Me If You've Read This One Before

This is the book on my bedside table, the one I am currently devoted to reading.  Good one, isn't it?  I can say that with authority, since despite my efforts to explore new stories, I have read it before.

From the moment I picked it up from the library shelf it seemed familiar, but the synopsis on the dust jacket did not ring any bells.  Granted, I scanned it while the two kiddos tried to use my backside as a launch pad to climb the library stacks, so I may not have been at my sharpest. I've read several books in the lovely Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series (one of my favourite pastiches, in fact), but I know there are gaps of episodes I have missed. It wasn't until I was about three chapters in that the shape of events began to follow a pattern that rang.  Curiously enough, it was when the protagonist started making reference to events in other books, ones I HAVEN'T read, that it dawned on my that this was one I had already consumed.  

Now I am in suspension. Should I put the book down?  I know how it ends.  It's a fine story, but not destined to be one of the books I read over and over.  The more I read, the more detail I remember of the events yet to come. I am divided on what I should do.  Right now, I am actively trying to read a large number of books to study form and narrative.  I can learn as much from a familiar book as from a new one - perhaps more, since I will be able to sit back from the drama of discovery and look at the story structure. I have a literal mountain of reading to get on with, piles and piles of books to attack.  It seems wasteful to be spending my precious reading time on a retread when I have so much I want to accomplish. 

And yet...

I can't put it aside.  It would be like leaving a melody incomplete, like knocking the first part of "Shave and a haircut" without finishing the phrase.  It bugs me to be doing an unplanned second reading, but it will also drive me batty to have STARTED the story and not finished it.  If I had the time to read as I would like I would just put my shoulder down and power through it, speed-read to sprint my way to the end of the book.  This is a question of emotional resonance, I feel the need to complete the pattern.  I need to sing the rest of the song.

Even if it means the reading mountain doesn't shrink this week. Oh, sigh.

Fishbowls of Death

I love fish.  I had a small aquarium when I lived out west, and the soothing beauty of life in perpetual liquid motion lowers my heart rate and softens the sharper edges of my brain.  I can spend hours by myself in a well-appointed aquarium, like Vancouver or Sydney.  In the Toronto abode there is not a very good place to keep a proper aquarium, at least not one of any size, and so I have been keeping my fish love contained to betta, the most beautiful disposable fish of all.

I say disposable, but I don't mean it.  The Siamese Fighting fish are gorgeous creatures who happen to live in small cramped containers and do not require filtered water.  Their sheer ease of care makes them a prime target for people like me who are not all that great at maintaining their relatively low standards of living.  I have never named a betta.  I have had a long running series of Red Fish and Blue Fish. This is really for the best.  That said, most of my fish have lasted a few years.  This is despite my interventions rather than because of my tender care. The most recent Blue Fish was dead in his vase on the counter for a very long sad time because I lacked the organization to dispose of his remains properly.  Yes, I am a terrible person. 

Today, we turn over a new fish leaf.  Accompanied by the kiddos, a trip to the ANIMAL BIG BOX STORE netted me not one new friend, but two.  Technically Pink Fish is for the kidlet and Blue Fish is for me.  I like a fish in the kitchen to keep me company when I do the dishes.  I believe the root of this is the fact I hate kitchen work, but love fishes, so a little swimming buddy improves my outlook on such dread activities as meal preparation and food area cleaning.  If I could find a way to allow the kiddos to thrive without ever devoting any time or energy to kitchen work, I think my quality of life would rise exponentially.  At any rate, I operate on the belief that a little fish improves the atmosphere. 

Over the years, the death of fish has rarely been an emotional event. I was miffed when some of my longer term fish friends bit it, but usually it is more annoyance that I will need to dispose of the remains and then go back to a dreaded ANIMAL BIG BOX STORE (there is no convenient Mom-N-Pop disposable fish store in my sphere) to choose the healthiest looking specimens from the rack of little plastic cups. I am not by nature a shopper. And shopping for things that swim around without a battery pack feels weird. 

Now that the whole question of mortality is raised for the next generation, I might have more drama thanks to the little fish and their penchant for death.  In the equation there are two little girls who aren't yet scarred by bitter loss now.  Do I teach them to see fish as temporary - and by extension, to understand that all is temporary? Or do I put the emphasis on the present, on enjoying the flashy little creatures right now without thought of what will come. Should we stand aloof and shut our hearts to the fish, or risk exposure to loss, pain, and the attendant dramas?  

I think I walk the middle path. There shall be no names.  But there should also be time to wonder at the magical beauty in the little bowl.