The blog starts moving tomorrow.

I think. I’ll be posting sporadically over the next couple of days. If all goes well, the transition should be smooth and mostly seamless.

Not going away – just The Great Blogger Kiss Off Of ’10.

The blog is going down on Monday – but not going away! Monday is when my web host and starts the process of shifting almost seven years of blog posts from one platform to another. I’d rather not move off Blogger, to be honest, but their FTP support is ending in May and I don’t want to have to start changing the pointing of domains and the like.

So. The tech support people at Lexicom have figured out their plan of attack. From an email today:

0) Full backup of your blog’s filesystem, posts and RSS feed.
1) Bring over your entire blog to their hosted blogger service
2) ensure the full blog is 100% intact and nothing was left behind (re: images/links/etc)
3) Import your blog from blogger hosted into WordPress (hosted at dev.lectio.ca)
4) Ensure everything is there, looks good, and is ready to go
5) Make the wordpress site the live site, kissing google/blogger goodbye forever

I note that he started the list with a 0, which I suspect is a programmer thing. I have thus decided to refer to this as The Great Blogger Kiss Off Of ’10.

As best as I can tell, there’s some shenanigans involving a domain name being re-pointed, and something else about a CNAME, and something about signing over your firstborn to Google…and then he’ll be installing WordPress on my own server, exporting my blog, importing my blog, left foot in, left foot out, make the WordPress live, and shake it all about.

I might have a couple of days without posting, and maybe a bit of down time. But fear not – the blog shall return. And I’m pretty darn happy that my tech support can handle it, because it’s better than me trying to do it by myself (which would surely involve a lot of dirty words and bad things said in anger by me).

Wednesday.

While I’m filing my taxes (yay! tax filing time! I love it! For reals!), here’s a bit from Tom Brokaw trying to explain Canada. I quite liked it…even if it was a slightly strange experience to listen to an explanation of my country’s history and relation to another. Heh.

Oh, crap! Did that count as watching tv? Crap!

Snakes in a drain!

You know, it wasn’t really an exciting day until we heard that there were snakes in a drain in the city.

It’s only a matter of time before those snakes get into the transit system, and then it’s snakes on a train.

And you can take the train to the end of the line and then grab a bus that goes to the airport. And, well…after that…

So that was Monday?

And now it’s Monday evening again. You know how that is? When you look up at the end of the day and say “oh, man – there went Monday.” Yeah. Kind of like that.

It was not the busiest of days, nor was it the quietest of days. It was not a day of foolishness, nor was it a day of wisdom. It was definitely not an epoch of belief or incredulity. It was just Monday.

I’m still TV free, but I have a confession to make. So. I read that Lenten obligations were relaxed on Sundays – Sundays don’t really count as Lent days. I watched three shows. Celebrity Rehab 3, Mad Men, and an episode of Project Runway. I knew I was allowed, but I still felt guilty as hell. I dreamed that Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn came to chew me out for not making it work, so obviously my subconscious is trying to tell me something. So I’m thinking that I ought not to watch anything the no TV Great Lent Giveup of ’10.

Only…um, forty days to go. Ack.

Sunday.

More time spent working on revisions and edits for the short story collection. I’m getting closer to finishing, though. And I’m getting closer to the deadline, so it’s got to get close to being finished.

When I wasn’t revising, I was reading. And backing up iTunes. And reading some more. This no television thing makes weekends a lot longer than I had remembered them! I watched Watchmen last night, too…the director’s cut, which brought the movie just past the three hour mark. It was worth it, though. I think I’ll have to read the graphic novel next. I suspect it will make me wish I could draw.

It’s going to be a long week coming up, though – I have to work next Saturday, so I’ll be trying to remember to get to bed early and pace myself through the week. I’m not a fan of the six-day work week, but when you’ve gotta work, you’ve gotta. Or so I’m told. It’ll be a shorter shift, and with luck, I can escape the notice of the roving bands of missionaries that hit the streets on Saturday mornings. I think I must still look salvageable, because I come away from weekend shifts – almost always – with at least one pamphlet.

And that, friends, was the weekend. In the next few weeks, I’ll be starting a migration of the blog to WordPress. Google/Blogger/Overlord is doing away with FTP services for blogs, and I’m not terribly thrilled with the idea of changing cnames and whatnot. My web host is actually doing most (well, all) of the work for the WordPress migration. All I have to do is fret about it.

What does that mean? Not very much, really. The look of the blog is going to change a bit, and I think it might have some impact on people who follow me through Blogger. Maybe if you follow through the Atom feed, too. But I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a smooth transition.

Saturday.

Friday nights are pretty static for me – I like to go out for a sandwich and sit and read for a while.

It’s a nice way to end out the week. I’m still tv-free (although I’ve learned that I can relax the tv ban on Sunday, so I’m going to watch a few taped shows, I think). It hasn’t been a full week, but it sure feels like it. What I’m noticing, though, is that my evenings have suddenly become – oh, 100% longer. Or so it feels. I’m reading more, writing more, and my dreams have been crazy vivid. Maybe it’s from not watching tv? I’m not sure…but there’s still a month to find out.

Today? I’ve read two novels. The Journeys of McGill Feighan – book one, Caverns, and book two, Reefs – by Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. There’s only four in the series, because I don’t think O’Donnell ever wrote the fifth one…it still shows as in progress on his SFF page. I read the books ages ago, in high school, and lost them when I moved to Alberta. But a couple of years ago, I managed to replace them after some diligent searching, and I like to pull ‘em out and re-read them.

I also spent a good part of the day revising stories for the manuscript. It’s getting close to being finished, I think…which is good, because the submission deadline for the Hudson Prize is approaching. And I read the newspaper. And now I’m going to go make some popcorn and watch a movie (but not TV). I’m trying to decide between Watchmen and Milk. Or maybe Being Julia.

Hope you all had a good Saturday, too!

Friday.

Thanks for all the enthusiasm and comments about the book…I appreciate it! The anthology looks really great – I’m going to start reading it this weekend, I think. The official launch is at the World Horror Convention in Brighton Beach (I won’t be there). There’s also a launch at the Ad Astra Con (can’t make it) and a signing at the World’s Biggest Bookstore in Toronto (can’t get time off work to go – gah!).

There may be a launch event in Calgary, though, and I’ll be there. Oh, I will be there. The anthology has contributions from across Canada, and so we’re trying to arrange launches and signings all over the place.

I’ll be blogging more about the book as we get closer to the official launch. You can pre-order it from Amazon and Chapters, though, and limited signed editions are selling online through the publisher’s site.

Um, please buy the book? We’re all hoping that it sells well and goes for a second print run!

(and if you’ve already pre-ordered…thank you, thank you, thank you!)

Oooo! Exciting!

Look! Look what I got in the mail today!

A big Amazon box.

And so I opened it…

…and found my pre-orderd copies of Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead.

Hurray! I’m on page 101. A nice, round number.

See?

Pretty darn exciting. What makes it even more exciting is that Tanya Huff is in this anthology, too…it was her work, when I was a pimpléd teenager, that really turned me on to fantasy and science fiction in the first place…I remember checking out Child of the Grove and The Last Wizard from the high school library. It opened the door to so many more works and authors for me. It feels pretty significant to see my work included in an anthology that features hers.

The publisher is sending contributor copies, of course, and offered discounted copies to us as well. But I’m such a dork that I wanted to open an Amazon box to find something that had my work inside.

Long day.

It’s Wednesday, yes? Why does it feel later in the week?

We woke up to snow this morning…wet, slushy, heavy snow. The pavement was more or less clear by the late afternoon, but I’m not loving the big slushy puddles. Not at all.

I think we’ve hit that midpoint in Calgary…when it’s not full on winter, but when we’re not even close to spring. It’s the season of slush.

Meanwhile, we’re in search of a small table to put beside a chair in the living room. We moved some of the furniture around, and now there’s an orphan chair – it’s just in the right place to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee and enjoy the view, but there’s nowhere to put the coffee. Horrors. Apparently, we are in search of a chair side or occasional table. They were once called cigarette tables, but no more.

We might have to break down and visit Ethan Allan. They seem to be the last refuge of fussy chair side tables in the world. We’re looking for the non-fussiest of the fussy tables. And we’d kind of like to avoid buying something made in China if we can help it.

The deer? Have nothing to do with today’s blog post. I’m using up pictures I took while I was at the Banff Centre. The raven pictures from a couple of days ago? Also no real significance. I was out for a walk and saw him hopping around, looking for things in the dirt. I am a fan of ravens, though, and I got some excellent pictures. And I didn’t end up with my eyes pecked out, which is a good thing.

Not much else to say about today. I’m going to try to give up tv for Lent (horrors!). Today? No morning news report (I had to look outside to figure out the weather). And…no Olympics. Horrors!

We’ll see how long I last.

The first Monday is the hardest. Especially when it’s Tuesday.

Can’t say much about the first day back to work after a vacation. I missed muffin o’clock. I ate a granola bar in the staff lunchroom, but it just wasn’t the same. I’ll try again tomorrow.

The Virginia Quarterly Review, bless ‘em, emailed some comments on the story that was rejected a couple of weeks ago. How nice is that? Looking at what the reader said, I’d have to agree with it…there were some flaws in the story that definitely need to be addressed, and I’m working on them now with my editor extraordinaire. We’re working on revising and editing the stories for the collection, and when I’m done, we’re going to work on the ordering. I had worked out a tentative order, but it’s still subject to change (and probably will change).

It’s helpful to get this kind of feedback – both from VQR and from the editorial view…in both cases, they’ve seen things I haven’t, or questioned gaps that I had filled in my head but neglected to write. This gap has been fairly consistent, from what I can tell, and now that I’m more aware of it being there, I can work to avoid it.

There was some discussion at the Banff Centre dinner table about workshops versus freelance editors. Workshops have their place, I agree – you get feedback, yes, but more importantly, you develop a network of writing friends and colleagues. But this freelance editorial experience has been valuable in a different sort of way. For one, Beverly has been focused on my work, and I haven’t had to look at another writer’s story…I’m only working on improving my work, with a clear intention of getting it ready to go to the publisher. For another, the hourly rate keeps me thinking about how to maximize my time – which is a very good thing indeed (but very much worth it – I highly recommend Beverly’s editorial services)! And you gain the benefit of an editor’s eye…something you might not find in a workshop group.

Both worthwhile, I think, but for very different reasons.

The little videos, by the way? Taken from the Brewster bus on the way home. It’s a little weird how much it seems like a train when I watch them. It was very foggy and damp on the way back, and I sat there with my New Yorker in my lap and read. I don’t seem to feel as carsick in the Brewster bus as I sometimes do in a car. Bonus.

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Monday.

Last day of vacation for me. I had a good – if somewhat whirlwind – week, and I wish I had more time off…I’ve got seven hours of vacation time left, and I’m going to save it for later in the year. I’m a bit surprised at how tired I’ve been since I came home. A sign that I was working hard while I was away, I suppose! Today is a holiday, so I’ve got the one more day of relaxing before heading back to my cubicle.

I’ve been pulling together an application for the Leighton Artists’ Colony at the Banff Centre, and it’ll be going out sometime soon. I’d really like to have a week or two in one of those studios and see what comes of it. The recommendation letters are on their way, and I’ll send the whole package off (and then keep my fingers crossed!). The nice thing about a writing residency – artists’ colony or otherwise – is that it seems to function as a rejuvenation…a reawakening of the love of the practice writing (of cramped fingers, sore necks, numb buttocks, smudged glasses, and tired eyes) and of the craft as a whole. And you can carry that with you for a long time – tending it carefully to sustain you throughout the year. It’s an experience I wish all writers could have…I know how inordinately lucky I am to have access to a place like the Banff Centre.

Now that I’m back, I’ve been working on revisions with an editor at Open Road Writing. It’s been enormously helpful – the feedback has been quite helpful, and I think the stories are stronger as a result.

I’ve made a couple of submissions to flash markets and a couple of short story submissions, too. I’ve never really worked in flash fiction, but it’s an interesting premise: very short pieces. Like Twitter for short stories, I guess. And I got a rejection from the Virginia Quarterly Review (darn it all!). It was one of the top tier ‘obvious merit’ rejections, so there’s at least some satisfaction there. One of these days, I’m going to crack their slush pile and get a short story in there. I swear. The day will come when Ted Genoways knows my writing. And publishes it. VQR and The New Yorker both.

Did you celebrate Valentine’s Day yesterday? Me, neither. I’m not opposed to the holiday in principle, but it’s a bit too sappy for a single girl like me. I settled down to watch Rushmore with the cats (and also some of the Olympics – the cats are fans of biathlon but not of moguls). And I read more of the 1919 O. Henry Prize stories – and also a bit of 1984. It’s back to my textbook reading after today, though!

Home again, home again.

Whew. What a great residency that was. I met a bunch of writers and poets, and we had some good meals together. You don’t starve at the Banff Centre. If anything, you leave perhaps a little heavier than when you arrived.

And those pictures were just from lunch.

I wrote. A lot. I imposed a television embargo on myself for the entire residency, and it worked well. I read in the evenings when I was finished writing, and I lingered at the dinner table to enjoy conversations. I went for walks. I wrote all day long – taking many breaks for coffee and the now-infamous muffin o’clock – and in the evenings, I’d sit and revise the day’s work. It’s not a pace I think I could keep up for long…I’m pretty wiped out from it today. But it’s a good feeling.

I used the Davidson Studio for a couple of days – it was fantastic.

It was very quiet, and quite spacious…and it had a baby grand piano inside. I wish I knew how to play the piano. Apparently Joni Mitchell played the piano once. Neat!

The studio backed out onto a ravine, with a good view of Sulphur Mountain. Around noon, I could see the flash of sunlight reflecting from the gondolas as they went up and down the mountain.

It was a fantastic space to work in.

And it had a secret! There’s a large wood panel that runs all along the inside of the studio…part of the structure, I think. On first blush, it didn’t look like anything much.

But on closer inspection, I discovered a line of pencils along one side of the studio.

I guess people have been leaving their nubby pencils behind – I have no idea how many residencies those pencils represent. But I’d like to imagine that it’s a lot of different musicians and writers. It’s quietly inspirational in its own way…something small left behind for other artists to discover. I think that it’s representative of the charm of the Banff Centre: you discover these small, unexpected treasures and stories.

I finished my manuscript in that studio. The funny thing is that it was started at the Banff Centre, several years ago, and worked on over several different residencies. It seems fitting that it was finished there, too. I was pretty excited by it.

And yes, I left my worn-down pencil lined up with all the others. I really like the idea of being a part of that tradition.

Gone home!

Whew. I’m home. I had a great time at the Banff Centre – lots of work finished in my studio.

And now I’m home.

Bags unpacked, laundry being done, and a cat in my lap. I’ll post more tomorrow – I’m all tired out!

So I finished the manuscript.

Well. I’ll post more tomorrow about my week, but for now, please enjoy the following video. Me. Finishing the last short story of my collection. And doing my obligatory chair dance.

Eh? Eh? Isn’t that the best chair dancing you’ve ever seen?

I have a feeling I’ve automatically made that song unpopular. You have some teenagers? You don’t like them singing that song? Show them the video of me chair dancing, and I guarantee they’ll never listen to that song again.

My glasses are smudged, my hair is askew, and I’ve been walking around with a pencil stuck in my hair.

Day four of the writing residency. I was up early this morning – I wanted to see the early morning sun on the mountains. Also, somebody on the fourth floor of Lloyd Hall had a case of the six a.m heaves, and it was quite quiet otherwise, so I was awake. I’m fine, thank goodness. But somebody was feeling poorly today. So it seemed like a good idea to just get up and get an early start to the day (I reported the six a.m heaver to Community Services today, just in case somebody is truly ill with something…I’d hate to think of somebody sick with a ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door – how on earth would you get crackers and ginger ale that way? Community Services said they’d check it out).

It is freaking beautiful here in the morning. Better than sunset.

Totally worth being up at the crack o’ dawn.

It feels a bit strange to say to people that I’m working on a collection, or that I’m finishing up a manuscript. But the truth of a writing residency is that you need to have a blurb ready – a short answer to the ‘what are you working on?’ question that doesn’t a) minimize the work, b) sound incomprehensible, c) make you sound like a self-aggrandizing dork. I’ve been saying that I’m pulling together a short story collection, and it still feels a bit scary-exciting to say that I’m finishing a manuscript. But I am. It’s exciting. I know it. I love it.

The work stress has melted away, too. I’m feeling pretty darn relaxed and content.

Nice, eh? I’m sleeping well, eating so well that I had to make a call to the Registrar to add money to my meal plan, and I think the quality of my writing right now is phenomenal (even though that makes me sound like a self-aggrandizing dork when I say it). But there’s an air to a place like the Banff Centre – a feeling that it’s okay to brag a bit about your work, to forget that you’ve got a regular day job and imagine what it would be like to be Alice Munro or Stephen King and just write all the time. And I feel okay with saying that my work is going really, really well.

I finished reading the 2009 Pen/O. Henry Prize stories, and I was looking through the comments from the writers and the judges. And this caught my eye…it’s from Anthony Doerr, on one of the prize selections:

If it works, a good short story can show us something thorny and sublime and fabulously complex beneath the text, something trembling behind the little black symbols on the white page, some truth we can only feebly grasp, as if we are peering
up at the stars through thin clouds.

Writing stories is not, despite appearances, about spending lots of time with oneself. It’s about learning to be able to look beyond the self, beyond the ego, to enter other lives and other worlds. It’s about honing one’s sense of empathy so that a story might bridge the gap between the personal and the communal.

Aha! says I. That’s what I should be trying for when I write short stories. It seems to encapsulate the experience of writing short fiction – or reading good short fiction. And I’m hoping that my short stories will someday come close to measuring up to that standard.

I’ve got one more full day of work ahead of me. I think I’ll be up early again. Work through the day. Have dinner in the dining centre, and then go to watch the opening ceremonies for the Olympics – the lounge on the second floor of Lloyd Hall has been booked for it, so they’ll be showing it on the big screen projector. A girl could even hope for popcorn. Then maybe work a little more, and then call it quits. Saturday morning will be for breakfast, for a walk, some journal writing, and maybe some reading if there’s time. And then it’s home.

But not quite yet. One more day of writing ahead of me. My glasses are smudged, my hair is askew, and I’ve been walking around with a pencil stuck in my hair. And it all feels pretty darn good.

Another good day.

It’s been a good writing day. I slept really well (somebody on the floor had set their alarm for 3am and somebody else sounded as though they were not feeling well at 6am, but I slept very well). I got up at a respectable hour and had a nice breakfast. Banff Centre scrambled eggs have magical propertiies, or so I’ve come to believe.

Stuart Ian McKay is staying in the boat studio – lucky! – and he invited me to come and visit him this morning. I dropped by and he read a poem.

I liked it. How often do you happen upon a poet in a boat in the woods? He doesn’t have a lisp, by the way – my camera does. He’s loving the Henriquez Studio…I can certainly understand why. It’s a magical little place, and he says that he’s getting a lot of work done.

Everybody is hard at work. Joni has declared that she is imposing a regime:

I have my own regime, but it’s not been committed to paper. I’ve been going for a walk after breakfast, getting pictures, and then I settle down to write. Then I go for coffee. Then I go back to writing. Then lunch. Then more writing. Then coffee. And then dinner, more writing, chamomile tea (to counteract the coffee), some reading, and bed. I wish I was always this disciplined.

There are a lot of self-directeds around right now – writers and poets working, like me, on their own projects without being attached to a group. Literary Arts got us together for lunch today – what a great idea! Seven of us at a table, laughing and squawking about the trials and tribulations of first drafts and wondering how we were all managing to deplete our meal plans so quickly…lots of fun!

There’s also been the discovery of muffin o’clock: the time of day when you find yourself bound and determined to find – and then consume – a muffin. I wish this had been my invention, but alas, no…it’s the invention of Nick Huchetson from Literary Arts, and the self-directeds appear to be adopting it with enthusiasm. He explained the concept at lunch.

There was a brief suggestion from the table that there be a sushi o’clock, but I don’t think it will carry.

I’ve only got two and a half days left here – I can’t quite believe that it’s already Wednesday. Seriously? How did that happen? I’m making good progress on the manuscript, though. Yesterday’s revisions on the short story were finished just before bed, and I’ve started a new story today.

I think I’ve got a good handle on the overall theme for the collection…the stories are all, essentially, about losing something (and in some cases, finding something). I’m trying hard to keep it from being too gloomy or maudlin, and I think I’ve managed to do that.

What I hadn’t expected, though, was how difficult it would be to put the stories in order. It’s not something I had really given much consideration to: the arrangement of short stories. But it needs to be decided.

I’m working out the order. That’s probably not the final arrangement – I think I need to decide if I’m going for a thematic arrangement, or if I want to try to group the stories according to gloominess or keep the like narratives with like…hard to know for sure.

It’s great to see it coming together, though, and I think the manuscript has a fighting chance.

I’m also seriously excited to be able to say that I’ve almost got an entire manuscript. How cool is that?

Conspire to inspire.

Day two of the residency, and it’s still going well. I’m on a quiet side of Lloyd Hall – tucked away in the corner. It’s very private feeling, and very conducive to working into the night…just what I was hoping for. I slept well, I was up early, and then I worked, and I worked, and I worked. It’s chilly, too, but not crazy cold. I went out for a walk this morning in hopes of seeing some deer or elk, but it was just me.

I spent my day working on that short story. I don’t have a printer, but the Community Services office will let you run down with a USB stick and print on their Xerox, and I was down there a couple times today to print of drafts. Double sided printing, too! It’s great. I think there’s a twenty-five page limit, but that might be in one go. If I manage to finish the stories for the collection before I leave, I think I can get printing done at the business centre (which would be better than feeding one page at a time to my little inkjet printer).

I think I might be close to finishing a short story, and with a little luck, I’ll put the last of the revisions to bed tonight and be ready to start something fresh in the morning. I’m still surprised at how well it’s going, and how quickly. Must be the Banff Centre rubbing off on me…it’s like everything has come together to conspire to inspire.

It’s so lovely and quiet. I don’t think I ever truly appreciate how much noise we get from the road at home until I’m here and listening to the wind in the trees.

At breakfast, I bumped into Joni again – she’s still working on revisions for her novel – and Stuart Ian McKay, a poet from Calgary. He’s staying in the Henriquez studio – the boat studio – and we spent some time rhapsodizing about how great the Leighton Studios are in general, and how great the boat is in particular. It’s been a year since I was in the boat, and I’m still giddy about it.

My residency this time around space is great, too. Self-directeds like me get a room that doubles as accommodation and work space, and it’s really very comfortable. Lots and lots of desk space and great lighting. I spent a good chunk of time working in the room today, but I’m starting to learn that it’s not such a bad idea to take your writing for a walk. There are so many nooks and crannies that are ideal for settling down to write. I did some work at the Kiln, which is a groovy little coffee shop in Donald Cameron. And this afternoon (and yesterday evening, and tonight after I finish this post), I wrote in the Gooseberry Deli and Juice Bar, which is in the Sally Borden building.

The dinner time conversation has been excellent, too. Last night, there was discussion about prosthetic theory – something I think I need to learn more about – and tonight, a really interesting discussion about the schism in popular and alternative music, circa 1967, which apparently has much to do with the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. And some musings on why poets are hypochondriacs (this from a poet) and about trusting in transcription of words and sound in the creative process. These are things I did not know; these are things I would not know unless I was here.

I’ve got three and a half more days of work ahead of me, and I’m feeling really optimistic about what I’ll be able to get done. One completed short story will be done by tonight. I just need to rework the ending a little and find a title, but there was something in our dinnertime conversation about trusting in the transcription of ideas that seemed to give me an idea, and I’m going to see what I can do with it.

Day two draws to a close. I’m looking forward to day three!

(and I still have not plugged the television in.)

(also – have a look at Boulder Pavement. It’s a new interdisciplinary arts magazine put out by the Banff Centre, and it’s a feast for the eyes. Some really great stuff there.)

Back where I want to be.

I had a couple of nice days’ wandering this weekend, but by last night, I was ready to get myself to the Banff Centre and get to work.

Jim sent the Banffmobile to come and get me, and I got myself settled, got myself a sandwich, and got to work.

I’ve got a great room here. I think it might be the room I had when I first came here – the view is vaguely familiar, and I seem to recall being on the fourth floor.

The Kinnear Centre is really shaping up, too – still a lot of construction, but the mud and muck from September is gone, and it’s beginning to look like a finished building.

This is my eighth residency here. Still can’t quite believe that. I’m only here for the week, and I think this will be a ‘pour it on’ residency. I’m working to finish a collection of short stories, and I’d like to have it pulled together in time to submit it for the Hudson Prize. And to do that, I need to finish a few more short stories, revise the heck out of them, and then figure out how they work with the others that I have ready.

I think I can do it.

I unplugged the television.

I can do it.

I managed to write a decent first draft of a short story today…which, actually, I find a little bit astonishing. Maybe the two days of chilaxing are going to help with the whole ‘pour it on’ plan? I managed to get it typed and then hustled down to Community Services to print it and then – because it wasn’t time for dinner and I’d unplugged the television – I sat and edited for an hour.

And then dinner. I met Joanie, who is here on her first residency, working on revisions on her first novel, and then we both met W.L, who is doing something with media and prosthetics and projections – sounded interesting. There’s at least one more writer here on a self-directed program, but I haven’t seen her yet. And I think the Alberta Writers’ Guild may be here, too. I think. I’m not sure.

It’s shaping up to be a good week.

Sunday.

A good day – met up with Chip and Linda to talk about university studies, and afterward,they took me for a scenic drive around Banff…places a tourist like me wouldn’t know about. It was breathtaking.

I forgot my camera.

I took some pictures with the Blackberry, though…when I get my antenna on some wifi, I’ll see if they’re any good.

I transfer up to the Banff Centre tomorrow morning – can’t wait. I’m ready to get to work.

Using the blackberry to blog – I’m all thumbs. Really.

I feel just a teensy bit guilty — most of the office was working an overtime shift today, even as I was on my way to Banff. On the other hand…I’m on vacation!

I’m officially chilaxing tonight and tomorrow…I’m not due at the Banff Centre until Monday. I wandered around all afternoon, shopping and looking at things. I even took one of the horse-drawn carriage ride (not enough snow for a sleigh ride).

I think I’m meeting up with Jim-from-the-Banff-Centre’s wife and daughter tomorrow to talk about her university options and applying, so maybe that will absolve my sin of overtime admission. His daughter is a great kid, too – lots of good things in her future, I’d say.

And I might go to the Whyte Musuem tomorrow. I visited the Indian Trading Post to buy myself a new pair of moccasins. Would post pictures but the hotel charges for internet (can you believe it? Ten dollars a day!) so I’m using the crackberry instead. Good thing for unlimited data plans. I have no idea how the kids manage to text each other all the time, by the way. I’m sitting on my hotel bed, squinting at the keyboard…feeling decidedly old and not very old-school.

Had a nice dinner and now I’m going to have a soak in the tub and curl up with a book. I’m reading the ’09 O Henry/Pen Prize stories…it’s a really great collection.

On Monday, I’ll be working on my own collection of short stories. I was going to give myself the weekend off writing, but I had a nice long time to think on the bus…suspect I may start writing tonight. I’m really looking forward to getting up to the Centre…this will be my eighth residency there, and the place feels so familiar and comfortable to me that it’s like visiting a good friend – the kind that makes your favourite food for supper and wants you to show them your vacation pictures and play chess with them. And doesn’t make you pay ten dollars a day for internet access, either.

Well. I think my vacation is officially launched!

Friday!

That’s it, suckers…I’m on vacation!!

Only for a week, but a week off in February can be a wonderful thing.

Thursday.

Creepster neighbour didn’t show up last night (hurray), but I’m keeping an eye out for her. The building manager is getting in touch with her family, I think, and hopefully that will take care of things.

Meanwhile? I’m still reading about client centered therapy (I’m ambivalent about it – don’t really love it, but I don’t really hate it) and thinking about my term paper. And looking very much forward to vacation…which starts on Saturday.

Just one more day!

Creepster neighbour is creepy.

I walked by the the front door last night and noticed all of the cats hunched in front of it and had a look out the peephole…and discovered the creepster neighbour hunched in front of the across-the-hall neighbour’s door, listening to them talking! I watched as she listening. Then she walked down the hall, came back, listened some more, and very quietly went into the emergency stairwell to leave…making sure she closed the door carefully so that it didn’t make any noise.

It was scary! Definitely shocking to look out and see her there. She wears a long black trenchcoat when she’s doing this, so when she walks away, it billows out behind her…I couldn’t help but think ‘OMG! OMG!’ when I saw her. I’m too creeped out to confront her: if she’s weird enough to be listening at doors, I think there’s an excellent chance that confronting her could be trouble.

So creepy.. When I tell the story, some people think she’s lonely and we should befriend her…but she’s essentially a peeping tom. She’s crazy. She’s scary. She doesn’t live on our floor, and there was nothing that would have caused her to come up here and listen to doors. The way the apartments are set up means that you can sometimes hear conversations when you walk by…and between us and the guy across the hall (and his girlfriend), I guess there’s enough conversation that she’s drawn to us. I bet she’s going around listening to a bunch of people.

I talked to the building management this morning, and they’re going to look into it. She’s been yelling at people in the lobby and was seen on security cameras gesturing to a mirror and dancing in the basement lobby (by herself) and generally acting strangely. Maybe she’s off her meds. Or in some stage of dementia.

Or maybe she’s a vampire.

SO. CREEPY.

I’m going to try to get her on camera this evening…it is SO FREAKING CREEPY that it must be documented.

Tuesday.

Blogger is discontinuing its FTP service, which means I’ll either have to figure out how to migrate or consider changing blogging platforms. A lot of people seem to be using WordPress…it looks nice. Maybe I’ll make the jump to them? At least it will be a while before I have to decide what to do.

On another aggravating note, I got a new cell phone. A new Blackberry, actually…I upgraded from my clunky one to a Blackberry Curve. It’s all very nice, but I’m still trying to figure out how to install Twitter and get my Gmail on it. I swear, the phone is self aware. When I finally got it activated – after calling the phone company and talking to a ten year old (or what sounded like one) about what rate plan I’m supposed to pick – the phone flashed this little message saying I was committed.

Oh, boy.

It probably wants to start talking seriously about having a cell phone family.

The little cell phone that called wolf.

The only excitement of the day came with the ride home…I pulled my cell phone out of my bag to check my email and noticed it was making a call. Weird, right? I cancelled the call, and then a few minutes later, the 911 operator called me back.

ACK!

They were nice about it – wanted to know if I was safe and could talk, and I apologized about a dozen times, but I had no idea my phone could do such a thing. The emergency call feature was activated, and besides calling the fuzz it flipped the GPS tracker on.

When I came home, I googled to see if I could turn the emergency call thing off, but apparently not. I’ll start putting it on standby mode from now on, because it seems the cell phone and I have wildly different ideas about what constitutes an emergency.