I woke up at about 8 AM yesterday but it wouldn't take and I crashed until 2:30. When I woke up I watched Roman Holiday with Kim and the last two minutes or so were cut from the TiVO recording. That final Gregory Peck/Audrey Hepburn exchange of witticisms is now something I must search out. It's a pretty great film that would probably drive me nuts if it were released today with different actors, but that's Hollywood's golden age for you.

I took some time and started reading Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway, the book that Antanas gave me, which also contains some essays and short stories by various writers. I couldn't help but nod at some of the early descriptions of the writing process and the psychology of the writer, put in ways I'd never heard before and read as very apt descriptions of my personality, like this one from Anne Lamott:

What I've learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head...Quieting these voices is at least half the battle I fight daily. But this is better than it used to be. It used to be 87 percent. Left to its own devices, my mind spends much of its time having conversations with people who aren't there. I walk along defending myself to people, or exchanging repartee with them, or rationalizing my behaviour, or seducing them with gossip, or pretending I'm on their TV talk show or whatever. I speed or run an aging yellow light or don't come to a full stop, and one nanosecond later am explaining to imaginary cops exactly why I had to do what I did, or insisting that I did not in fact do it.

It's bits and pieces like that that I wholly identify with. I'm convinced that the "voices" I hear (which aren't really voices, but very vivid memories of emotion) are not schizophrenia but my analytical mind overtaxing itself, pushed along by feelings like guilt, anger, happiness, and sadness. An experience resonates and I play it over and over in my mind and sometimes actually physically cringe or react at the thought of it. But to me, this is what it's like being a writer. It's taking a moment and making it real, bringing it to the present so that I can apply my own narrative to it and calm the voices down. The problem over the last year or so is that I haven't recognized this at all. I should be writing about these thoughts, not thinking about them over and over. Being a writer doesn't just mean that you write; it means that you experience the world in a very unique way, and each writer has his/her own methods of coming to terms with that experience.

I finished Richard Bausch's Peace and read some more of Life of Pi. I went for a walk a bit later in the day. It was raining outside and I was carrying an umbrella with two broken metal arms, listening to Death Cab For Cutie and Coldplay. I walked up High Park to Dundas and turned to walk south down Keele, the old stomping grounds. For awhile my back and leg didn't hurt at all. I walked by the old site of Gwendolyn MacEwen's childhood home and turned back towards Matt and Kim's place. When Matt got home we cracked open a couple of beers, ordered vegetarian pizza and watched Land of the Dead.

I'm heading home tomorrow. I miss Andrea tons.

Last night a zombie menstruated on me, but I'll get to that in a bit.

Joe's group met for the final time yesterday. We went over the final revisions and exercises. There was a kid in the group named Dan who has cerebral palsy and who received some bad news during the class about his friend, who apparently had a serious accident on a construction site. It prompted some discussion about how great Dan is to be doing what he's doing in the condition that he's in. The guy is really decent, a big fan of music, and he writes columns for a local Toronto indie mag called Tambourine (including a rather scathing one about Econoline Crush reforming. Yikes.). My group was solid on the whole. Nice people. And it's been a pleasure to talk with some older people this past week. I don't have a lot of them in my life and their advice has been well taken. I told this woman Sharon yesterday that I worry sometimes about the way I keep starting things over, and she told me to look at it as a continuation instead of a series of brand new decisions. That sounds simple, but it's a pretty damn good point.

I was awarded a photo of Joe and I for my service as an assistant. It looks really nice and I'm going to hang it up in the new place as a reminder of what I've learned and felt this past week. I also found the bravery to make the rounds and had all of my books signed. The authors, of course, were all gracious and encouraging, especially Wayson, who asked me how long I'd been a writer and wrote me some words of encouragement in my copy of All That Matters: "To David, whose words will matter. Love has no rules. Write on!" Very nice. Back at the office I helped out with some agenda packaging and Antanas Sileika, author and artistic director of the Humber writers program, lent me a copy of an expensive book about writing that he swears by and told me I could hang on to it for a couple of months. It's been a solid week and I think I've formed some relationships that will be very beneficial to me as both a writer and a person.

Okay. Menstruating zombies. Kim and I met Matt after work and we went for burritos at Burrito Boyz, a tiny, cramped order-and-go place near Peter and Richmond. It felt nice standing in that restaurant, I Mother Earth and Our Lady Peace playing on the sound system, where all I had was time and the impression that a new memory was forming. We scarfed down our burritos and then changed clothes in a Tim Hortons. For over a week Matt had been hinting at some Friday night activity that I needed old pants for. It turned out that he had purchased tickets to Evil Dead: The Musical, right in the "splatter zone," aka the second of three rows towards the front of the stage that are bathed in fake blood over the course of the production. He picked up cheap, white undershirts for us to wear. The production was a RIOT, especially since we were both so familiar with the films. The second act started up without any real kind of mess, but sure enough things turned into an all-out gore fest once Ash started slaughtering Candarian demons. One of the demons started bleeding out of her vagina in a picture perfect arc onto the crowd, and it hit me for a good five seconds. Blood rained out of the ceiling, it was spit in people's faces and squeezed out of beating hearts and shot out of pulsating neck wounds. Kim took some pictures afterwards and I'll try and get one or two up. We took transit home and I looked like I had a pretty bad head wound with trickles of blood running down my face. It was messy and awesome and must be experienced.

After we got back to the apartment we sat on the balcony and had a couple of beers before bed. I finally have a day off. I'm going to get some writing and reading done and hopefully take a nostalgic stroll up Keele Street.

David,

You are a very accomplished writer, and these linked stories, especially the first one, are dazzling. They are sensitive, often lyrical (but never overly), and together they begin to paint a portrait of a wonderful, magnetic woman. Sometimes I think you forget your place, especially in the third installment here (because the boy, albeit an old soul, speaks a language unsuited to him). But you have a great book going here. We'll talk. Bravo.

Joe Kertes

I had pieces of my novel given the once over yesterday and received some healthy feedback. Most importantly, perhaps, I received suggestions for a lot of reading material. In addition to picking up titles by various authors involved with the workshops, I placed an order at Amazon for a bunch of books that should arrive next week.

I made revisions last night to the entire thing and I think it sounds a lot better. I'm meeting with Joe today for a half hour. Yesterday I asked for advice about writing consistently, and he said to just do it, to carve out time during the day for writing, reading and living. I realized that I really have no excuse not to do this. Once I work into a routine, I'll get to the point where it feels natural, kind of like writing in this blog. Joe also mentioned that after awhile, your characters will begin to take on a life of their own, and it's as if they start talking to you and making demands on the kind of people they are and the decisions they'd make. It all sounds great.

I went on my own for lunch to do some editing because I knew I'd be working on revisions in the evening. Olive Senior, Bruce Jay Friedman and Paul Quarrington gave talks in the afternoon, the latter two about writing for television and film. I asked Paul about his thoughts on Bill C-10. I doubt there was a person sitting in the room who supported it, but it was nice to hear it reaffirmed that it's bullshit (removing tax credits for films that are deemed "inoffensive" by the Heritage Minister).

I'd really like to make the rounds for autographs, but I'm intimidated as all hell to do so, especially when I think about approaching guys like Bausch, who seems like a grizzly bear you don't want to provoke. It's actually just kind of nice to hang out with these people and view them in their natural social environment. Too many animal comparisons. Alistair MacLeod, the man, is giving a reading today. These next couple of days should be quick.

I feel a bit bad because Matt has been working an insane amount this week, and now it looks like he'll be working through the weekend. We won't get to spend much time together. More than anything I hate to see the guy wear himself out.

Yesterday was pretty intense. Long story short, I'm actually IN the class I'm assisting now. Joe told me that a student dropped out and asked if I had any material I might want to workshop, and I said that I might, so I'm bringing in pages from the book I attempted to write for NaNoWriMo back in 2006. I haven't looked at that story in months. I read through it last night and didn't recall writing most of it, powering through coffee and tuna sandwiches at the Elgin Street Diner. In a lot of ways that worked tapped me of output. It's the longest piece of writing I've ever produced, it's unfinished, and now it's suddenly back in my life.

To top it off, I have to read through two 15-page manuscripts a night and make notes for the other students. Midway through the week I have to take the comments on my work and apply them to a rewrite to workshop at the end of the week. It's going to be a much busier time than I thought it would, but I'm suddenly in quite the place of privilege.

Yesterday I watched talks delivered by professional editors on the kind of work that gets published and marketed in Canada (read: next to nothing). The group also heard from a very engaging Richard Scrimger on finding your inner child when you're writing as well as Richard Bausch, who I'd ask to sign my book if he didn't intimidate the fuck out of me. He offered ten commandments for being a writer, the last of which demanded that the first nine be ignored if they interfere with the process.

I met Paul Quarrington, who seemed very funny, and told him that I loved Whale Music. I've been talking with some really interesting people about writing. Well, listening, mostly. I've picking up some helpful advice and I'm starting to believe that this dry spell I'm going through is far more common than I thought. It will be interesting to see what else comes from the classes this week.

Matt, Kim and I ordered pizza and watched 24 Hour Party People. I stayed up until 1 AM fretting.