AUGUST 17, 2018

I’m writing today (as I am almost every day, as my friends will attest) as the month turns the last corner before I return back to work.  It’s been a hot summer this year, which has made it hard to sit at the computer and ruminate on my sentences and figure out my plots. Rather than stew in my own sweat at my desk this summer, I often had to escape my apartment and seek either shade or air conditioning to get through. I had big plans for a concept I’d hatched of a loosely related series of short stories concerning a blues/country/rock band that tours the northern circuit; really a device in which to illustrate what it means to be Canadian and a northerner, with all the issues of racism, unemployment, identity, plus the trappings of playing in a mediocre touring band.  I was set afire this winter when I came up with the concept, planning to go up Highway 11 to explore the hamlets in the North, visit little shindigs along the way and hopefully talk to people who had carved out an existence up there. Alas, money had to be diverted and health problems arised and my plans were scaled down considerably. Best I could do this summer was come up with a couple entries for my travel blog: The Drive Between The Lines during some family visits to Toronto and Kingston. In retrospect, these were good things too. I reunited with my siblings and came out with some interesting things to write about as well. No regrets.

That said, though things have not quite worked out as planned for me this summer, things are still moving ahead at a good pace.

I participated in the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair, put on by the busiest man I know, Rob Mclennan this June and did manage to sell some copies of my book.  Look for postings coming up for the autumn installment of the Small Press fair, to take place at the Jack Purcell Centre in November.



I spent every Friday in the month of July at the Byward Author’s Market in downtown Ottawa and had the grace of meeting some great independent writers and managed to sell, again, a few of my books.  I made the rounds to different shops in Ottawa to sell Temperance Ave., and they are still available if you want to visit them (The Barely Bruised Book Club, Books on Beechwood, Perfect Books and Troubadour Books and Music).  I also did a reading at the Barely Bruised Book Club on Willbrod in Sandy Hill and again, met some great poets and had a great time sharing stories and ideas.


My focus lately has turned to carrying through on some ideas that were already in progress.  One project I have on the go is a series of short stories using obscure words as writing prompts that I had tentatively entitled Holophrasis.  One particular word I am exploring is the word eukarya, which is the scientific name for all forms of life whose cellular makeup features a single nucleus containing their genetic makeup, which actually represents every animal, and plant in the world, including us as human beings. (you may notice that I love using scientific concepts in my writing)  This concept is interesting to me because that means that almost every living thing on Earth has a common ancestor; a single celled Eukarya, from which nearly all life has sprung, plants, fungi, animal and PEOPLE.

The story I’m thinking of has to do with global unity and diversity: two concepts that really shouldn’t match, but actually do- if I present my argument right in this story… stay tuned…

… and speaking of ellipsis, there is another story I am working on about a road in Ottawa that seemingly goes on forever.  Most rural areas will have a road that seems to show up at intersections many miles apart, bringing into question where it actually goes and where it ends.  In Ottawa, there is such a road and I’ve always been curious where it led, so I concocted a story of a man who has an encounter on one particular stretch of that road, then ends up eternally curious, though he has left the event buried in his past all his life.  I explore that curiosity and touch on the themes of regret, omission, memory and change.

Yeah, I like my lofty topics.

Lastly, I have a very dear friend looking over and editing the manuscript for my short story collection; Virtus, and soon I will be shooting it out across the country in search of a publisher.  It’s always a long road from conception to publication, but it’s always worth it, no matter where the road turns and no matter where it ends...