What Really Matters

The Madman of Moscow has invaded Ukraine (again!) and dares anyone to try to stop him. “I’ll nuke you—I swear I will!” Putin has spent the last ten years trying to persuade the world he is just mad enough to think Russia, or anyone, can win a nuclear war. He’s probably bluffing now, but who wants to take the risk? The West responds with severe sanctions—let’s take their money! Hey, it sort of worked with people in convoys, why not try it on people in armoured columns?

The funniest gesture of support—if anything can be funny today—is the demand from Mr. Obvious, Jason Kenney, Premier of (oil rich) Alberta to immediately block all oil and gas exports from Russia. Are we really supposed to believe he’s thinking about the Ukraine’s interest right now?

Meanwhile, every one and their dog (yes, I know of dogs that have Twitter accounts) is lashing out on social media demanding that something be done. I suspect even Russian bots have been caught up in the frenzy, though the right-wing of the Republican Party seems dubious as to whom they should support. Let me help you. When Ronald Reagan said: “Tear down that wall!” he was speaking to a Russian leader (and, indirectly Vlad Putin who was head of the KGB in East Berlin at the time).

You might think I am adding to the wave of condemnation by blogging today. I am not. Of course, I condemn the Russian invasion and worry that one wrong move by someone—who knows who—will bring about nuclear Armageddon, just when I got used to the reality of the much longer slower extinction promised by climate change. However, I know that absolutely nothing I write here or on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Reddit or whatever other popular or unpopular social media site exists will slow a single tank from rolling into Ukraine or prevent a single Ukrainian soldier from firing an anti-tank missile at said tank. Taking Putin’s money may seem far removed from the immediacy of an angry tweet, but it probably will work in the long run—if there is a long run.

The sole purpose of social media is to provide an outlet for outrage, the comfort of cat pictures and the proliferation of clever comments by me. Oh, yeah, and to make oodles more cash for the people who own them. Don’t believe me? Then why does J. K. Rowling still make more money annually than almost any other author despite a years-long social media campaign against her? I’m sure someone will explain it to me at great length and in high dudgeon. Save it, it doesn’t really matter.

So, what does? I’m getting to that.

One might think that the invocation and termination of the Emergencies Act, given that I was living in the centre of the emergency in question, would be a matter of great import to me. Sort of. I had no doubt that the Act needed to be invoked. Nothing else was stopping the torment and if it was an overreach, who cares? It got the job done and, surprise, surprise, it was used exactly as advertised, in a focused, geographically limited way, respecting Charter rights and ending when it was no longer needed. A tool was taken out of the tool box, used to fix what was broken and then put away again.

It’s true that things might have been solved using existing laws (by the way, the Emergencies Act is an “existing law” and has been since 1988) but the Ottawa Police, recently criticized for its brutality and tasked to do better, was slow to respond forcefully either because of being surprised or unprepared or too mellow. One can say they should have done things differently but, my friends, hindsight has always been and always will be, more accurate than foresight. Some speculate that the response might have been quicker if it had been indigenous or black protesters, and, given our history, it is not an unreasonable speculation, but it is still unproveable as speculations about alterative histories always are. Besides, should we really criticize the police for acting in a limited and proportionate way? Now, we can point to Ottawa in the future and say to them—see, that’s how it’s done.

By the way, the use of existing laws would have required the Premier of Ontario to step up. While he made a few tut-tut remarks he did little else. Even after the state of emergency was called in Ontario (and where was the Conservative outrage at that?), he did almost nothing, leaving it up to municipalities to do the heavy lifting. At least, he had the guts, unlike his conservative counterparts in Parliament or Alberta, to speak out against the damage the blockades were doing and to distance himself from Randy Hillier and even his own daughter.

Meanwhile, two conservative Senators demonstrated clearly why patronage appointments to the Upper House are a bad idea. One in a drunken rant, denigrated the people of Ottawa and his own wife (he subsequently sort of apologized for his remarks which he didn’t know would actually become public). The other described the convoy members as kindly and patriotic, which given the stated goal of some of them to overthrow the elected government and hang the Prime Minister, suggests either complicity or stupidity.

Not that I care. They will eventually turn 75 and retire and be forgotten. If Putin doesn’t kill us all first. Meanwhile Jason Kenney says anyone who supported the Act must now feel humiliated. Ha! Not me! Dear Jason, I know it’s been tough being dumped on from all sides, but projecting your feelings on others is a sign of mental disorder. Seek help.

Of course, I’ve seen on Twitter and Facebook claims that the expressed outrage of Canadians made Trudeau back down. What utter nonsense. If he didn’t blink at a bunch of yahoos, blowing horns and threatening mayhem, if he consulted the Premiers and said this is what I’m doing no matter what you think, if he stood up to being yelled and insulted by the chattering right wing,  if he did all that, do you think he even read your posts? No, what he read was the riot act. To be fair he also read the polls which showed that 57% of Canadians were for his action and 30% were against and most of those 30% were supporters of the Conservative party or the far right PPC. BTW, how could 13% of Canadians have no opinion on this?

But that doesn’t really matter.

It is increasingly clear to me that we will not have a federal election for two or maybe three years, by which time Premiers Kenney and Ford may well be in retirement (though like their mentor, Steven Harper, still stretching out their dead hands to try to influence current events). The federal Conservative Party may find a leader who can lead rather than being jerked from pillar to post by internal factions and external polls, or more hopefully, will have once again split in two. It would be lovely to have the right once again as divided as the left. Infinite diversity through infinite combination, I say (as long as none of those combinations involve conservatives).

Not that it really matters. Putin is going to kill us all next week and, if he doesn’t, the coming US civil war will do the job and, if not that, the desperation of a diminished China which is on the demographic road to have the oldest population in the world within a decade or two is in the running, or maybe our old friend, climate change, will still have a shot, or a planet-killing asteroid will strike or an evil AI will lead us all into the Metaverse, I mean, the Matrix and turn us into a power supply. Or Elon Musk will take us all to Mars to die in the cold dusty vacuum of a dead planet.

Or maybe we’ll all just get old, get cancer or dementia, and die anyway. Certainly, in a hundred years, every one I know and all their children will be dead. I suppose immortality is always an option. If they actually get fusion power to work, we can start saying immortality is just ten years away and always will be. Too late for me in any case.

But that doesn’t matter, either.

Are you depressed yet? Because I’m not. I’m increasingly at peace and I’m happy to be there. I intend to become more peaceful. No, I’m not dying, nor am I becoming a Buddhist monk or going to live in a medieval village in the woods of northern Ontario.

I am entering a new stage of life, the final one. This has been slow to dawn on me. I retired from my day job but kept being a publisher, retired from publishing but remained a freelance editor, retired from editing but continue to write. I will likely continue to write but I may retire from being a writer—the jury is still out on that one.

Last year, I published two mystery novels but, to be honest, they were written several years before that. I’ve been plugging away at a third, currently writing 500 to 700 words most days. I may write a fourth or I may not. I’m still completing a couple of contracts and am enjoying the work but I won’t take on another job. I really don’t need either the money or the effort.

This January, I started up this blog again after five years of relative inactivity. I wanted to see if I could build an audience again and I did (thanks, ironically, due to the convoy). I’ve had as many readers this year as I did in all of 2016 when I was last really active. In a week or two, I could surpass 2014 and even my glory year of 2015 is within reach, it I were to keep at it day after day.

But I won’t.

For an avowed socialist, I’ve always cared too much about money. Maybe it was because I grew up poor in a household that believed in work. Maybe it’s because I started making my own money at 13 and found how liberating it was in a society where it sometimes seems you are only as valuable as the things you own I don’t know, but now that I have enough (though not much more than enough) to live comfortably, to buy books and give to charity, and maybe, pandemics and my inevitable declining strength willing, to travel a bit, more money seems pointless.

I sold two stories this year (yippee!); the income will pay for a dinner out but not in the best restaurant in town. My last story out to market was rejected today. I may send it and the half dozen others in the inventory out again—it costs nothing, not even much time–or I may not. I still have story ideas but I only have written one piece of fiction (other than the novel) since last August and I’m not happy enough with it to do the needed re-writes.

I had a new idea yesterday and it may get written but only because it interests and challenges me, not because I think it might interest you. Writing now has become personal; I am writing for myself rather than any potential audience. I want to play, to explore and experiment, to delve deep into language for its own sake and for mine. None of that requires more than a reader or two.

I guess what I’m saying is that I no longer need to talk to the world even as I grow more and more interested in listening to it, not through social media, but through thoughtful analysis, through books and art, through history and the discovery of place and human difference. I need to think more and speak less and be present for my wife, my family and my closest friends.

I recently read that we really only have deeply intimate connections to at most a dozen people, most of us only four or five. Think of that, all this effort to have five thousand friends on Facebook or a hundred thousand followers on Twitter will never mean what we want it to mean, it will never replace those intimate partners that make our life worth living and whom we could lose through neglect or in the endless noise of the world. (Of course, I want you to know that you are all my closest intimate friends!)

Is this good bye? Oh, I don’t think so. As the old man said as they carried him to the plague wagon: I’m not dead yet. But I will be quieter, less present on social media and more present in my life. My writing may appear from time to time, though I expect more and more it will be shared with a limited circle or kept to myself as befits a personal pastime.

For those who have become addicted to my daily blogs, for god’s sake, get a life! I’ll still be around on those days I have something to say but that won’t be every day. I’m not sure if it will even be every week. Or month.

If you miss my writing, you can always buy one of my books. They are easy to find, just google my name, I seem to be smeared all over the Internet.

Not that it matters if you do.

Photo by Javardh on Unsplash

Things I Learned (and Gained) from Bundoran Press, 4th and last Part

Lots of good things happened during the eight years I was running Bundoran Press.

Let me talk for a minute about Mike Rimar. I had met Mike at a con or two in passing but I was surprised when he came up to me and asked if he could invest in Bundoran Press. I sort of laughed and said there were a lot better places to invest his money – in fact most places were better. He insisted, said it was something he really wanted to do and, then he repeated it when we were both sober. His persistence and humour both impressed me so I asked if he wanted to buy part of the company and be a partner. At least, that way, he’d get a title in exchange for his cash. Which is how Mike Rimar became a partner in The Press.

Mike did his share of the heavy lifting – literally when it came to moving boxes of books but in a lot of other ways, too. He manned the table and proved a surprisingly good salesman. He produced our book videos as well as a series of interviews as Bobby Bundoran. When I asked him to go outside his comfort zone and speak at book launches, he stepped up to the mike (or mostly just shouted since we usually didn’t have a sound system).

We eventually edited two anthologies together: Second Contacts and Lazarus Risen. It was an interesting process. We agreed on an evaluation system before we even saw a story using a rubric which measured both the quality of the writing and story-telling and the adherence to the anthology’s theme. We evaluated every story separately and then averaged the ratings (which were sometimes quite divergent). That made it pretty easy to identify the “must have” and the “no way” stories. As for the ones in the middle, we reduced conflict by giving each editor an “editor’s choice” option for one story per anthology. It must have worked – both anthologies were nominated for Auroras and Second Contacts won, so Mike got a title and an award for his money. Plus my undying friendship.

Mike wasn’t the only one who stepped up to help the Press. We had a number of people who gave money on a monthly basis through our Patreon account and many more who contributed to the four fund-raising campaigns we conducted for our anthologies through Indiegogo. I was never short of people who would volunteer to help us at conventions, whether it was working at the table or helping to set up launches or clean up after parties. I had several people take on small projects as interns in exchange for recognition and a modest honorarium. I tried to make sure that the latter matched the former and always refused offers of more substantial work if I couldn’t afford to pay.

Lessons learned: Work hard and with integrity and help will arrive in unexpected forms from unexpected places. Accept it graciously but never assume it is owed to you.

It is a common theme that you need to have book reviews and ratings on Amazon to sell books. I suspect this idea is mostly spread by book reviewers, book publications, Goodreads and of course Amazon itself. The evidence that either make a difference is scanty.

The best-selling book we published had exactly one rating on Amazon and it was 1-star. We had several books reviewed in places like Quill and Quire and Publisher’s Weekly as well as some moderately popular reviewing blogs. Some were positive, some less so but none seemed to increase or diminish sales in the weeks or months after they appeared. The one real study of reviews, done some years ago, suggest that the only thing that matters is if the review appears in a prestigious and widely read source like the New York Review of Books where even a negative review will generate book sales (so few books get reviewed there that the assumption is that the book must be noteworthy even if the reviewer didn’t like it).

Of course, we did promote any reviews we did get, at least we did if they were positive because it couldn’t hurt and even if we only sold a few more books as a result, it was a plus. And the good reviews made the authors happy – a bonus to make up for the limited money they got.

On a seemingly unrelated note, I was always gratified when a book or story I had rejected found a home with another publisher. Two of the fantasies for which I had reverted rights got published in new editions by others. Two books that had come close to being offered contracts before I decided they weren’t right for Bundoran wound up with other houses. I also know of 4 or 5 stories, rejected for our anthologies that subsequently sold to good markets.

Lessons learned: Not every book is for every person or every publisher. As long as you believe in your work, you’ll find your audience eventually.

It is important to know that a publishing house is not one person or even a team of three and a few volunteers. Virginia O’Dine, the original publisher of the press, remained under contract to design our books and provided excellent work at a reasonable price (I suspected a family and friend discount but never asked). Whenever I wanted a specific design option, she always found a way to accommodate my requests.

Dan O’Driscoll had been the artist for my three novels published under Virginia’s management and he became the house artist for all our books, demonstrating a range of styles and techniques. Dan always read the entire book before creating the cover art, bringing his own vision to bear while still being open to suggestions from me or the author. He was recognized by winning a number of Aurora Awards

Ryan McFadden maintained our website for years and produced our ebooks as well. I eventually learned how to do the former but he did the latter right until the end (which were his own two novels, The Venusian Job and the ironically titled Corona Burning, which went to the printers just before COVID was a thing).

All three remain my friends and I trust they always will.

But what about my third partner? You mean, my partner for life, my support and foundation? Well, Liz was there by my side for the entire journey, giving sage advice (which I sometimes took) and endless unconditional support. She worked at the tables, charmed everyone in sight, read slush and proofread manuscripts for publication, helped with my sometimes-crazy marketing schemes, calmed me down when I was doing the books and generally made it possible for me to keep Bundoran Press together for eight years. We survived, no thrived, during all that and COVID, too. We even managed to write a few stories together so it must be the real thing. Now, on to the next adventure.

Lessons learned: Follow your heart and do what you love. You may not get rich but you might well make memories and friends that will enrich your life.

One final note. Nothing will ever make you happier that the look on an author’s face when you hand them the first copy of their book.

Photo by Natalie Pedigo on Unsplash

Books That Changed My Life (at least a little)

I sometimes think I’ve spent more waking time reading than almost any other single activity. I apparently taught myself to read at the tender age of 4, though no one is quite sure how I did it. The next-door neighbour discovered my ability while trying to give his daughter a head start at school and asked my parents what method of instruction they used. It was the first they heard of it.

After that, I read everything I could get my hands on, finishing all the textbooks at school during the first week and then searching for more. At 12, I was reading a dozen books a week, sometimes as many as 3 a day. When I was fourteen, my father found me reading in my room on a beautiful sunny summer day. He told me to go out and get some fresh air. When he returned. I was in a lawn chair with a stack of books by my side. Not that my parents didn’t feed my habit eagerly; books were the standard present for any occasion.

All that early reading, especially science fiction, certainly impacted me (I haven’t included SF in this list as I blogged about that earlier). I decided to become a scientist, an ambition that saw me through a B.Sc. in Chemistry. Reading also affected me in the opposite direction. Reading the Bible cover to cover, twice by the time I was 14, convinced me that religion was a happy illusion and made me a lifelong atheist.

Once I started university at 17, my reading slowed down but was now both my work and my leisure. Before the parties started or after they were done you would find me with my nose in a book (sometimes even while the party was going on). The twenty books that follow changed my perspective and gradually helped make me who I am today. Some I read before I was twenty but others I discovered only a few years ago.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn

I read this during my scend year at Mount Allison University while taking a philosophy of science course. I was still intending to become a chemist but this was the first time I really thought about what it meant to be a scientist. While some of Kuhn’s arguments have been questioned, the book (first published in 1962, though I read the 1970 second edition) is still considered a landmark in the field. Worth reading even as some begin to question if the scientific method is still valid in the face of blackbox AI.

The Divided Self by R. D. Laing

Although originally written as an explanation of mental illness, this book became a key text in social psychology, especially as regards the nature of the personality. Laing described how each person might have several personas designed to deal with specific aspects of life, especially those they found troubling. Other theorists and researchers extended his work to ask if there was really anyone behind the masks at all. The construction of the self in relationship to others was fascinating to me and is what drew me away from chemistry toward sociology and political science.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

I wasn’t reading a lot of fiction during my university years but I came across this novel in a used book store. I had had a childhood fascination with Africa, inspired by nature documentaries and Tarzan movies in equal measure, but this was the first book of serious literature written by an African I read. I was captivated by Achebe’s writing and eventually read all of his novels as well as novels, stories and poems by writers from all across the African continent. I also began to listen widely to African music, both traditional and modern. A lifetime dream was fulfilled when I spent 5 weeks in Tanzania and South Africa. I still hope to go back and visit Achebe’s homeland in Nigeria.

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Another novel I discovered in my university days, A Farewell to Arms became my favorite Hemingway novel (the only book I’ve read 6 times) and made me a lifelong fan of his books. I also became captivated by his complicated life story, leading me to eventually read a half dozen bios. Even 60 years after his suicide, new books come out every year or two, either of his unfinished novels or different takes on his life. You can be sure I grab every one.

Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 by Karl Marx

This was not the first work of Marx that I came across in my studies of social and political thought but they were the ones that had the biggest impact on my thinking. Less polemical than the Communist Manifesto and less ponderous than the 3 Volumes of Das Capital (I mean, really, who gets past volume 1?), the manuscripts provide all you really need to know in order to apply Marxist critical theory to any number of topics. These essays led me to Marcuse and Habermas and, eventually, Foucault and down many an exciting rabbit hole, before my thinking settled into a less radical approach.

The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conon Doyle

Somewhere in here, I began reading Sherlock Holmes stories and by my mid-twenties had read all the original stories and novels. Over time reading mysteries became as big a part of my life as science fiction (and they supplanted fantasy altogether). The SF novels I wrote were all generally mysteries as well and recently I’ve branched off into pure historical mysteries. But it all started with Doyle.

The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino

This was my introduction to the strange, yet deeply authentic, world of Calvino. It’s a simple story of a boy who decided he no longer wanted contact with the earth or earthly things and climbed up into a tree where he remained for the rest of his life. Being a baron, he could manage it quite easily, with servants to do his bidding. Bridges were built to other trees and soon he ruled an arboreal kingdom. But, of course, time passed and “civilization” encroached and his world shrank, though he remained sanguine. Calvino made me realize that the fantastical could also be deeply realistic and a powerful tool to pry away the illusions and hypocrisies of the world. It was the failure of most other fantasy to do the same that gradually led me to stop reading the genre.

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

This was a tough book for me to wrap my head around and, in fact, I read the first hundred pages and decided it wasn’t for me. I picked it up two years later, began at the beginning and finished it in a week. Something had changed and obviously it wasn’t the book. This is the book that taught me that literature could be playful while also being deadly serious. It’s something I’ve always tried to keep in mind in my own writing—though I never achieved the mastery of Mr. Rushdie. Midnight’s Children not only won the Booker Prize but was also named the Booker of the Bookers on the 25^th anniversary of the prize. It led me to routinely read Booker winners.

Hemingway: A Life Story by Carlos Baker

By the time I read Baker’s critical analysis of Hemingway’s life and work, I had already read most of the author’s books and a couple of biographies as well. This is the one that tied it all together for me, making sense of the passions and obsessions of the writer living in a constantly shifting personal and wider world. It helped me understand that great works can come from flawed vessels, that one success does not lead automatically to another and that artists, perhaps more so than most of us, are complex, contradictory and sometimes cruel.

Morality Play by Barry Unsworth

The mid-90s were an important period for me as I was working as both a writer and an educator and experiencing lots of changes in my personal life. The next few books came in rapid succession—both in publication date and my discovery of them. Morality Play is a simple story of a runaway priest who gets involved with a group of wandering actors trying to create a fresh version of a standard morality play. Improvisation leads to revelation and the start of a revolution in medieval thinking. One of the best books I ever read about acting (which I was still doing at the time).

To the Wedding by John Berger

Another short book of deep significance for me as it deals with grief and how you can use it to find new joy. My father had died when I was 24 but I had never really dealt with its impact on me. My mother was ill and my wife of the time was recovering from cancer (she made a full recovery, as much as one does). Berger’s other fiction can be difficult (though his non-fiction on art is quite illuminating) but this simple tale, narrated by a blind Greek (of course) was mythic and like all myths, restorative.

How Late It Was, How Late by James Kellman

Kellman’s book won the Booker prize on a split vote of the jurors, some of whom wrote lengthy essays as to why it should never have been considered, noting that it contained over 3000 uses of the two most reviled words in the English language. Quite apart from the language and the frequent use of second person narrative, dialect, logical leaps and unreliable narration, the book is quite easy to read and breathtaking in both its ambitions and achievements. Learning from its narrative tricks was invaluable but discovering that every life has a story worth telling was more important.

Six Walks in the Fictional Woods by Umberto Eco

A series of short essays on writing that started as a series of lectures at Harvard (Calvino had a similar book but he died before finishing the last two essays), it summarizes Eco’s ideas about the role of the writer and the equally important role of the reader. Witty and inciteful, it is the single most influential book on my writing out of the dozens I’ve read over the years. I’ve read most of Eco’s novels and essays as well.

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

Though it might seem from the above entries that I had abandoned things academic for things fictional, I was a regular reader of science, history and political science, a pastime that has become increasingly important as I age. This book was recommended to me by several science fiction writers as a useful tool in world building and it is all that but is the scope of Diamond’s examination of why the world developed as it did that I found fascinating. Though he sometimes overstates the importance of geographic determinism, a trap he fell deeper and deeper into in his later work, at the time it seemed a fresh and exciting way of looking at the world.

Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan

MacMillan, a major Canadian historiographer and the granddaughter of a former British Prime Minister (with access to his private papers), examined in detail the issues, personalities and politics involved in the negotiation of the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I, rewrote the maps of most of the world, regardless of the wishes of the people who lived in those restructured countries, and, so, set the stage for most of the conflicts of the next hundred years. I’ve read a lot of history, especially modern history, but none made more sense to me than this one. It also directly led me to write mystery novels set in Paris after the Great War.

Breath by Tim Winton

This book stands in for all the great novels produced by this Australian writer whom some have called the Hemingway of the Antipodes. Okay, I’m the only one who calls him that. Another writer who merges the gritty reality of everyday life with a dash of the fantastical, Winton brings an intense physicality to the page. He also trusts the reader to figure things out for themselves and often simply refuses to explain how things came to happen or what happens after. It is writing that absolutely lives in the moment of experience and is a joy to read (and to try to emulate).

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt

I had read On the Nature of Things by Roman poet and Epicurean philosopher, Lucretius, as part of my studies into the philosophy of science in distant university days. I knew it was important but it took The Swerve to make me understand that it was the key text that triggered the Renaissance and engendered the Enlightenment. No wonder the Catholic Church tried to destroy every copy they could lay their hands on. Ironic that it should be rediscovered and introduced back into the world by a former papal secretary and medieval Indiana Jones who tracked down a copy in an isolated monastery. The rest as they say is history. For me, it reminded me how tenuous science, reason and progress really is (as we discovered in elections a few years after its publication) and how easily it might have never happened—or how it could go away while we weren’t paying attention.

Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg

One of my favorite movies about writing started as a book (which I had read before the movie came out). I read it after I’d been editing books at Bundoran Press for a couple of years. It confirmed what I’d managed to figure out about editing through other books and trial and error and taught me how to do it better. And a fascinating look into how publishing used to work.

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood

It is a joy late in life to discover a new favorite author. Greenwood is a beautiful writer who tells gorgeous stories about awful people and makes you love them. Sometimes when I read her, I wonder why I write at all and then I think, looking at the pages through a mist of tears, this is why. I can hardly wait for her next book, which rumour has it, will appear later this year.

The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli

I’ve read literally dozens of physics and other science books over the years. This is the first one that helped me understand the difficult concept of time and how it works in the universe. Time isn’t difficult, you say? Read Rovelli, he’ll change your mind in a second. Another writer on my must buy list. His latest (near the top of my to-read pile), Helgoland, promises to make sense of the Quantum Revolution. I wouldn’t be surprised if it does.

More books that might have made this list on another day:

• Mother Nature is Trying to Kill You by Daniel K. Riskin
• Faust in Copenhagen by Gino Claudio Segre
• The Fortunes of Africa by Martin Meredith
• The Embodied Mind by Francisco Varela
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese
• Future of the Mind by Michio Kaku
• Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong by Angela Saini
• Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
• Room by Emma Donahue
• Rites of Spring by Modris Eksteins
• The Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt
• The Life and Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee
• Intuition by Allegra Goodman
• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Enlightenment 2.0 by Joseph Heath
• And too many more to mention

Happy reading (or not).

What books changed you?

Photo by Boris Ivanović on Unsplash

The Joy (and Futility) of Writing

This blog was triggered by a post I saw on Twitter. The essence of it was: If you knew a comet was going to hit the earth in six months, would you continue to write the book you are working on? If not, you should quit writing now.

The tweet had plenty of likes and positive comments and a number of retweets. My response was less supportive (well, I didn’t actually answer because who needs the misery). What utter self-important and pernicious twaddle.

First off, it implies that someone whose entire life isn’t centered around their writing, is not really a writer. Which is, of course, not only silly but dismissive of the work of writers who often went months or even years without writing or even thinking about writing but produced magnificent books. Maybe they only wrote a few but, frankly, I’d rather write 2 brilliant novels than 25 pedestrian ones.

Secondly, who are you, random Twitter user to tell me what to do with my life. I write because it gives me pleasure, because sometimes I have something to say (and sometimes I don’t) and, yes, I write to be read. Otherwise, I’d just keep a diary. But most of all, I write while doing things that are equally as important to me and as valid to the world.

Finally, if I knew the world was going to end in six months, or more specifically, that I was going to end in six months, I wouldn’t waste that time by pounding away at a keyboard, writing a book that no one in the former case and almost no one in the latter, was going to read. I have friends and family –people I love—to spend time with. I have places I’ve never seen, landscapes and cities and cultures of spectacular beauty and complexity that I yearn to experience. There are foods I’ve never tasted, flowers I’ve never smelled, music I haven’t heard.

If I had six months left, I would fill it with experience, not creating mediated experience for others.

Okay, enough ranting. Note sorry, not done yet.

 For many of my friends, writing is a career, a job like any other, maybe more complex and rewarding than some but still an occupation rather than an entire life. No one would ask a lawyer or a carpenter or a civil servant or a bartender, no matter how successful, or even how much they enjoyed their work, to keep filing briefs, building houses, writing policy or serving drinks until they drew their last breath. Only artists are expected to be that obsessed with work.

For others, it is an enjoyable hobby, something they do rather than surfing or knitting, a pleasant occupation for after the day’s work is done. Many of them are remarkably good at it. William Carlos Williams wrote a number of fine novels, which he produced as an escape from being a busy country doctor. Did he take his writing seriously? Sure. But would he have done it if it wasn’t enjoyable or if it interfered with his true passion which was to keep his neighbours healthy? Probably not.

I likely fall into that category. A hobbyist who has had some moderate successes. I only wrote full-time (if you don’t count the money-making side gigs) for six years back in the 90s and most of my real success came after I returned to a regular job. I wouldn’t give up those years for anything but I wouldn’t do them again, either.

Recently a friend publicly bemoaned the fact that his novel has not sold a lot of copies. His experience isn’t unique (in fact, it is the sad reality of most writers) but few writers openly admit that writing, their passion in some cases, does not pay the bills. We judge people so much on how financially successful they are that it is painful and embarrassing to admit that a book we spent a year or two writing is paying us a fraction of minimum wage. Although I’ve had a few good years, I probably could have made more money doing almost anything else (the year I spent as a bartender, slinging drinks part-time made me more money than writing more or less fulltime). I certainly could have made more money if I’d stayed in the public service, rather than temporarily retiring at age 36 for six years.

But would I quit writing for any reason other than my impending death? Apparently not. Nearly forty years in, writing is where I return when I need a break from life, when I want to play, when I think I have something to say that I think at least a few readers will want to hear.

I don’t strictly write for myself but I accept that my audience is limited. It could be that despite study and practice, I’m not a good enough writer to attract a larger one; I’m certainly not as good as some of my friends, or the brilliant people I know only from their books. It could be a failure of marketing or it could be that the things I like to write about don’t interest the larger world. I don’t care. I write because it gives me pleasure and occupies my mind and I write to communicate with, or just entertain, a few like-minded souls.

Write to the day you die if you wish. Robertson Davies is reputed to have started a short story on the day he died at age 90, but I will point out, he never finished it and nobody ever read it.

Write, don’t write, that’s up to you and not for others to judge. But, no matter what work you devote yourself to, don’t forget the big wide world of love, laughter and life that surrounds you and beckons you.

If you want to make an old writer feel happy and loved, go buy my books on Amazon. You can also search for me on KOBO.

Fresh Start

At the start of every year, however you define the beginning of the year, we make promises to ourselves. We set out to become better people or at least better versions of our current self. Those who set out to be monsters are probably already there.

We break those promises sooner or later but I suppose the mere act of making them is important; it suggests that change, improvement, is something we think is possible. And anything that is possible, in a quantum multiverse, could happen.

My own goals are modest.

I promise to meet every commitment I make – whether it is for contracted work or doing my share of the house work. I may not take on a lot of new commitments but those I have I will fulfill.

I will engage with the world creatively and actively which is to say I will stop reacting to things and trying to apply old solutions to new problems. I realized a long time ago that I can not control what other people think, feel or do; it is a big enough struggle to control what I think, feel and do.

Thinking has never been a problem for me though I have been told that I sometimes overthink things. Still, I hope to expand my knowledge and understanding in every area where my curiosity leads me. That hardly is a rigorous approach to exploring the wide range of subjects the world presents to us on a daily basis but, as I have no specific goal in mind, curiosity is the only guide I can follow. I hope that this pursuit of reason will let me say interesting and useful things to others but sometimes knowledge is its own reward.

Controlling my feelings is a more difficult thing. Feelings often spring unbidden from events or interactions. I can no more control them than I can keep the tide from coming in or the wind from blowing. But I can strive to understand where they come from and why and I can attempt to let good feelings—love, compassion, friendship, generosity—guide me and use negative emotions—fear and anger, sorrow and despair—to learn more about myself and my relationship to the world.

The one thing everyone can do is control their actions. Unless our moral compass is completely fractured or we have gone so far down the rabbit hole of thinking anything we want is a moral act, justified by emotions we don’t understand or thoughts that are not our own, each of us can distinguish between right and wrong, between the helpful and the hurtful.

At the very least we can abide by the central precept of the Hippocratic oath: if nothing else, do no harm.

Now that’s an optimistic way to start any new year. So, until tomorrow, think hard, feel good and act kindly.

And that’s fifteen minutes (I’m old now and ten minutes won’t cut it).

Plotters and Pantsers

They say writers fall into two camps: those who meticulously plan out every detail of their work with special attention to the plot and those who simply have a general idea of the story and write until they come to a conclusion. Personally, I think of it as a spectrum and every writer has their own unique point on it.

As in art, so too in life. Recently I watched this video of a woman who continued to figure skate, despite car accidents and strokes, until she was 90. Even in her 80s she was entering competitions and regularly won medals for her class—which included everyone over 50. In the interview, she talked about how some people plan their lives while she simply let life happen to her. That expression “Letting life happen to you” is often used a bit derisively but, frankly, she seemed a lot happier than many of my tightly wound friends who need to control every aspect of their life.

I mostly followed a pantser lifestyle even though, as a writer, I’m pretty focused on plot. When I was 12, I was pretty sure I was going to be a scientist, working in a lab somewhere and I even got a degree in chemistry. But before I left school I had switched to political science. I worked at related things for quite a while but most of my decisions were of the nature of “that looks interesting” rather than “that is the next stage in my plan” and I finally gave up on the concept of “career path” when I was about 32.

Because I never had a destination in mind, I was always pretty happy with wherever I wound up, knowing full well there was always another opportunity waiting over the horizon. I drifted from the public service to the arts to education and then to Parliament Hill. I read physics for fun and performed for money, became a writer and publisher and an advisor to politicians.

Could I have reached higher levels in any of those fields if I had just settled down and made a plan? Probably, but I wouldn’t necessarily have been happier. And, in the end, we all die anyway no matter how carefully we plan to avoid it.

As in life, so too in art. When I sat down to write In the Shadow of Versailles, I meticulously plotted the story, the character arcs, even the settings I would explore. I researched politics and food and fashion and technology to create a seamless web. Then, I plunked my poor detective, WWI veteran, Max Anderson, into the middle of it to live life as best he could. Did he plan to become a detective? Far from it; all he wanted was a quiet life. But interesting things kept happening and before he knew it, he was solving a crime no one else would admit happened. To see how he does, pick up a copy of In the Shadow of Versailles, wherever ebooks are sold.

Relevance

I was playing Cards Against Humanity for the first time yesterday and I came a cross a word which I didn’t have a clue as to its meaning—though I suspected it was something sexual. When the game was over, I asked my hipper, younger friend what it meant, though I also suspected I didn’t want to know. I was both right and wrong. As explained, it was vaguely disgusting (although I later found out her definition was wrong) and clearly not a word I was ever going to use myself—but at the same time I did want to know simply so I could be attuned to what people were doing and thinking. I wanted to be relevant.

Relevance—the ability to understand and comment appropriately on a topic—is something most people strive for all their lives. Most of you are probably trying to do it right now.

Certainly, as a policy adviser, it was my job to be relevant, to know enough about a wide range of subjects that, if I couldn’t immediately comment, I could quickly research to make useful remarks or give cogent advice. It was a struggle sometimes and, frankly, some topics constantly eluded me. Unlike some people, I usually was smart enough not to venture an opinion about something I was completely unaware of.

Relevance is what I have striven for as a writer. I try to keep up with the latest trends in fiction. I read a lot and listen to what other people are saying about the field. I think I have a sense of what the cool kids are doing, well enough to make reasonably intelligent critical comments or editorial suggestions.

But that doesn’t make me relevant. My own stories don’t seem to resonate much with editors these days. That may just be a phase or maybe my time has come and gone. It happens to most of us and, sometimes, the only answer is not to try to be young and hip and cool and diverse (hard when you are an old white man) but to shrug and move on to other things – like cooking exotic foods or traveling to mountaintops. Maybe it would be better if a lot of people—and not just old ones—stopped trying so hard being relevant to the wider world (or, at least, attempting to impose their own sense of importance on the culture) and tried to be relevant to themselves, their families and their closest friends.

I doubt if many will follow my advice—the quest for relevance is a struggle against the grave. Yet, maybe they should acknowledge that relevance is like any other social commodity. You have a lot of it at one time and you can use it to build up your laurels (that you can then uncomfortably rest on) and create a legacy or you can spend it on making irrelevant comments that make you look foolish and out of touch (says the guy who insists on writing political blogs two years after leaving the field of advising politicians).

Still, I will struggle to understand new technologies, (I took part in a fascinating meeting about block chains today) social media—which in “my day” consisted of showing people slides of my last vacation—and following the latest trends in politics (how is this different than the 1930s?) and cultural transformation. Because the alternative might be to retire to Cambodia and stare at the waves all day.

And that’s ten minutes.

Resolutions 2018

Resolutions are made to be broken so there is little point in making ones that are easy to keep. With that in mind, here are my ten commitments for the New Year.

1. I will buy no books.

   Seriously, I absolutely gorged on books in 2017 and now they sit on shelves and bedside piles or wink at me from the screen of my e-reader. I bought enough books in the last month alone to last me until August – not counting the literally hundreds of books I’ve promised myself to read eventually. Eventually means now.

   Estimated date of breaking this resolution: April 27 or the first really crappy day in March.

2. I will write twice as much as I did last year.

   I wrote nearly 140,000 words of new fiction and about 15000 words of blogging last year. So I’ll need to produce 310,000 words total in 2018. Well, that’s merely 6000 words a week, every week without fail. Ha ha ha… head slams on desk.

   Estimated date of failure: January 7

3. I will lose 50 pounds or if you prefer 23 kilograms

   Easy peasy. I’ll simply do what I’ve been doing all year. Gain five pounds – lose them – gain them back – and so on and so on. Ten cycles and I’m done.

   Oh, you mean, my weight should be fifty pounds less one year from today. No problem, I’ll get right on that.

   Estimated date of failure: Tomorrow

4. I will walk briskly for an hour a day on average.

   This one could be tricky. I only need to walk for 365 hours for the whole year – though I don’t think I can count walks to the fridge or to restaurants or the LCBO. Probably not brisk enough. Still, it might be feasible.

   Though, given the current weather in Ottawa, I’ll already by 11 hours behind by the time we fly to Mexico on the 12^th. I’ll quickly make that up on the beach. Then there is March to contend with and next December…

   Estimated date of failure: December 10^th

5. I will drink less.

   No problem here. I could hardly drink more and it would take too much planning to drink the exact same amount. But I do worry about eggnog.

   Estimated date of failure: December 24

6. I will be less facetious.

   Estimated date of failure: Sometime later today.

7. I will keep all my promises.

   Well, I promised ten resolutions and there are only seven, so…

   Estimated date of failure: Already accomplished.

And that’s ten minutes.

Where is thy sting now?

I’ve been strangely preoccupied with death lately. This is not unusual—I am much closer to the day of my death than I am to that of my birth. Still, my health is good and I have plans enough that I hope the final day is still well off.

Death is all around us, of course. I am an orphan and I’ve lost several good friends over the years. Social media seldom lets a day go by without recording some loss or another whether it be a parent, a friend, a pet or some celebrity who has touched one of us in some way. Most of us have pictures on our walls or albums of those who are no longer with us.

Still, that hasn’t changed nor is it likely to change any time soon.

What has brought death to my mind lately is one particular death and the way it occurred.

A few weeks ago I heard that someone I once cared a lot about was scheduled to die on a certain Tuesday. No, they weren’t on death row in Texas; they were in a hospice bed in Halifax.

Jeanne was my second wife—we stopped being a couple nearly 30 years ago and haven’t had much contact for nearly 15. That was her choice but I can’t blame her for that. I was the one who left and while I still have feelings from those days, they are not tinged with sadness or hard-feelings.

Over the years, I know that Jeanne had made a good life for herself—filled with the love of her partner, her friends and her family and she had some real successes to look back on. When my mother was dying, she found it in her heart—no matter how she felt about me—to be kind to her and my brother.

Unfortunately, cancer came calling far too early and eventually her condition was declared terminal.

That’s when Jeanne did an incredibly brave thing. She chose to seek medical assistance in dying (MAID as it is called in Nova Scotia). She chose the time and place of her death. I don’t know what led her to that place—it could not have been easy, she loved life and had religious views that must have made the decision more difficult—but I am happy for her that she had that choice to make.

I’ve long been an advocate for assisted death for those who want it. I supported the legislative changes made last year—though I didn’t think they went far enough. That may yet come—it is a moving legal and moral landscape. However, it is one thing to support something intellectually but quite another to have it impact you directly even at a distance of many years and miles.

Now that it has, I have to tell you I am more supportive than ever. Jeanne died with great grace and strength and she died with her family beside her—saying good bye in the way we would all like to say good-bye, with full hearts.

And she died without pain and without the indignity that death tries to bring to us all at the end. Who wouldn’t want that?

I hope that when my time comes I can approach it with joy and courage the way Jeanne did. Then we can truly say: Death, where is thy sting?

And that’s ten minutes.

Retirement

In two weeks I will be retired, or as a friend of mine wisely calls it, refocused. Still it will be a strange thing not to work for someone else. I took my first paid job when I was fourteen (though I did freelance for a few years before that as a lawnmower and snow-shoveller and berry-picker). I still have the pay-stub from my first regular job. It was for $4.65 for 3.5 hours work. That was obviously a long time ago.

Since then I’ve worked for a lot of different people and organizations – mostly on regular salary though sometimes on contract. It has been a varied life. I’ve worked as a library assistant, a gardener, a chemist, a research manager, a house painter, a labour negotiator, an actor, a bartender, a pizza cook, an arts administrator, a policy advisor, a medical researcher, a telemarketer, a political assistant and several other professions I now forget.

During that time I did work for myself as well. I spent my teenage years selling greeting cards door-to-door and, later, took research jobs on contract. Of course, I’ve been a freelance writer for more than  25 years and, most recently, an editor and publisher for my own company.

I expect that I’ll keep writing on a regular basis and I hope to even make some money in the process. But it’s not the same as having to go to the office every day. I only have myself to answer to and only I can make me sit at the computer and work. I expect to be a pretty easy going boss. Although I intend to write a novel between now and the end of September, that’s only about 900 words a day of new prose. I can generally do that in an hour or two. There will be research, of course, and re-writing and editing, not to mention the publishing company, but still, I don’t plan to write every day and I don’t plan to work any more than 4 hours in any given day.

But what will I do to fill the time? After spending most of my life working 8 or more hours a day – for someone far less easy going than me – what will I do to stop from being bored?

Even to ask that question suggests you don’t know me very well. I can’t stand being inactive – it doesn’t just bore me it makes me grumpy. So I will read and walk and talk and party and cook and travel and photograph and think and watch and listen and play and dream up adventures to do or write about.

Retirement? I don’t think so. Refocus – it is a wiser term.

And that’s ten minutes.