Where I come from, Hydro electric power is at a premium. That’s because environmentally conscious legislators stick handled some ballyhoo through our august house of parliament mandating the use of high cost mercury filled light bulbs. These, said to last forever,—(they don’t)—force tremendous savings, resulting in surpluses that the aforementioned legislators give away to our neighbors so that the status quo is maintained and we can enjoy higher prices.
Bully for us. There’s always a silver lining.
While others bitch and moan over the obvious injustice—my Sensy Burner™ for example has been without tiny bulb since the kibosh on luminescents—good hearted optimists like me embrace the darkness. And a good thing too: Darkness, like paint stripper, takes away everything cracked and peeling.
Every year around my birthday, I meet up with my old friend The Muse for a little vin rouge and a lie or two. I love these meetings, especially since they date back some thirty odd years.
Muse and I have had our fair share of triumphs and failures that include, but are not limited to, expanding waistlines and thinning hair. None of these matter, because in the afterglow of what is time, space and many, many vintages, neither he nor I change.
If anything, we travel backward.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” one of us says each year, usually after the first bottle.
“I know, eh? Funny how that is.”
Sometimes, after rehashing an old tale with plenty of add-on embellishments compensating for faltering memories, one of us will start eating out of the other’s plate without any thought to the patrons sitting next to us. We can do this, we tell ourselves, because the grey hair and lined faces that announce us on arrival gradually fade as the hours wear on.
Youth, you see, has a way of getting away with things that time and sober thought cancel out. It’s true every time; this year was no exception:
“Madame? Monsieur?” the concerned wait staff interjects once the peas start rolling onto the floor. “I must give you a caution. We here at M**ton’s take the utmost pride in the atmosphere we present and we rely on our patrons to do the same.”
Muse clears his throat before blowing the pretty little table candle out. “There,” he says, affecting invisibility. “No one can catch us now.”
It’s not until the next morning when I wake up safe and sound in my own bed that I realize that I’ve time traveled backward. “How did I get here?” I ask my husband while trying to blot out the natural light that recuts all kinds of crevices into my wise old face.
“The train,” he replies. “Muse piled you on the first one going east.”
“That’s bold,” I comment, before realizing that there could be no other conclusion: neither The Muse nor I could make sense of the e-schedule as posted despite the tinkly lights showing the way.
“Where are you going?” I query my husband who, with keys in hand, makes a bee line for the door. “It’s not even noon yet.”
“Light bulbs,” he says pointedly. “Two out in the family room.”
I laugh as I wave him off.
For as much as I curse the light and the hydro that brings it, there is no escaping the reality of a new day and the bright things it possesses.
THANK YOU, O MUSE. UNTIL NEXT YEAR… AND TO OTHERS: HAPPY ST. PADDY’S DAY!
Adult, unapologetic and cognizant, I wish you good day! Let’s stay above it.
Long ago, before dinosaurs roamed the planet, a young woman sat down at her desk to write. Situated in the darkest corner of the Ontario Legislature and hidden beneath the main staircase in the north wing, the woman, attached to the research unit of the third party, had every prospect before her. They were in third place; they could only go up. Years later, they did. But that’s for another blog. Lady writer-in-waiting had miles to go and a mountain of human experience to conquer before she could get anything near an arc or inciting incident.
it is a gem in the early stages of pre-discovery. Monochromed with tons of natural light, it sports a large centre fireplace, plenty of comfy seats and croissants to live on to the end of days. I am well acquainted with Ray’s.
How many miles must Ray’s go before an inciting incident of its own brings Toronto and region to its doors? I wondered over a frothy cup of late winter hot chocolate.
I for one rue the day. Ray’s Cafe is MY place; its plush banquettes upholstered in a way such that a writer with laptop can stay all day and not accumulate bottom feeder sores.
Ah, but I’m selfish.
Ray and Melissa welcome me and let me stay. Heck, I can set myself up and read out loud on a stool if I want to. Melissa even let me park my newly printed postcards with book deets and flattering photo of the author on the sideboard near the recyclers. And there are plenty of other business cards to keep mine company.
I’ve been dancing around for weeks here on the blog and finally, at long last, I can release DAS BOOK TRAILER. Months in the making, I can say, without a hint of irony or fiction, that HEUER LOST AND FOUND, THE TRAILER, is all mine and made with my own two hands. Another milestone on the path to publishing. The learning curve has been incredibly steep and it is only the beginning, but I’m ready…I think. 😉
Ever had a guilty pleasure? Sure you have. For me, it’s the documentary. Grainy, gritty and often featuring hand held footage that makes the brain slosh against the walls of the cranial vault, they are exciting because they represent things I know relatively little about. Because of this requisite lack of knowledge, I’m drawn in, wanting more, abandoning the Netflix et al to dig out particulars from Wiki and Google after the show ends.
When I was young, it was Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom that turned my crank, documenting week after week, the exploits of things furred and feathered on the Savannah, Serengeti and in the Amazon to name a few heavy hitters. A few shows come to mind when looking back. Time lapse photography
Beautiful and deadly.
charted the life and death of blossoms in one instance and funky caterpillers that napped under thick ice in another. Watching the little beasty reborn one spring after another was a lot to believe and yet, there it was. Likewise, the remarkable Cheetah, topping 93 miles per hour—but only to a maximum of two minutes—culminating in a killing, combining grace, elegance and gore in one fluid motion.
That I love animals (except arachnids; these freak me out) regardless of genus and species is given; that the comely Cheetah’s exploits drove me to the fridge to sate my hunger each and every time was the sum total of the guilty pleasure heretofore mentioned in paragraph one.
Which brings me to the McMillan Tac 50, a tapered long barrel of a .50 calibre sniper rifle so powerful as to be able to punch through concrete walls and take out three targets at once and at a distance of one mile or more. I had no idea.
“Come on,” my husband yelled from the top floor bedroom. “It’s sniper night on (the watchamacallit discovery-type channel, but not Discovery, I do not think *scratching head)”
Now before I’m lumped in with Michael Moore, who has every right to express his opinion, I want to tell you that I, too, have firearms experience. Although I haven’t seen American Sniper to which which my friend Gilda, a.k.a The Smartest Woman in the World (more on her later), gave a five star endorsement, I can appreciate the swirl of excitement both positive and negative that surrounds the film. Handling a firearm is overwhelming. Powerful, dangerous, it is also a precision instrument requiring careful cleaning and tending lest it jam and explode in the operator’s face.
Like many kids of my generation, it was not uncommon to take hold of Grandpa’s .22 calibre rim fire varmint rifle and shoot up spent pop cans off a rotted old log out back of the cottage. Though we’d never taken a firearms course and had never heard of things like PROOF and SAFE, the idea that we not point the thing at one another was kinda inherent. Likewise, the natural bracing that came with the squeeze of the trigger. To big shots, a .22’s recoil is laughable, but to a 12 year old it was real enough.
Which brings me back to the McMillan Tac 50. While I’ve never seen .50 calibre ammunition up close and for real, I could easily infer from the doc that these are mighty big buggers. As is the recoil. One user in the doc basically said that it’s not a weapon you enjoy being behind after 10 or 12 shots. I get that. I felt the same way after two weeks of night shifts at the funeral home. But it’s a job, and those who do it, do it because they want to. And so I was really surprised to learn that a Canadian sniper holds the record for long distance shoot to target: one and a half miles. I dont’ know what to make of such information other than to say that I’m intrigued.
Who invents weapons? Chemists? Genies? Engineers? Alchemists? Rocket scientists? Professor Snape? I’ll let you know, once I pry myself away from Wikipedia.
Adult, unapologetic and cognizant, I wish you good day. Let’s stay above it.
In the spirit of brave self-promotion, I continue today’s post (see Heuer AdvanceReview) with an interview given by yours truly to the ever intrepid Bernard Foong. It’s another first for me, and another reason to do a victory lap around the neighborhood (after I shovel the sidewalk), because self promotion goes against everything I was taught growing up. Careers in politics, the car business and funeral service notwithstanding, I have managed to stay under the wire…until now.
Heuer, Heuer. What have you done?
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
That’s always a bit tough for me. I was raised in another time where shouting out accomplishments was
An expression of the author’s feelings through a doppelganger.
considered rude. But I’ll try. I’m a Pisces that celebrates the Year of the Snake, but unlike dear vain snake, work extremely hard not to be mendacious. (Laughs) I have a furtive imagination, love art in all its forms, and cannot live without music playing somewhere in the background. If forced to choose between comedy and drama, comedy wins…every time.
What do you do when you are not writing?
That’s easy! I’m outside. Unlike you, dear friend, I live in the four seasons (hint of jealousy here) and have the coats, boots and sunscreen that goes with them. I have a large wild flower garden that I tend in summer, and a very long driveway I shovel in winter. And I love classic cars, particularly those from the muscle era. Summer and autumn are for road tripping to see the shows. I try to get to the Woodward Dream Cruise in Detroit, Michigan every other year.
For a car enthusiast, Woodward is the Holy Grail.
Do you have a day job as well?
Yes, although I am on hiatus and that has paid off, as you see (big grin). I’m a funeral director, licensed to practice in Ontario, Canada. For me, it ranks as one of the best jobs I’ve ever had next to seeing to my family.
When did you first start writing and when did you finish your first book?
I began writing in 2010 in response to the loss of a dear friend. In funeral service, the families we serve ask how to cope with the pain. One way to manage is to seek out others—groups, counselors—those who have walked in their shoes and really know how it feels. Another approach is to write a grief journal. My friend and I went through school together, and during that time we became sympats where comedy was concerned. We laughed at the same things. It didn’t take long for my journal to take a comedic turn before straying off into outright fiction. I finished Heuer five years later.
How did you choose the genre you write in?
The characters decided it for me. They are bossy, incorrigible and I completely adore them. They were impossible to ignore.
Where do you get your ideas?
I put a foot out the door and live day to day. You wouldn’t believe the kind of trouble you can get into at the grocery store.
Do you ever experience writer’s block?
Absolutely, but it’s more likely because another story or character is nagging at me. My first teacher called this popcorn writing, where you just push away from the current project and go on a tangent with a wild horse scene. It’s exciting and informs the other projects.
Do you work with an outline, or just write?
I mull for about a year, and then churn out the first draft during NaNoWriMo in November. I don’t plot per
I do on occasion take walks through cemeteries.
se, but I do know where I’m going before I begin. This is also where some of those popcorn scenes find a home. After the first draft is complete, I return to the previous project in line to revise and refine. It’s a whole system that works for me. You see why I had to go on hiatus?
Is there any particular author or book that influenced you in any way either growing up or as an adult?
Absolutely everything Kurt Vonnegut ever wrote. From him and Dr. Seuss, I learned the value of having outrageous character names. My current fiction includes a hysteric named Sigrid Bork. I love her.
Can you tell us about your challenges in getting your first book published?
I worried a lot about having one book followed by writer’s block to shut me down for good. So I decided to
Exteme excitement resulting in blurred vision.
get some manuscripts down—four to be precise—so that I’d have a body of work to play with when pitching to agents and publishers. The last four years were dedicated to pure creation without pressure to produce to a contract. It was sensational. During that time, I plugged into Twitter pitch parties on the recommendation of a writer friend, and that’s when things really started to happen. I queried, synopsized, wrote dozens of tag lines and met hundreds of amazing people who got me to Solstice Publishing. Now I have to learn about and engage in—boots first—marketing, which is very challenging because of the way I was raised (see question one). I’m enjoying Twitter parties and blogging. Frankly, I didn’t know I had it in me. A great surprise.
If you had to go back and do it all over, is there any aspect of your novel or getting it published that you would change?
Nope. It was all organic. I tripped, I fell, I studied, and I applied. I got better.
How do you market your work? What avenues have you found to work best for your genre?
It’s early in, so stats aren’t there, but I will direct a lot of applause to the writing groups I belong to—The Booklin 7, Writers Community of Durham Region, and amazing teachers at Writescape—for plugging me in with others dedicated to the same goals. Marketing is a learning curve and a steep one, so look to others engaged in the same activity; ask questions and try things on. Tweet, Tweet, Tweet. Blog, blog, blog, and follow your publisher and agent advice. Support other writers by reading their work, reviewing and attending their promotional events. If you want society to know about you, you must socialize.
Have you written a book you love that you have not been able to get published?
I love them all, but can only dedicate my energies to one at a time. The others? Their day will come.
Can you tell us about your upcoming book?
Heuer Lost and Found is adult, unapologetic and cognizant with a hint of dark humor. At 237 pages, it is a
Everything is sentient; everything is a potential character–at least where I’m coming from.
compact study that rocks ’n’ rolls with the help of an erudite Latin speaking rat and a wise-cracking floor lamp with ulterior motives. They’re off beat and badly needed to help my protagonists: a dead, unrepentant cooze hound lawyer, and his very much alive boozy lady undertaker who he used to know back in the Eighties.
Is anything in your book based on real life experiences or purely all imagination?
I think all fiction is informed by real life experiences, but I have yet to meet sentient rats or floor lamps. (laughs) The funeral home in Heuer is actually a composite of four different establishments, none of which survives today. As to the characters, some guy buddies insist that they are Heuer, but they’re not. There’s actually a little of me in him, but I guess it’s to be expected if I’m the one behind the keyboard.
What was your favorite chapter (or part) to write and why?
SPOILER: The very end, because it’s where the Kleenex box comes out. When that happened, I knew I’d got it right.
How did you come up with the title?
From the short story. Heuer actually made it into three separate shorts before becoming a full-fledged novel character.
What project are you working on now?
POOR UNDERTAKER is the fourth in the series “Unapologetic Lives”
Poor Undertaker is next in the series, which tracks the ups and downs of the Weibigand Brothers funeral establishment. Its every bit as much a joy as the first, second and so on, because I see this remarkable building go through all its incantations. At one point, it’s actually bought up and is not a funeral parlor any more.
Will you have a new book coming out soon?
We’re at least a year away, I think. Scooter Nation is next, but I’d like to give it another go over before setting it free.
Are there certain characters you would like to go back to, or is there a theme or idea you’d love to work with?
Absolutely. My series is non sequential, so the character that dies in one is born again in the next. They’re
SCOOTER NATION is the second in the series and is definitely more Gonzo in nature.
never far away. There are a number of themes I return to, but some of my favorites include: the negative impacts of nostalgia; the problem with prying; insular people coming out into the light; finding kindness in peculiar places; and letting go of that thing you need so that you can keep it forever.
What has been the toughest criticism given to you as an author? What has been the best compliment?
I’m an upbeat person, so if I’m criticized, I turn it into a plus by learning something from it. The best compliment I ever had came from a teacher who said my voice was “strong and unusual”. That really made my day.
Do you have any advice to give to aspiring writers?
Get it all down before trying to make sense of it. It’s a journey and often a very long one. Enjoy every leg of it knowing that there’s more just ahead.
Is there anything that you would like to say to your readers and fans?
Observe, listen, and do not ignore the excellence to be found on HBO, Netflix, Showcase, etc. This is your university.
Photo: Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 2.0 Wikimedia Commons
I woke this morning to the news that Leonard Nimoy passed away and immediately began a traipse back twenty eight years and thirty pounds. Back then—in 1987—I was completing a political science degree at the University of Toronto while pondering job opportunities at various receptionist desks across the city. Like any young person, I curried ideas that included changing the world by pioneering a great idea or assisting a key decision maker in the public policy realm. *insert laugh track*
But before I could do any of that, I had to answer a call for warm bodies at a down town hotel.
SAY WHAT?
Unlike the rest of us from the hood, my friend Steve rose above we mere mortals by landing a really cool job as a casting director for *gasp* HOLLYWOOD MOVIES. With just a phone call, Steve could invalidate the Cold War and nuclear disarmament because he had the power to place whomever he wanted within arm’s length of the bold and beautiful.
WARNING: NAME DROPPING HERE
Whether playing lawyer #3 to Sophia Loren’s crime fighting heroine in Courage, or a dance hall girl in a room that included Sam Neill and the late and talented Robert Urich in Amerika, that girl who used to be me became someone else completely. Sometimes I was a face in the crowd; at another time I was “woman at table” next to Canada’s own Wendy Crewson. For these experiences I claimed extensive bragging rights. But none of these, awesome as they were, came close to touching my brush with off planet greatness.
LIVE LONG AND PROSPER
As a fan of the man from Vulcan, I knew that Leonard Nimoy did more than act and make public appearances. He also directed films and in 1987 that task brought him to Toronto to helm a little bit of froth called Three Men and A Baby.
It didn’t take long for me to ditch class when the call from Steve invariably came. That the film offered three male leads who on their own pulled a 10 out of 10 every time was enough to send any girl half way across town on a cumulonimbus cloud of her own making.
“Wear something upscale,” Steve advised, “and report to the main ballroom at the Sutton Place Hotel.
I’M DOING WHAT?
My reverie was short lived as I entered the ballroom.
“Here’s your line,” said the woman with the clipboard. “I need you to say it in three distinct ways.”
Young me. Starstruck with shiny forehead.
With ‘crazy,’ ‘heartbroken’ and ‘ironic’ as my only directives to go on, it did not yet sink in that this was something over and above an ordinary casting call.
What will I be this time? I wondered. Woman with cigarette? Lady at bar? I didn’t care. I was just glad to be there. And with thoughts of Ted Danson, Steve Guttenberg, and TOM SELLECK swirling through my grey matter, it didn’t take long for me to suspect.
“I’m gonna kill that sonofabitch,” was not only the line I was given to rehearse, but it reflected perfectly, my sentiment at that moment toward my dear friend Steve.
“Are you a model?” the gorgeous Toronto print model asked from her seat opposite me. She along with a clutch of other blondes like me occupied the one corner of the room that didn’t belong to the brunettes and redheads occupying the others.
“No,” I stammered, as I wiped my slopping forehead that refused to stop shining despite copious amounts of pressed powder. “I’m hoping for a career in politics.”
The stunning lass was impressed by my answer even more so after filling in the blanks I had walked into the room with. Steve hadn’t sent me to Sutton Place to help fill a room—he had sent me on an AUDITION to fill one of three “girlfriend” roles in the picture.
“I’ll take any one of them,” my friend giggled. “But I really hope I get Selleck.”
“I’m gonna kill that sonofabitch,” I muttered.
KIRK TO ENTERPRISE
What followed were three rounds of “walk” “talk” and pirouettes before a sea of eyes that included the great man himself.
“I’m gonna kill that sonofabitch.”
“I’m gonna kill that sonofabitch.”
“I’m gonna kill that sonofabitch.”
I said it so many times that I failed to notice the room thinning. For what was once a space of about 150 women was now reduced to a mere 10, and I was one of them.
Holy hell, I cursed inwardly. I might get this job.
I’d be lucky if I pulled a walk on, never mind a talky part.
Leonard Nimoy walked towards me slowly, deliberately, elegantly.
My heart rose up into my throat.
“What color are your eyes?” he asked
“Green,” Like Vulcan.
“Walk for me, please.”
He’s shorter and slighter than I imagined.
“Say the line.”
Yadda. Yadda. Yadda.
“Did you get it?” the Disney executive seated in the lobby of the Sutton Place asked.
It was over and I was glowing.
“No,” I said, undoubtedly flashing one of my signature toothy grins.
“But you’re so happy.”
You bet I was.
You see, I was never for Kirk, just like I was never for John or Paul. I adored George Harrison. And I adored Mr. Spock too. On that day, twenty eight years ago, I was given an opportunity to meet someone I grew up in front of watching countless reruns of Star Trek. It was a moment in time I shall never forget.
And when I think about it, what better way to honor someone who had an impact on me than to remember him?
A. B. Funkhauser, Author 