Buns Sore

I'm back from another exciting weekend in Moncton, this time for the Writers' Federation of New Brunswick Annual General Meeting. Earlier I wrote a bunch of stuff about it in the blog, but lost the whole thing when the power flickered and my computer went dark. Tried using the Blogger "Recover Post" function, but nothing happened. Yeah, I know, you would think I would learn to save things when I'm working on them . . . maybe I just haven't lost enough stuff yet.

I took the train to Moncton on Friday the 13th and was met at the station by my friend and fellow Miramichier, Dorinda. We had fun hugging and exclaiming how nice it was to see each other again, even though we both left Miramichi around the same time and had spoken on the phone a couple of times that week. I probably should have just driven in with her, but I couldn't change my ticket or get a refund plus I kind of wanted the hour and a half of complete peace and nothingness to decompress from my crazy week and recharge for my crazy weekend.

After Dorinda picked me up at the train station we drove to the University and checked into our dorm rooms. We were in the "nice" rooms, the ones with the private bathrooms and kitchenettes. Still . . . they weren't what we had expected . . . I felt an overwhelming urge to scrub the floors and knew I'd need massive quantities of wine in order to be able to get any sleep. But it was under a hundred bucks for two nights, so I'm not complaining.

Dorinda and I spent the afternoon shopping for supplies and then just hanging out around the rooms sipping wine and chatting before heading out to the restaurant for the evening event I was hosting. I was in good mental form all weekend, not at all nervous about any of my duties, not at all shy when meeting new people. I felt like myself again, like I used to feel when I worked in radio or hosted an event at the club, completely comfortable and natural in front of the microphone. This was an excellent feeling, because in recent years I've been showing plenty of nerves when it comes to these things and been baffled by it. It would seem that I'm back!

Friday evening I hosted the readings at the Cafe Felix on Main Street. I began by thanking everyone for coming and then making a joke about how cold it was, reminding people of the previous AGM in Miramichi when we walked around the French Fort Cove and nearly froze to death. I told about how Laurence had made fun of me for not wearing my winter coat but I had come prepared this time. And it was just as cold. I had my winter coat and I was ready to walk around the park or wherever in the freezing cold.

Our special guest author hailing from Ireland and coming to us all the way from Manitoba was Gerard Beirne. Gerry had written a story called "Sightings of Bono" about Bono from U2, which was later made into a film that Bono starred in. I was pretty excited about this and mentioned in my intro that I hadn't been able to get U2 tickets in Toronto but I hoped I'd get to see the Rolling Stones in Moncton. Some people hadn't heard about this concert and thought this was a riot . . . the idea that the Rolling Stones would be in Moncton. So, that got me an easy, albeit unplanned, laugh.

It turned out that Gerry had been invited to be guest speaker at the Manitoba Writers' Guild AGM happening the same weekend as ours but he had to decline as he had already committed himself to our event. Since he works for them as a mentor, this was kind of funny and he joked that he was in trouble with them now. I remarked after his reading that their loss was totally our gain and I was glad he stuck with us. He read from his novel Friday night and the following evening at the banquet, he read poetry. He's a very dynamic performer — he doesn't simply read his texts but brings them to life with emotion and feeling. I've always found the mark of a good reading is the confidence to hold a silence. He has this in spades. I enjoyed him very much.

He gave a workshop on Saturday morning that was another life-changing event in my writing life. I love when that happens! And doesn't it seem like things like that are happening to me more frequently these days? Or is it just me? In the workshop he said that sometimes in order to get to the truth of the story, the facts weren't good enough. That blew me away! I realised that's been a major obstacle in my writing. I've been unwilling to let go of the facts ("But that's the way it really happened!") even if the facts made the story fall flat. This was a major revelation and insight into my work. There was much more of course, Gerry is wise beyond his years when it comes to writing. I was very impressed by him and could see how he must be so good at what he does as far as mentoring goes. I've never thought I would like to have a mentor. I've always thought doing workshops and studying the craft on my own would be enough. But now I see where working with someone like Gerry one-on-one would be so beneficial to my work. Should I ever have the financial means, I would consider finding a mentor to work with me.

To top it all off, he's just a really nice guy, a true Irish gentleman, what I would call a real sweetheart. I got to spend a lot of time with him because of course there was much going out for drinks after events and staying up until the wee hours. I was fascinated by his tales of travelling in China with his wife and children, about the Bono story, about Irish politics and history, and so on. I bought his book of poetry and a CD of him performing a bunch of poems. I wanted his novel but he was all out of copies so I'll have to get one ordered into the bookstore. He told me not to be alarmed when the shopkeeper didn't know who he was ;-) Yes, he's very humble and gracious as well. I'm glad to have met him.

When I introduced Allan Cooper on Friday evening I mentioned that he lives in one of my favourite villages in the country where every summer you can find me holed up for at least one weekend in the Alpine Motor Inn. Allan got a great kick out of that and was quick to tell everyone I hadn't mentioned that the Alpine is one of the more seedy motels in Alma. I rebutted that hanging out in seedy motels was the best source of great characters. This led to a weekend long running joke about my escapades at the Alpine Motor Inn. I believe the now infamous motel may see a rise in curious writers seeking seedy characters amongst their clientele this summer.

I knew I was going to screw up the introduction of an Acadian writer that night. I had written a bio that was predominantly in English and practised the one French part with Laurence until I got it down pat. Then a few moments before I was to introduce her, the poet handed me a piece of paper with the bio she wanted me to read. The event was already underway, I had no time to prepare and this bio was filled with French. Oy! So, I figured if I was going to totally screw up anyway, I might as well make a big production out of it as a joke. I prefaced the introduction by exclaiming that I was English. "I am soooo English." I told them I never really realised how English I was before coming to Moncton a few weeks before for the Northrop Frye Festival. The festival is a true multicultural event of a scale I'd never seen the like of before. I had a fantastic time and couldn't wait to come again. I went on to add that many people had laughed at me as I said good night each evening — "Buns sore! Buns sore!" This got a good laugh from the crowd and I concluded my preface to the introduction by saying I meant no disrespect when I mispronounced the words, I simply did not know any better . . . Then I pronounced every French word wrong, including the one phrase that I had practised with Laurence, and even some English words as well. That was the only part of the evening where I was a bit flustered, but I think it came off okay . . . I hope.

Introducing Jo-Anne Elder was fun because she's written a fantastic book, Postcards from Ex-lovers, that I've read and loved. It's published by Broken Jaw Press and I was at a launching of it in Moncton during the Northrop Frye Festival. I was still a little flustered when I did her intro, so I didn't get into any banter. But after she read some of her stories including the one called "The List" and a few of her business card pieces of fiction, I was more relaxed and recovered. "The List" is a wonderful postcard story about how every woman has a list. Jo-Anne is just brilliant really, very intelligent, and her stories are sharp with wit. After thanking her for coming I said that I had a list . . . and it was long . . . and seedy. This got some guffaws as I rolled my eyes mysteriously.

Overall, the evening was a success. Many people came up to me after and congratulated me on being a great host. Some were shocked that I had this sort of thing in me because I always appear to be so mild and subdued. Some asked if I had ever considered doing stand-up or writing for Comedy Television. Some wanted to know if I was ever going to take French lessons, and assured me I needed them. And of course some just wanted directions to the Alpine Motor Inn.

The WFNB people said that now that they know what I'm capable of doing, they will be asking me to host more events . . . which is good . . . right?

A bunch of us went out to an Irish pub for drinks after the readings, but retired relatively early because we all had a long day ahead of us on Saturday. Getting into Mary's car to catch a ride back to the dorm, I climbed into the middle beside Gerry. Dorinda remarked that I had got to sit beside the "cute Irish guy" and this started a running joke about Gerry's cuteness, which had him blushing by times. So then on Saturday evening at the banquet when I also found myself seated next to Gerry, Dorinda said about me getting to sit beside the "cute Irish guy" again, to which Gerry muttered that there'd be none of that tonight. It was funny, though you probably had to be there to hear the brogue in order to appreciate it.

Saturday morning I woke up at 5:30 am, completely on my own. I guess because I had gone to sleep before 1 am (way early for me) and I was worried about oversleeping because I didn't have any alarm clock or wake-up call. I watched the sunrise from my window on the eighth floor. I don't often get an unobstructed view of the sunrise. I mean I'm up and about and around for lots of sunrises, at least twice a week if not more often, either because I haven't gone to bed yet or I'm up early. But you can't really see it from here because there are too many trees in the way. There were no trees blocking my view of the horizon in Moncton. The dawn was beautiful and I realised I was facing the east straight on, with nothing disturbing my line of sight. It's been so long since I've seen the sunrise like this that I had forgotten how quickly it happens, how the sun suddenly pops into the sky like a jack-in-a-box. One second it was just a hint of orange, the next a half-circle, and then in a blink it popped into the sky, a perfect circle of the brightest orange. How majestic! The sky was overcast, covered in a thick grey blanket of cloud. For one moment the sun filled the small opening between land and sky. It paused there for a heartbeat while I worshipped its splendour, and then as suddenly as it appeared it was gone, unable to penetrate the grey sky. I was thankful for the opportunity to begin my day in this way, touched by the bright orange rays.

After the sunrise I realised I was famished, which was another unusual thing, as I usually don't eat breakfast. So I got ready for the day, grabbed Dorinda and we headed to the cafeteria for breakfast. As I licked my plate clean I once again made a promise to myself to eat breakfast more often, which I do every time I have breakfast, but which I never stick to for some reason. I haven't had breakfast since Saturday . . . maybe tomorrow.

After breakfast we went to the building where the meeting and workshops were to be held. I helped Mary set up as best as I could and settled into a comfortable place on the aisle so I wouldn't have to be climbing over people when I gave my report and I could sneak in and out if the need be without causing too much distraction. I got to meet Bob, the new WFNB president, for the first time. He seems like a lovely man, easy going, diplomatic. I think he'll do a good job and it'll be good to work with him. The meeting got a little tense by times because a couple of discontented members seized the opportunity to air their grievances in a surprise appearance. Completely inappropriate for the AGM, in my opinion. If there is discontent I think members should collect themselves, organise, ask to be added to the agenda of the next board meeting and give a formal presentation. In other words, follow the usual meeting protocol. One of the people hadn't even renewed her membership, so technically had no right to be in the meeting at all. But there's always politics involved in any group or organisation, there's always disagreement. It's to be expected I guess. That's what makes the world interesting. Anyway, so despite a few tense moments in the meeting we got through it okay and I'm now a member of the Board of Directors. I also gave a brief report on the website, nothing much really, just that the hosting is good, I added a calendar, I'm a little bit more proficient in Dreamweaver, any questions? No. Ok, carry on then. Took all of two minutes.

After the meeting was Gerry's workshop. I've already said it was life changing for me. We talked about so many things, seemed to touch upon so many things that I needed to be thinking about right now. The universe sent me that workshop, the way she provides me with all that I need at just the time I need it. There was a reason why my ass was in that seat and it has everything to do with Callum's story and my need to tell it. Everybody always says that you need discipline, you need to write an hour everyday, you need a schedule . . . everybody always says this and I know it is true and I know that's why I don't write more and why I'm not publishing any fiction. Allan Cumyn's workshop in the fall really helped me to get past the idea that I need to write at least an hour everyday in order for it to be of any value. But Gerry took it to a whole new level. He said if you get an idea in the middle of the night, don't get up and write it down. If it's really a good idea it'll come back to you later when you're in your writing space and settled down to the business of writing. There's a time for sleep and a time for family and a time for writing — and if you're mixing up these times nobody benefits. Your sleepy time writing will not be as strong as your writing time writing. Your family time will suffer if you're running off to write things down. This was a huge revelation for me. HUGE! I've never heard it put quite this way before and this was the way I needed it to be explained in order to resonate within me.

After Gerry's workshop we all went to the cafeteria for lunch where I had Shepherd's Pie that was not nearly as good as the stuff Mom and them make at the high school, but was sufficient and again I was ravenous and ate almost everything placed before me. I cannot remember the last time I've had two square meals under my belt by 1 pm. I did find that I had more energy and less foggy brain . . . could these things be related?

After lunch Michael O. Nowlan gave a workshop on the 'job' of the reviewer/critic. I want to start writing more reviews for BnM and maybe even for freelance sale to pick up some extra cash. So this was a workshop I was looking forward to and I wasn't disappointed. His session was exactly the sort of 'how to' discussion of ethics and guidelines that I needed in order to begin. He shared some of his personal experiences including being sued by one author and receiving a rare and wonderful letter of thanks from another. Dean R. Koontz said he was not in the habit of sending letters to journalists or reviewers but he wanted to thank Michael for being honest, fair and accurate. In this letter, Koontz said he had become accustomed to being misquoted at least a dozen times in every interview he gave, and congratulated Michael for not misquoting him even once. This was pretty cool I thought.

The final workshop of the afternoon was with Carol Bruneau about creating characters. She was more hands-on than the others and actually had us do some writing. Normally, I'm not a fan of workshops where I must write and then share what I've written. I find it difficult to produce under pressure and I'm such a perfectionist when it comes to my fiction that it makes me physically ill to share work that hasn't gone through the editing and rewriting process. But maybe it was because I've been sharing more and more rough work with my writing girls or maybe it was because creating characters is something that comes easy for me, I don't know, but I was completely comfortable doing the exercises and sharing my results. I actually found that I was one step ahead of her all the way through, which was weird. The first step was to think of someone we had met in early childhood, someone who left an impression upon us but not someone we knew really well. Once we thought of someone we were supposed to make a list of all the character traits that we remembered about this person — physical attributes, temperament, station in life, etc. We were to write for 10 minutes, but I soon found that what I remembered about this person wasn't very much at all, so naturally I just started making things up. The next step was to fill in the gaps with our imaginations — what is the person's problem? Desire? Flaw/ redeeming quality? But I had already worked most of this out in the first 10 minutes, so I just continued on writing, gave the guy a name and wrote a scenario. Which was the next step, to name your person and write a scenario with him or her in it. We did a bunch of exercises and I actually came out of it with a character and a story idea. A character and a story that I really feel compelled to write.

With the workshops over it was back to the dorm to get ready for the banquet. I had a glass of wine, relaxed and got ready, singing the entire time. Have I mentioned how much I've been humming and singing lately? It's a rather unusual and yet delightful development, a bit of a stress reliever I think. Try it. It's difficult to be angry or stressed when you're singing a happy tune. Dorinda and I took a taxi to the restaurant. The Chateau a Pape restaurant that I've ALWAYS wanted to go into, always looked at longingly in the distance and figured I could never afford to eat anything there. Saturday night was my lucky night. We had a three-course dinner with three choices per course. I chose the Caesar salad for an appetiser. I didn't really fancy any of the other choices — a lobster bisque or chicken fricot. The salad was very good, a bit heavy on the garlic though. My entree was the filet mignon and it was spectacular! Very yummy. The other choices were the seafood platter and a chicken dish. For dessert I had an Acadian pastry that was like a cinnamon bun. There was another Acadian pastry that was more like a fruit tart and then there was a chocolate caramel cake that looked to die for. Everything was home-made onsite and scrum!

After dinner Gerry performed some of his poetry, which was really cool. I bought his CD and now I get to listen to them all the time. Then the winners of the Literary Competition were announced and any who had attended read excerpts. My friend, Elizabeth, won third prize in the short fiction category, which was nice. I was so proud of her. And her kids were there to share the night with her, which was great. The dinner was really good, really well done. It was the best banquet dinner I've ever been to anywhere. Great stuff!

Dorinda was tired after the dinner and couldn't wait to get back to the dorm and sleep. A lot of people seemed really subdued and tired. But I had my second or third wind and was horrified at the idea of going back to the empty room and trying to entertain myself until I fell asleep. It was kind of funny, I don't know if Gerry could see the panic on my face or not, but as Dorinda kept saying she was going back to the room and gathering her things and saying how tired she was, he didn't look around at her or anything but said, "I've got a bit of a second wind myself." I quickly agreed and then we agreed that we'd go for drinks even if nobody else was, though I figured Mary and Laurence would be. Noeline and her husband also joined us and we went to the quietest pub we could find in the vicinity, which wasn't that quiet, but still not a dance bar or anything outrageous like that. We ended up staying out until almost 2:30 and having a fabulous time. I drank much too much wine and no doubt talked Mary's ear off. I had a really good time though and despite the long day, the late hour getting to bed, all the wine, and not having any alarm clock, I woke up bright and refreshed at 7 am.

We checked out of our rooms and went back to the Cafe Bistro Felix for brunch and the open readings. I had the waffles, home-made on the spot, with fresh fruit . . . yummy!! Melt in your mouth delicious. I would definitely like to go back there again for breakfast and try some of the other dishes I saw being served. I read portions of my short story Midday Caller, which is a bit lighter and more fun than most of my stuff. Everyone laughed and thought it was great fun. It went really well and I was happy. I really couldn't have asked for a better weekend. Other than that nasty business during the meeting, everything was perfect. I'm looking forward to this year, serving on the board and being more involved.

Mood: Sleepy
Drinking: Tea
Listening To: Tiny Dancer, Elton John
Hair: I'm the Bo Bice of Barnettville Road