Grrl Pirate Reading

This Thursday, February 22nd I will be reading as part of the launch festivities for Kiss Machine's latest installment of the comic Violet Miranda: Girl Pirate.

I'll be reading some of my female pirate poems from my first book, The Dagger Between Her Teeth, and the band Pirate Honeymoon will also perform. Rumour has it that free grog and tattoos will abound, as well as prizes for the best-dressed pirates...

The festivities will take place at Babel Books and Music at 123 Ossington (just north of Queen West), Toronto 7 - 9 pm. Free.

This promises to be a rockin' fun time, and I'm looking forward to reading some of my old poems again. So come and check out the new issue of Violet Miranda, and celebrate grrl pirates, real and fictional!

Novel Writing

Tyranny!

Tyranny!

Tyranny!



Thank you, wee short story. Wee short stories are so much kinder. Your haircut, also, is better.

Decisions

I was complaining the other day to Impostor J that I am terrible at making decisions. Not just big ones, which are hard for everyone, but even banal and inconsequential little ones: what to wear, what to eat, should I go to the library before work or after. My waffling seems to be getting worse. I hate it.

Then Impostor J said that she had recently had a conversation about Writers' Indecisiveness with Impostor A! Impostor A's take on it was that as writers, we are always having to make decisons: about our characters, about lines, about images, about which words to use, which to cut, what order to put them in, and not just words - whole stanzas, entire paragraphs sometimes! - and infinitely so on. Writers make enough decisions. Decisions, decisions, decisions - that is writing.

It's no wonder we are burnt out of decision-making! In Our Real Lives, we can hardly muster up another decision. We cannot control Real Life. We didn't make it.

Well, I don't know if that was Impostors A & J's conversation exactly, but that is what I think it meant. Writers aren't indecisive people; there are just only so many decisions we want to make in a day!

I don't agonize over writing decisions. They are not as difficult; sometimes I know instinctively, sometimes intuitively, what needs to be done and I do it. Move this, cut this, don't say this, say this. Done! Next!

It's Real Life - what to do with that - that is tough.

Thanks, Impostors J & A.