November Goings On

The middle of a long weekend and I'm enjoying every minute.

I spent yesterday working away on my manuscript, beginning at 7:30 a.m. and stopping at 9:00 p.m. with a few breaks along the way. Absolutely glorious. When you work fulltime, a day to focus entirely on writing is a luxury and something to be savoured.

The lecture/workshop at the Ottawa Public Library on Tuesday evening got great reviews. The e-mail feedback I received, and I quote, ah hem, "informative, warm and entertaining". Ted thinks I should take my schtick on the road and charge $10,000 an hour. You have to like his ability to dream big.

I'm teaching a short story workshop to kids at the Sunnyside branch of the Ottawa Public Library and need to turn my attention to reviewing my lesson plan, which I used last year. It worked well and this will be a new group of kids, if enough sign up that is. I haven't seen much advertising of the workshop and I'm not convinced it's a go yet. This is a commitment that goes along with the Awesome Author contest, for which I will again be judging the English short stories this year.

I'm also helping with the programming at Capital Crime Writers - we have a great guest speaker this Wednesday at 7:00 at the Library and Archives - Damiem Coakeley, newly retired police officer,who will be talking about being on the beat and what really goes on in the holding cells. You are welcome to come out for a meeting to see if you would like to join (only $30 a year). My part is to organize the Christmas dinner on December 14th and have lined up Toronto author Howard Shrier to be our special guest speaker - he won the Arthur Ellis award a few years ago for best crime novel and his books have been optioned for a proposed television series, now in development at CTV. Very exciting to have him come talk to us about his books and writing.

I'm managing to curl two-three times a week after work, but lately with the time change and morning darkness while I stand at the busstop to head downtown to my office, I've been longing for a long holiday in a distant land. If I could get one $10,000 gig, I'd be on the next plane to a place with palm trees where the sun shines past four o'clock in the afternoon.