Into December

Good Saturday morning. I didn't spend many hours at my computer this week although I managed to complete the second edit of Turning Secrets and submitted it to Dundurn last weekend. Since then, I've spent most of my time at the Canadian Tire Centre watching the Olympic curling trials or at home watching on television. I'm happy to report that my daughter Lisa's team (Rachel Homan) is having a great week and plays in the semi-final this afternoon. We'll be there to cheer them on. My youngest daughter Julia (skip Chrissie Cadorin) is also playing in a tournament this week called the Trophy with the winner securing a spot in the Ontario provincials in January. They've won five games in a row with two left to go. We're cheering them from afar. You can see my preoccupation this week:-)

I've firmed up plans to attend the Ontario Library Association (OAL) Super Conference on February 1st in Toronto. I'll be signing advance copies of Bleeding Darkness at the Dundurn booth after a breakfast for the Golden Oak nominees and volunteers. The librarians voted on the short list and now adult learners are voting on the winning book, which will be announced in April. No Trace made the list this year. The OLA Super Conference goes on for a few days and brings together librarians from across the province.

While I've taken a bit of a writing break this week, I've been working on the seventh Anna Sweet novella, now on chapter three. The plot idea seems sound and I'm having fun working through the storyline. I even have a working title "Killer Heat" so hopefully this will be one of those manuscripts that almost writes itself. Did you know that some writers believe a Divine hand is guiding their words, making them 'a vessel' for the story? I'm not so sure about that but it is hard to explain where the ideas come from sometimes.

Then there were those authors who took drugs to heighten their writing experience. The story goes that Samuel Taylor Coleridge was high when he was writing the poem Kubla Khan and someone came into the room and interrupted him. He lost track of his 'vision' and the poem remains unfinished. The opening lines ...

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 

A stately pleasure-dome decree: 

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 

Through caverns measureless to man 

   Down to a sunless sea. 

Two weeks until Christmas, people. Time to break open the egg nog. I'm almost done shopping and will have to start thinking about the food soon. Hard to believe we're coming down to the wire. The party season is upon us ...