Heat. There’s some real heat out there now and while it feels nice, I don’t quite function properly in Montreal’s heat. I never have. It often surprises people (ok, it surprises Americans mostly) how hot Montreal gets in the summer and especially the humidity, which can be infernal, and I suppose I’m Canadian enough to not enjoy it all that much. A part of the Canadian condition is not enjoying weather, period, mostly because we have not been blessed in the weather department (and Montreal, for as much as I love it, truly does not have great weather, except perhaps for that first day when you know it’s not going to snow anymore, or that night when you feel autumn’s first chill – Montreal doesn’t do weather well, but it’s great at transitions) and so we gripe about it even when it’s perfect. Canadians are far more fatalistic about most things than their American cousins, in general, and I think this has something to do with the awfulness of our weather.
I’m not going to write about weather. I’m just writing an update. On what I’m doing. Because summer, perhaps because of the heat, is also a productive time for me usually. So: my first novel is still in “publish me, please!” hell; that is, my agent has sent it out to almost a dozen publishers and we’re still waiting for their response. Frankly, at some point, my patience is going to evaporate, like completely, and this process is a reminder of how silly the publishing process is in a world that has sped up to become instantaneous in its delivery of product and in the expectations this has engendered. What happened to the music industry in the last 5 years is about to happen to publishing (if it isn’t happening already). This has nothing to do with the people working in the industry, who work hard and can only work so quickly. But that, to me, seems like the problem. It’s the layers of people needed to get a book to market. And, let’s face it, fiction is in trouble anyway. I’m writing for the losing team.
And because I’m a sucker for punishment, I’ve already started thinking about my next novel – I’ve even written a kind of short outline for it – and I’ll get going on that as soon as I know where my first novel is going.
Meanwhile, an audiobook of my first book of short stories is ongoing and should be released this fall. I also have a treatment for a TV idea based on one of the stories in that book and I really want to sit down and get all my notes into one place. Well, they are in one place, in Evernote, but I’d like to start crafting the thing into a proper story, (Pro tip: If you don’t use Evernote, get on it. Especially if you use more than one device, like most people. It’s one of those programs that have changed my life. Kind of like beer did about 30 years ago).
I have a few short stories on the go as well. I usually do. One of them takes place at the Canadian/American border, a bar in a small town in northern New Hampshire and quite possibly, an old hotel, something like the Balsams or the Sagamore. I have the last scene in my head – this is what usually gets me started – and the first 10 or so pages. This is first draft territory. I might not use anything I have.
The writing process is a strange one, let’s face it, and is unique to each and every writer. So the question that many writers get about “process” is useless and almost always irrelevant. Like any sort of creation, we all have to crawl over broken glass in our own way to get to the promised land. My way isn’t any better than yours, it’s just what works for me.
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