Big Red Paperweight

I have this big red paperweight that has been within ready reach since those days of my undergraduate degree from McMaster all those years ago. It tips the scales oh, around seven pounds. It has been used to prop open doors and windows. It has been used as a coaster for countless coffee cups. It has been thrown in anger and left a dent in a plaster wall. It can be opened, my hefty red paperweight and when you look inside, guess what you’ll find…

Words. Thousands of words. And beside each of those words are more words, describing the word that they follow. My massive red paperweight is, of course, The Random House Webster’s College Dictionary (1988 edition).

One word in particular had me reaching for it this evening.

Resignation – n. 1. the act of resigning. 2. a formal statement, document, etc. stating that one gives up an office or position. 3. an accepting, unresisting attitude, state, etc. ; submission, acquiescence. [ 1350-1400 ME < rescinding =" L">

On Monday morning I found myself in a position where I needed to resign from my commissioned sales job.

I had been with the display company since August of last year and we had been flirting with salary discussions for some time. After a long while of being put off, I pressed the issue with my boss last Friday and told him what I needed. The proposal I made was, in my opinion, based on an established benchmark (ie. A person of comparable experience and skill set currently employed doing the same job) and all I asked for was fair and equitable treatment. Unfortunately my boss, while assuring me that I was a valuable member of the team, didn’t feel that he could afford to pay me what this other person was earning and asked me what I could live with.

“I just told you what I could live with.” I told him.

“But can you settle for less?” was his reply.

“I told you what I can settle for. Make me an offer and find out.”

He said he’d look at things over the weekend and come back to me on Monday. Well, Sunday night I received an e-mail from HR with an offer considerably less than the earlier stated benchmark. After that I had no choice but to resign.

I’ve had mixed feelings about this but it is for the best. I am parting on amicable terms and will serve out my notice making sure that projects that are underway are transitioned properly. It is a company filled with really good people and lots of potential and I do wish them all the success in the world.

Now – what will I do? Well, that’s a really good question.

I don’t think I will go back into graphics or packaging sales, though I am good at it and have twenty years experience. Ideally, the fiction will begin to sell and I will be submitting the short fiction to various markets in the coming weeks. I will also finish the last revision of Loremaster in the very near future and get that submitted but in the meantime – the chilluns gotta eat.

I think the best plan for now is to find something local that won’t devour my time and energies (or gas and wear and tear on the car). Let's face it, there are a multitude of ways to earn money. I have some things in mind and I will keep you posted.

Wish me luck – it’s all very exciting!!!

Art Appreciation

Last night was to be the second session of the Elora Centre for the Arts (hereafter known as ECftA – too much damn typing) Fiction Workshop. As it turns out the ECftA is holding an Art Appreciation series and last night happened to be a gentleman called Robert Enright.

Listeners of CBC radio might be more familiar with Robert’s bow-tie wearing cousin,
Michael Enright

but Robert has garnered fame in his own right.

Robert Enright is an art and culture critic and currently holds a position at the University of Guelph (about ½ drive from beautiful and historic Fergus). He was the guest speaker last night at the ECftA and since one of the workshop participants works for the ECftA and was committed to this lecture, it was decided that the workshop should attend.

Normally this is not the sort of event I go out of my way to be at. Even though my undergraduate degree is in English, and a great deal of that degree was spent in English criticism, I’ve always seen critics as, at best, unnecessary and at worst, useless, talentless hangers-on…you know, somewhat parasitic. I am glad to say that my opinion has changed…a bit.

I showed up at the appointed hour, had my name stroked off the list by one of the lovely volunteers who makes something like the ECftA a possibility, and proceeded into the gallery that was serving as a waiting area before the lecture.

Since it was Chinese New Year there were an assortment of Asian treats and green tea aplenty. As I sipped my tea from a Styrofoam cup I took in the art work of Sara Angelucci, the artist currently featured in that particular gallery. If you follow the link you can see some of her photos and although they’re good, it was her video piece called Double Take that really impressed me. It was a story told by two sisters and the personalities are so distinct for each that while I knew for a fact that the artist was playing both parts, I found it increasingly hard to believe it.

It was while I was hanging up the headset after watching Double Take that I was approached. Since I was alone at the centre of the galley, like the lone traveller on a city bus who hasn’t had the foresight to put his bag on the seat next to him, I suppose I was a fair target. She was a haggard looking, hunchbacked woman with poorly bleached hair, blonde over grey. She held her own disposable cup in her hand as she lurched toward me. She was still a good eight to ten feet from me when the rank smell of stale booze hit me.

“It’s a far cry from white wine!” she said by way of introduction, raising her cup of green tea.

“No kidding.” I replied. Really, what else could I say.

The room continued to fill and my new companion spied someone she knew and with a grunt and a nod, she was gone. I took in the crowd. It was obvious that there was a core group of the artistic community that everyone knew. One of these was a wonderful woman who I’ve seen around town, but couldn’t put a name to. Every town has a woman like her. Every town needs one. She was dark haired, with glasses and swept across the room. She was shortish and not particularly attractive but she just glowed, she was that alive. Think Kathy Bates in anything she’s done where her character’s neither depressed nor psychopathic and you’ll know the kind of woman I’m talking about.

There was also another older woman who approached me. She was this lovely woman from near Manchester named Anne. Anne stands at about 4’8” and is so, so sweet if ever so confused. She introduced me to several of the artistic crowd, all of whom were extremely welcoming.

There were, of course, the turtleneck wearing folks (snooty and pretentious) but they were by far the minority. I met one guy who paints massive abstract canvases and one gent that works with the River Run Centre in Guelph.

We filed into the studio space that was set up for the lecture and sat on those incredibly uncomfortable school assembly chairs made of tube steel and tissue-thin lacquered plywood.

Robert Enright spoke about the quirkiness of the many and varied artists that he’s interviewed, how he fell into interviewing artists and how he became a cultural critic. The thing I enjoyed most was the slide show that accompanied the talk. Some of the pieces he chose to accompany the lecture were truly stunning and I’m still kicking myself that I left my notebook in the car and can’t recall a single damn name.

Live and learn…

PRISM International and the Fiction Workshop

It has been a busy week. Not only has it been blowing and snowing to such extremes that the highways in my neck of the woods were closed on Wednesday and all schools were closed today, but my writing has been more structured and dedicated.

It has been a long haul but, with the deadline of Jan 31st acting as a fire under my ass, I was able to finish Small Town Secrets at long last. At only seventeen pages it's one of my shorter fiction pieces but the subject matter was difficult. The middle and beginning were subject to countless revisions but the last six pages are almost exactly as they flowed from the pen late Wednesday night. I typed out the last of it Thursday morning, printed the manuscript and mailed it off to PRISM International, the University of British Columbia's literary magazine for their annual short fiction contest. I just noticed that the deadline has extended so if you hurry, you can enter to. Entering is a no-lose proposition as the entry fee just so happens to be the cost of an annual subscription to their excellent magazine.

I've mentioned a few times the Fiction Writer's Workshop presented by the Elora Centre for the Arts hosted by Michael Hale. The first get together was last night. In my last post I voiced my fears regarding writer's workshops and such and I'm glad to report there was nary a whiff of black nor angst in the room. There are four of us plus the host which makes for a cozy, intimate group.

The workshop consisted of discussions about the craft of writing, the business of writing and what each of us wanted to get out of the workshop. We also did some spontaneous exercises and I've included one of them over at my Fiction Notebook. You can go straight to the Alphabet Exercise by following this link. After each workshop I pick something to add on the Elora Centre for the Arts Fiction Workshop page.

I'm finding the workshop very helpful. Writing is such a solitary thing and egos are so easily bruised that it's refreshing to find a handful of folks who are willing to take the risk and connect and share. I came away feeling refreshed and certain that this workshop will help me build the schedule I need for sustained daily writing.


With ambitious plans for 2008, a sustained daily writing schedule is just what I need.