Smooth as a baby's bottom and some fiction - what a life...

I wanted to pass along a bit of an update on the fiction workshop. It’s been 2 weeks since I’ve talked about it and I have a couple of interesting pieces to pass along but before I get into that I think I should follow up on my last post.

I had forgotten that shaving with a safety razor is not like shaving with a double or triple blade system. Needless to say the first attempt left me raw and bloodied and wondering about my decision to go retro with the safety razor…and then I remembered…

As a teenager my dad took me aside when I had the requisite amount of scruff on my face and told me, “I’ve put this off as long as possible because once you start you’ll have to keep it up for the rest of your life. It’s time for you to learn how to shave.” He had this god-awful lemon-lime canned shaving cream – probably Gillette but I couldn’t swear to it – and he showed my how to apply a even layer. Next he showed me how to slide a fresh blade out of the Wilkinson Sword ten pack of blades. He taught me how to open the safety razor, place the blade and tighten the top. Then he showed me how to scrape a brutally sharp strip of metal across my chin and cheek and throat. As I recall, that experience left me raw and bloodied as well.

I had forgotten that to shave with a safety razor is an exercise in finesse. Slow and steady wins this particular race and I’m happy to report that four or five shaves in and I’m no longer hacking my face apart.

On to the workshop –

Two weeks ago we were given a situation from which to build a scene. The premise was as follows:

In point form, construct the series of events that leads to the following scene – include a short characterization of the protagonist and the “inciting incident” that has “…radically upset the balance of forces in the protagonist’s life.”

…she gets up in the middle of the night and cuts off her long braid. She dyes the rest of her blonde hair dark brown, puts on one of her husband’s business suits and turns all the lights in the house off.

OR

She turns all the lights on.

I ended up with a lengthy story of which I am quite pleased. After a bit of polishing I will be sending it out into the world to look for a home so it’s not available in the fiction notebook but last week’s effort is.

Last week was a lot of fun. The exercise came from a premise that if you can’t write jacket copy or a book review for the novel you’re working on then you probably lack enough focus to tell the story effectively. Each of us drew an adjective and a noun at random from separate envelopes. Those two words became the title of an imaginary book for which we needed to write a book review. My title was The Impetuous Shepherd. The book review can be found over at the Fiction Notebook or can be downloaded by clicking here.

There’s some other stuff going on but it’s growing late. I’ll fill you in on the next post.

A Close Shave

Today I would like to talk about something very near and dear to my heart. Those who know me know that I place a lot of value on something that seems to be disappearing from business today.

Cormac McCarthy says in his novel No Country For Old Men that you can tell that the world is going to hell when people stop saying their “sirs and ma'ams”. I would substitute with “please's and thank yous”. When simple manners begin to fall by the wayside you know that you’re in trouble.

Try to imagine the last time you were at... let’s say Tim Horton’s. The service staff were probably polite – they’re trained that way. But try to remember the person who was ahead of you in line. Did they say please when they ordered? Did they say thank you when they got their order? My anecdotal evidence suggests the answer is probably not.

Imagine the last time you were purchasing a product and the service staff were disinterested or even downright rude. Call me a curmudgeon -you probably already have - but I can honestly say I don’t remember service staff ever being as rude in the past as they are today. I am, of course, overgeneralizing but the genuine "Have a nice day"s seem few and far between.

But I don’t want to focus on the negative today. I would like to relate a tale of customer service done just right. I’ve always been a big advocate of customer service. I find that businesses don’t emphasize it enough. Let’s face it, good customer service is free. It doesn’t cost a penny to be polite. It doesn’t cost a cent to go out of your way to be helpful. And don’t get me started on the insignificant cost of being cheerful. When I patronize a business and I see a disinterested, uninvolved or chatting-on-the-phone-with-his-friend service person – well, let’s just say that unless they have a monopoly I will not be visiting that place of business again. On the other hand, if I walk into a place and the person says, “Is there anything I can help you with?” and means it, that store can definitely count on a repeat visit from me.

The particular case study I would like to present today has a little bit of back-story. Early last week while I was grocery shopping at our local mega foodmart I looked down at the list and saw that the next item I needed was a package of razor blades. Now I use a Gillette Mach 3 razorblade for the smooth-as-a- baby’s-bottom feel it lends my rugged, manly features. I’ve used other blades, even flirted with those four and five blade monstrosities, but for my money the Mach 3 always left me with the most satisfying shave… That was until last week.

When I reached that alarm-rigged, metal and plastic display case they imprison razor blades in nowadays I reached for my beloved Mach 3 blades and was taken aback by what I saw. The cost of eight blades had to crept over the psychological 20 dollar barrier. My hand got to shoulder height and would go no farther.

That’s waaaaay too much to pay for some metal and plastic, my common sense told me and for once I was in complete agreement.

What to do? What to do? What to do?

Well, there was only one thing to do – go retro.

About eleven inches to the left and three rows down sat a row of lonely double-edged razor blades. Normally I would have passed them by but today they caught my eye. Actually, the $6.49 price for 10 caught my eye. I bought them, knowing in my heart of hearts that I must still had a safety razor somewhere at home.

I didn’t.

I looked all around town. I looked all around some nearby towns. I checked every drugstore and every grocery store that I can think of and I could not find a single safety razor. Well, I thought, I might be going retro but that doesn’t mean I can't use the Internet.

I checked a few places online and settled upon a Canadian company called Momentum Grooming. I ordered from them a Merkur Safety Razor [Classic] – a wonder of machine tooled stainless steel with a knurled handle for a no-slip grip.

This was an Internet order made without one bit of contact with a human being. From the beginning I had a good feeling about this company. The website was easy to navigate. The prices were clearly visible and the different shipping options, as well as their associated costs, were shown upfront. After placing my order a confirmation came through to my e-mail almost immediately. The following day when my order was processed, another e-mail was sent letting me know that I would be receiving the shipping information the following day. As promised, I received a Canada Post tracking number the following day, again via e-mail.

Today I received my safety razor from the good people at Momentum Grooming. Remember, this razor is made from stainless steel and is virtually indestructible. If anything could ship traveling around in a box with little concern about damage my German safety razor would have to be it. Buried among the packing noodles was a box containing my razor but we also had the following items thrown in for good measure:

Baxter of California facial scrub – two applications

Truefitt & Hill ultimate comfort pre-shave oil – one application

Truefitt & Hill ultimate comfort shaving cream – one application

Truefitt & Hill ultimate comfort aftershave balm – one application

Anthony Logistics For Men – ingrown hair treatment (OK, that one’s a little gross)

A Truefitt &Hill information card

A Momentum Grooming business card

All I ordered was a razor.

The last little thing that prompted me to write about this today was the receipt. Tucked away in the box was the receipt charged to my Visa showing the usual associated costs but what was written on the lower left hand corner in blue ballpoint ink was what showed me that Momentum Grooming knows what customer service is about. As someone was packing out my order they took the few seconds it needed to make a difference. There were three little words written on my receipt (you should be able to see them in the picture to the right) that will have me thinking of Momentum Grooming whenever I need anything related to caring for my manly visage.

I’ll leave you with those three little words:

Thank you, Dave!

Rat Dog

The Fiction Writer's Workshop resumed after a two week hiatus. This week's discussions centred around plot. My favourite quote of the evening is an unattributed one as follows:

What do your characters treasure most? Put it at stake and let your characters fight for it.


Think about any story that has captivated you and odds are the above quote applies.

During the workshop we also took a look at the last assignment from our workshop on Point of View. There were two choices from that workshop. The one I chose was as follows:

Please use the past tense for this exercise. One to three pages.
(Any point of view)
The lobby of a swanky apartment building--the doorman is opening the door for a female tenant just as a man walking a small dog passes the entrance. A potted plant falls from a sixth floor window narrowly missing the woman. The dog strains at the leash and paws through the remnants of the potted plant.

Quite the springboard. It actually ended up being 8 pages but once I started I had to keep going. I had a lot of fun with this one and it can be found over at the fiction notebook. I called it The Rat Dog.

Those who know me will recognize my long standing dislike of diminutive canines is creeping into my fiction. I have long held the belief that if it's smaller than a cat then it forfeits its right to be called a dog. And then there are the cat-sized ones that fall into the realm of what my friend Diane calls "kickin' dogs". I guess anything less than knee height falls into this category. Anything higher than the knee technically qualifies as a dog but if I need to stoop to pet it - well, that's iffy.

I'm happy to report that Loremaster's beginning has been rewritten and with some luck and hard work the manuscript will be revamped in short order. So far the story remains the same with a healthy portion of house-cleaning and technical corrections. Looking forward to getting it submitted so I can move onto something new...

Something new involving demons...