Labour of love

Well, the Labour Day weekend is behind us and that means autumn is just around the corner. Labour Day usually marks a few things around the Beynon household.

The first is, of course, a return to school for the kids. My wife and I made the long walk up the hill to their school this morning. Although there was the usual anxious "but I don't want to go to school today" and "why do I have to go to school anyway?" but once we were on our way the anxiety turned to excitement.

The second thing that Labour Day usually marks around my house is the conclusion of the 3-Day Novel Contest. Normally today I would have crawled into bed right after dropping off the kids and slept until it was time to pick them up. Normally I would have spent the entire weekend writing in longhand, hyped up on caffeine, lack of sleep and creative energy. This year I gave the 3-Day Novel Contest a pass. Good luck to all who participated. I will likely join the insanity again next year.

As I stated in my last post, today also marks the start of a whole new writing routine. With dropping the kids off and picking them up as the beginning and end of my writing day, I need to figure out how best to fill the time between. A very small portion of the time will be spent putting together these posts which should be shorter, although more frequent. I also have a lot of rewriting to do on my major works-The Platinum Ticket and Patriot-as well is continuing to shop around Loremaster to publishers and agents alike. Short fiction will also be a major part of my writing. More and more stories are revealing themselves to me and need to be written down and sent into the world. All of this takes time and I will have to feel my way through it as September progresses.

Anyway, back to work...

Routine

Howdy, all.

It has been a while but I'm finally getting around to putting together a post. Settling back into routine proved to be a little harder than expected upon returning from vacation but while I'm not yet in the groove, at least I can see it.

One little vacation story to relate and really something kinda cool. On our last day of vacation while heading back toward the highway through Kingston, Ontario my wife asked if we wanted to visit the grave site of Sir John A. Macdonald - 1st prime minister of Canada. While visiting the grave we stretched our legs in the impressive old cemetery. The first thing my son noticed were a number of holes in the ground around one of the tombstones. I assume they were rabbit-holes but it was the only tombstone that sported holes around it. A little creepy to be sure but my son also spied a stick apparently dragged deep into one of the holes. Without a hint of hesitation his arm was suddenly shoulder deep in the hole retrieving the stick. It has since been dubbed "the Ghoul Stick" and is not allowed in the house. A few minutes later I was photographing an impressive family plot when my son came up behind me and said, "Hey, Dad, look at the box I found under that bush!"
I turned and saw my son with the ghoul stick in one hand and in the other he held a sealed Tupperware container completely covered with camouflage tape. Now I had a pretty good idea what was in the box but I told everyone to stand a few feet back while I opened it anyway. Inside was a stamp,an explanatory note, some markers and directions to the next box. I wish I still had the note but it has been misplaced but it explained that this box is part of a game called Atlasquest - basically a scavenger hunt on a grand scale. Check out the website - they're all over the place.

During my first week back I received a rejection letter. I have read somewhere that a rejection letter from the New Yorker is supposedly the holy grail of rejection letters - I forget where. Well, a rejection letter from the New Yorker has no useful information so like any form rejection letter it is exactly that - useless. Here's the letter - note the milky-white stationary.

Speaking of rejections - I had a useful one before going on vacation regarding my story Just Business. In the letter there were suggestions and constructive criticism and from those suggestions and criticisms a story evolved. The story is called Old Timer and I think it's pretty damn fine. It has, of course, been submitted to the magazine that took the time to offer the suggestions.

Finally - and it's funny because as I type this I just received an e-mail from them - The 3 Day Novel Contest is closing in. Each Labour Day Weekend a contest is held to see what kind of novel can be written over the 72 hours of the holiday weekend. I have entered the last 2 years and both novellas - The Platinum Ticket and Patriot - are works of which I am very proud. This year, however, I will take a pass. There are a few reasons - kids start school the day immediately following the weekend and I don't need to be exhausted for that. I am also building a routine in which writing a set amount each and every day is a crucial part of my success. I don't want to mess with the routine just as I'm establishing it. In the past I have found the exercise of the 3 Day Novel extremely rewarding - I highly recommend it to others and will no doubt do it again in the future - but just not this year.

Anyway, speaking of routines - I need to get back to mine...

A long and twisted road…

Well, it’s good to be home.

It was a wonderful epic vacation full of fun and discovery but when all is said and done – there’s no place like home. Throughout the trip there were too many memorable moments to list but I’ll throw out some of the highlights. A Top 10 List, if you will.

1 – Fireflies – On our first night camping in the all but flooded Rideau River Provincial Park I though my fatigued brain was playing tricks on me. As my wife, kids and I were walking back to our campsite in the growing dusk I thought I saw the occasional flash of light. My first impulse was “Fireflies!” but I haven’t seen fireflies since I was a kid. They used to abound – why I remember catching them in jars and reading by the light of their bioluminescence but sadly they’ve vanished from our local landscape. Some say it was excessive crop spraying during the seventies and eighties that did them in (I suppose it could have been kids catching them by the jarload so they could read by their light…) but whatever the reason it was with delight to parallel my children’s that I stared as hundreds of fireflies emerged over the next half hour. If nothing else had happened throughout the trip I would have been satisfied with the secure knowledge that there are still fireflies in the world.

2 – Ottawa’s amazing museums – Split time between the Museum of Natural History (where we reacquainted with a childhood friend of mine, her two kids and the fella she married – the handsdown winner of the Nicest Guy in the World award) and the Museum of Civilization on this trip and didn’t see enough but was fascinated by what I did. Our nation’s capital is packed with quality museums and as the kids grow up I can see any number of weekend trips to take advantage.

3 – The Peace Tower – a very humbling time, visiting the parliament buildings, ascending the Peace Tower and looking at the Books of Remembrance. And if I wasn’t choked up enough as we were heading back to the car what is waiting for me directly across the street from the Eternal Flame and the front steps of Parliament? You guessed it – a life sized statue of Terry Fox.

4 – Quebec City’s 400^th Anniversary – Unfortunately we got rain and very little else from our short stop in Quebec City. With miserable, wet kids not entirely interested in an historic soaked city the only souvenir we came away with was a lovely orange umbrella. Ahh…there’s always next time.

5 – New Brunswick – camping in New Brunswick was heavenly, however we seemed to be rained on every day. We did, however, find time to swim in the frigid waters of the St. John River – to date one of my testicles has seen fit to descend.

6 – Dartmouth and Halifax – a lovely pair of sister cities and actually the reason for our destination. We stayed with a pair of my dearest friends who I haven’t seen in far too long. We also spent some time with my brother in law and his…girlfriend – nah, that’s not right – his..wife – sweet Jesus, better not let him hear me using the W word…ah, nuts – the woman he loves and lives with.

7 – Peggy’s Cove – I’m a moron but I didn’t know that Peggy’s Cove was a tourist spot. Okay, I’ve already admitted I’m a moron – can we move on. I loved the place – as did my son who adventured among the rocks – His quote of the day: “I’m as nimble as a mountain goat…and twice as fast!” It was spectacular and the crashing waves were really something. I’m a little disappointed that I neglected to take a picture of the modern sign warning against venturing too close to the water – basically it reads “Please exercise caution when approaching the sea etc. etc.” Very politically correct and bland – much more poetic is the old sign, cast in bronze and bolted to the rocks.

If you can’t read the inscription it goes like this:

WARNING

Injury and death have rewarded careless sight seers here

The ocean and rocks are treacherous

Savour the sea from a distance

Marvelous – fairly warned be thee, says I.

8 – Mahone Bay and Lunenburg Nova Scotia – It was never our intention to go to Lunenburg on this trip but we needed to go to Mahone Bay because of a story my daughter read in school last year. When we saw that we were only 11 kms from Lunenburg we decided to go. We were well rewarded because it just so happened that the Bluenose II was in port for 2 days only before continuing with her summer schedule. What a treat. We took in the sights of historic Lunenburg but I’m going to let you in on a little secret – Lunenburg is beautiful – but Mahone Bay is prettier by far.

9 – The province of Quebec – Normally I don’t have a lot of good things to say about Quebec but I would be remiss if I left out a mention of the Village d’Antan in Drummondville. It is a spectacular village comprised of real and replica historic buildings from the Drummondville area. You pass through a tunnel under a road to enter the village and it is like passing through a time tunnel. You are greeting by the local priest and the entire village is peopled by folks in period costume going about their daily business from 150 years ago. What a delightful look back in time.

I guess I can’t leave Quebec without relaying an observation…now I have a son who seemed to need to hit every bathroom between Fergus and Halifax, so I got to see my share of bathrooms across the eastern half of this country. Actually, I got to see my share, his share and your share, too! I spent a lot of time hanging around the men’s rooms waiting for my son to finish his business and I need to speak to the handwashing practices observed. Only in Quebec does handwashing seem to be alien to the standard toilet procedures for public restrooms. I can speak only to the men’s room practices but I did not see a single person wash his hands in Quebec and there is a lot of traffic in those roadside rest stations. In many of the roadside washrooms soap and paper towels are not supplied – I guess the attitude is – why bother – ain’t nobody usin’ them anyway. I guess washroom is a bit of a misnomer - should use the French - toilette.

Anyway – just an observation.

10 – There really is no place like home. Our vacation together as a family was priceless but all of us were more than ready to see the bridge on Scotland Street as we came into town. Although the lawn was wild and the vegetable garden was a jungle, we didn’t care.

We were home…safe at home.