Plus — and this is a big plus — I can spend A TON of time there.  A ton. I watch with fascination as message after message pops up, as all the people I’m following let me know exactly what they are doing at that moment.

There have been some surprising finds for me, I must admit.  I’m now quite hooked on a blog called Go Into the Story — It’s written by Scott Meyers about screenwriting, and it’s addictive.  There are others,  but this is the one at the top of my brain right now (because I was on his blog mere moments ago, and am now reading the screenplay “Dune.”  Because he offered it.  Go figure.)

Facebook — same, same.  I’ve been on Facebook for a while now, and I still feel like I don’t get it. It’s a decent vehicle for getting the word out about upcoming events, and when I’m writing — as I’m supposed to be doing now — I use it to update m word count.  Keeps me on track, because there are other people out there seeing it, and I don’t want the embarrassing questions like “So what happened to you on Saturday?” (or whatever day I didn’t write, but hung around, washing clothes and vacuuming dust bunnies, and maybe even going out and sitting in the sun, that sort of thing)  But past that, I can’t understand why anyone gives a darn what I’m doing with my day. (And why, in reality, they’d even care about my word count.)

And then there’s this blog.  I sometimes forget to come here and put words down.  I should remember.  This is my connection to the outside world, after all.  My connection to an unbelievably big world.  Millions of people, all looking for — something.  Could be what I’m talking about.  You never know.

Perhaps this is what’s freezing me.  The thought that there are millions of people out there, and any one of them could happen on this blog — or one of my Facebook entries — or 140 characters I dashed off on Twitter.  That would be their introduction to me.  Is there anything there can could possibly be compelling enough to make them try to find me again?  Even remember my name?

After all, I’m not offering much.  Sometimes a bit of my pain, or a bit of my joy.  Sometimes something interesting I found on the web — or out in the real world. Sometimes just the word count on my latest novel. Hope it’s enough.

If it’s not — read Dune.  Hey, somebody gave it to me!  The least I can go is pass it on.

It’s been a long time since I’ve put in good writing days like this lately and I missed it.  Not that what I was doing wasn’t important, and all that — but I tell you, that white hot writing place where I don’t hear the phone, don’t remember that there is laundry, come up for air wondering why my neck feels stiff before realizing that I’ve been writing, steadily, for three hours without moving, that is the sweet spot, for me.

I CAN write the other way.  Put in a day doing something else, then write 1000 or 1500 or (if time really doesn’t permit) 500 words, then put it away, and come back to it the next time I have a few minutes alone.  But I don’t like it.  Not as much as this.

This type of high velocity writing drains my brain so that at the end of the day, I have nothing left.  My husband talks to me, and I know I’m staring at him like he’s suddenly speaking a foreign language I didn’t even know he knew, but I can’t seem to stop. I just stare, hoping his words will finally start making a little bit of sense in my poor fevered brain.  He’s actually getting a little better about it now.  Just shrugs, and says things like “I’ll try again later,” or “You’re not going to permanently damage yourself, are you?”

No honey.  It’s not permanent.  I promise.  I’ll  just sit over in the corner, drooling and giggling to myself, but only for a little while longer.  And the writing went wonderfully, by the way.

This past couple of years haven’t given me much time to do high velocity writing.  I’ve been caught up in lots of other stuff.  Some of it was wonderful (book launches, and going to conventions etc), some of it involved incredibly high learning curves (that would be all the marketing stuff), and some if was just horrible. (I had my fair share of disasters in my personal life recently.  ‘Nough said about that.)  All of it seemed to come at me at break neck speed, so there was no time to stop, smell the roses, and see how many days in a row I could write 5000 words a day — or more.

But now, I have the time.  I put together a schedule for myself, and I’m sticking to it (believe it or not!). I wrote out an outline.  (Well, mostly wrote out an outline.  I know where 3/4 of this puppy is going, and I THINK I know who done it in the the murder mystery portion of the novel.)  Then I warned my people that play time was over, and that I had to get to work.

Most of them bought it, and they’re actually leaving me alone.  So, every day I sit down, usually by 9 AM, and write until I can’t write anymore.  In the middle somewhere I have lunch and take a walk. (Really.  Me.  A walk. Every day!) At the end, I eat something more, try to answer my husband’s increasingly tentative questions about how it’s going, and then, sometime later, I go to bed.  And that’s all I do.  Every day.

And you want to know something?  This isn’t work!  This is fantastic!  This is first draft pour everything on the page stuff, and I love it here.

If I keep going at this pace, I’ll have the first draft of my novel finished in less than 30 days.

Sigh.  Then comes rewrites.  And that’s a different animal altogether.

But for today, I sing, even as the last of my brains leak out my ears.  Because I get to write!

Brent Knowles was good enough to review “Women of the Apocalypse” a while ago.  Here’s the link, and thanks Brent.  Hope The Writers of the Future Workshop in LA was fantastic!  (And here’s where the envy seeps in… you lucky dog, you!)

My interview with Eileen Bell of 630 CHED was a laugh riot!  She was tons of fun, and we giggled through most of the 20 minutes.  The strange thing was the other names we shared.  Donald — my dad’s name and (if I remember correctly) her dad’s.  Mary — her middle name, and my grandmother’s name.  And that our families both came from Ontario.  I inadvertently fed her mis information about the number of Eileen Bells on Facebook, though.  There are only ten or so… Maybe all the rest changed their names when they saw who was in the same “name club” as them!  None the less, thanks a ton, Eileen.  It was great fun!

And, the Apocalyptic Four will be hitting the road again.  In September, we will have a table at the Festival of Arts, which is being put on by Alternative Trends Magazine in Edmonton.  September 18, at the old Hudson’s Bay Building (now home to the U of A).

And, sometime later in September, we will be at Indigos in South Edmonton Common for a book signing.  Yay!  Will post the date and time when it’s been finalized.

There.  Updates done, I think.

Off to exercise and write and stretch and write and eat well.  And, of course, write.  It’s so nice to be back at it again!

My favorite back cracker gave me some super embarrassing exercises to do — a couple of them I can’t remember, because he wanted me to use a 90 degree corner where two walls meet to do them — and I was trying to figure out where I could actually do that in my house.  (Round house.  Lack o’ corners.)

However,  these exercises are helping immensely.  Soon I’ll be back to fighting form.  Fighting those adverbs and adjectives and run on sentences, ha ha.

And, we’ve decided to have a “going away” party for my dog, who died a short time ago.  He was a great old sport, and would have loved a party.  (Kinda wish I’d thought of this while he was alive.  sigh.)  Now I’m just waiting for the weather to cool a TEENY bit so I can make dog bone shaped cookies for my guests.  Yes.  I actually found cookie cutters shaped like dog bones.  Designed by — Martha Stewart.  Of course!

Bear would have been so impressed.

So far, not so good.  We did get the back yard sort of done — and then the gas boys came in and tore it up for us.  (Universe, cut me some slack, OK?)  My dog died, which was a kick to the head. (And no, they don’t all die in their sleep. Sometimes they die begging for help.) And that novel I was going to write?  It has been put aside until I get my back — back.

I have a screwed up back.  Had an operation to fix a messed up disc years ago — but I still have problems.  If I’m not careful (read if I don’t exercise enough) it will “pop out” which sounds fairly benign, but isn’t.  It’s a horrible feeling — along with the pain is the certainty that this time the top half of my body really will completely disconnect from the bottom half and slide off, held in place only by skin.  Blech.

So, went to my favorite chiropractor, and was met with his patented “look.”  His “I’m not angry, just massively disappointed” look.  “It’s been a while,” he muttered, writing furiously.

“Yeah.  Sorry.  Been kind of busy,” I replied, trying to stay calm.  Sometimes his ministrations hurt.  Actually, they always hurt.

He set to, and the cracking coming from my spine was ferocious.  Snapping and popping from the usual spot (lower back) and then he worked up.  And he frowned.

“Wood.”

“What?” I gasped, trying not to react.  Reacting for me would be leaping up and smacking him a good one for hurting me.  Isn’t that what a normal person would do?  Smack someone who is trying to hurt you?

“Your shoulders are like wood.  Two by fours, to be exact.  And your neck!”  Snap, pop, CRACK.  “Just terrible.”

After the pain stopped, he told me to make another appointment in a few days.  “However, if you need to, come in earlier.”

“Earlier?” He’s never said this to me before.  Holy crap, it really must be bad.

“Yes.”  Then he shook his head and shot me another “I’m disappointed” look.  “Too many hours on the computer.  That’s what’s doing this.”

Ah.  Computer.  As in writing.  Oh, wait.  It was my turn to frown.  This wasn’t funny.

My shoulders no longer feel like ground glass under the blades, and my head finally feels clear.  I’ve started exercising again (as my screaming muscles can attest) but I haven’t gone back to writing in any big way.  It only takes a couple of hours, and I start to knot up again.  So — no big sessions, which I LOVE.  And no novel.  Not so far.

Hope springs eternal — and I still have one more month.  I just have to keep exercising (shut up muscles!) and stretching between writing sessions. And remember to break up the long sessions. (Darn it.  I LOVE those long sessions.) And I need to keep going back to my chiropractor until I am completely healed.

Wish me luck.

We actually started this project at the beginning of May.  We got some good weather, and ripped into it, getting the walkway to the patio built.  (We decided not to put it next to the house, but a bit away, next to some sasktoon bushes, which will afford us some privacy.)  Then, the silliness started.  Lots of trips all over the place, and then, when all that calmed down, the weather.

The weather has not been cooperating at all.  2 weeks ago we got snow(!) and then rain. And rain, and more rain.  But this weekend it broke.  Husband’s work hit a short lull, and I was finished my (hopefully) last rewrite.  Weekend free.  Let’s get to work!

Saturday we hurt ourselves digging and leveling and hauling a yard of gravel.  (For anyone who does not know what a yard is — go look it up.  I’m still too exhausted to fully explain how much gravel that was.)  And more leveling.  We need sand — and the rock like substance  that will make the actual patio. (all right, patio blocks.  That’s what we’re using.  But rock like sounds prettier in my head.)

Husband has worked hard and long on the design of the thing, and has been looking for just the right blocks.  And he hadn’t found them before the weekend.  Understand now,  I’m just going along.  I want a flat, fairly protected space to sit and read, preferably with a coffee, early in the morning.  (There is a LOT of work that goes before I get to do that, I’m finding out.)  But the way the weeks worked, we couldn’t find what he was looking for, so we were out on Sunday, to order it.  If we needed to we were willing to haul it home ourselves, in this teeny little trailer we have.  I was hoping we wouldn’t have to.

We didn’t need to.  Husband lost it, and we ended up just going home.  Why did he lose it?  All the weekend warriors were out, making their purchases.  Line ups were long and plentiful. Everywhere.  And he still couldn’t find what he wanted.  Started talking about buying a sports car.  “An erection on wheels” I think he called it.  And getting the hell out of town every weekend, so we wouldn’t have to deal with everyone else on the road.  (Yes, I know there is a huge logic problem in that sentence, but there was no way in the world I was pointing it out to him.  Hey, it was his breakdown.  He could say anything he wanted!)

We actually have a rule for weekend city driving.  Don’t do it after 11 AM, because then the idiots are out.  We knew that. But we did it anyhow.  Like all the rest of the idiots. So we went home, husband almost delirious, and me knowing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my backyard is going to look like Beirut for at least a month more.

Sigh.

At least we didn’t by the erection on wheels.

And then we came home.  My husband had been receiving increasingly panicky phone calls the whole time we were in Winnipeg — the last one was on Sunday, and the words “Do I need to get on a plane?” struck fear into my heart.  Winnipeg is a LONG way from Edmonton when you are Eileen, who hates driving, and who has to get the truck back home.  Luckily everyone calmed down long enough for us to hit the road — together — and head back.

We did it in one day.  Good drive, actually, and my husband even let me take the Alpha seat for a couple of hours.  The last Tims we hit was at Lloydminster — a town that straddles the Alberta Saskatchewan border, where we had spent many, many weekends watching our daughter play softball.  (And now the joke.  “There is NOTHING soft about that game!”)

We had both the awards in the back seat, and they tinkled — sometimes gently, sometimes not — depending on the condition of the road.  We made a lot of increasingly goofy jokes about “the twins” as the miles rattled under our wheels, until finally, we pulled into Edmonton, and then our driveway.  I can’t begin to tell you how glad I was to see that little round house and the raggedy overgrown grass.

Our daughter, who had been good enough to look after the animals,  burst out of the house, thrilled to see us — and thrilled about the wins.  (Competitor, after all.  Knows how nice it is to bring home hardware.) We talked for a bit, convinced her to stay one more night (so we didn’t have to drive another kilometer that day) and went to bed, exhausted.

We were all up early the next morning.  Husband had to fix all the damage wrought over the weekend (remember those phone calls?  Everyone who made them remembered!) and daughter had to be taken to work.  Then, I finally had the house to myself.  Nice.

I saw that Ryan had posted about the first day, and thought it was a pretty good idea.  So I did more or less the same thing.  A maudlin little piece about Dad — but it read well enough that I left it.  Then I milled about, not really ready to step back into my life, but not really ready to do much else.  (I didn’t even unpack.  Still haven’t, truth be told.)

The next day I went back to my blog, to add another day. And there were comments for the first post.  Cool.  I like it when people actually read this thing…

And one caught my eye.

Hi Eileen!

Congratulations on the award. I’ve been receiving congrats on your behalf – and thought I should pass them on!

Could you give me a call?

~Eileen Bell
630 CHED Radio

Yes!  The famous Eileen Bell from radio.  Talking to me!

This Eileen Bell has been on radio forever in this town, it seems.  And I have always had to endure the joke “So, are you the one on radio?”

“No,” I always reply.  “I am the other one.”

So I called her.  I could only imagine the look on the receptionist’s face when I asked for Eileen Bell, and she asked me who was calling.  “Eileen Bell,” I said.  The pause was long before she chimed “One moment please.”

And then I spoke to Eileen Bell.  Very cool.  Even cooler — she wants to interview me in July.  On being a writer — and being Eileen Bell.

I said yes.  Good grief, how could I not?  Here’s my five minutes of fame — and I get to share it with the other Eileen Bell.

Ha!

The Aurora Winners

Close up of the winners

The Apocalyptic Four with their Aurora

And here we are with our publisher, Brian Hades, at the Auroras!

The top two were sent to me by Chadwick Ginther, from McNally Robinson.  Thanks, Chadwick.

The second last one was taken by one of Billie’s workmates, and sent to me by Billie.  Thank you!

The last one was taken by my friend Barb Galler Smith at the Auroras.  Thanks, Barb.

I will post more as I get them, and I will continue to tell the story of Winnipeg, a bit at a time.  But tomorrow, Billie and I are off to Mountain View County, where we will be doing a presentation at the Word in the West Literacy Festival.  We expect to have a bunch of fun, are looking forward to it!

See?  The fun never stops!  I just forget to post about it, sometimes!

I was talking to my husband.  I didn’t often (ever) ask him if he wants to come with me to the conventions.  He is really not that kind of guy.  However, this one was different.  This time, I was up for an award.

“Sure, I could go,” he replied. “If you want me to.”

“Of course I do.  Do you want to fly or drive?”

He thought for a moment.  “Let’s drive,” he said.

Good enough.  Decision made.  I sent a frantic email to Billie Milholland (we had been talking about flying down together) to let her know that my plans had changed, and then really thought about what we were doing.

We were driving.  To Winnipeg.

It’s a long way from Edmonton to Winnipeg.  However, we decided we could turn it into a mini holiday.  You know, like regular people do.  Take a long weekend and go on a holiday.  Not do what we usually do,  which is hang around, waiting for the inevitable phone call that lets my husband know of some water related disaster in some small town somewhere in Alberta.  For once he would not be heading to that small town, usually late at night, trying to fix the disaster, so that the town would have water in the morning.  We would actually be going out of town.  For fun.  Ooh.  This was starting to sound good.

We were both up early on the morning of May 20th.  All we had to do was pack up the Element and head out before 10 AM.  Nice leisurely drive down the road, stop in Yorkton, maybe meet Barb Galler-Smith, Diane Walton and Ann Marston for supper.   Have a good sleep, and head to Winnipeg the next morning.  Nice.

Then the phone rang.  A few minutes later my husband ran out the door, yelling “Pack the truck!  I’ll be back when I can!”  A disaster had befallen one of those small towns, somewhere in Alberta.  I hadn’t even thought to ask “Where are you going?”  I just closed the door and brewed myself another pot of coffee.  Suddenly I had tons of time.

I packed my suitcases.  (Yeah, I’m one of those late packers.)  Then I watched the season finale of “Supernatural.”  I ate.  Played with the dog.  Wondered if I could still get a plane ticket.  Wondered if my husband was ever going to come home again.  Wondered why the heck I ever thought driving to Winnipeg was a good idea.

He came back at 2 PM.  “Did you fix it?” I asked.  I didn’t even ask what “it” was.  At that point, I didn’t give a rat’s ass.

“No.  But I think it will hold together for the weekend.”

“So we’re still going?”

“Yes.  Is the truck packed?”

Oops.  Luckily it only took a few minutes to throw the luggage in the truck, and by 3 we were on the road, the jury rigged town water system behind us.  We got to Yorkton, too late to meet Barb, Diane, and Ann, but we made it all the same.  And the next day, we booted it for Winnipeg.

Winnipeg, and Key Con.  And the Auroras.

As you might remember, Women of the Apocalypse was up for a couple of Aurora Awards.  With everything else that was going on in my life, I was hanging on to this bit of good news like it was a life raft.  I needed a light at the end of the tunnel.  I really did.  And I knew two other women who needed it, even more than I did.  That’s why I invited my aunt and my mother to come to Winnipeg, for the awards.

You see, I was at my uncle’s funeral the day I found out my novella had been shortlisted for the Auroras.  In fact, I was standing outside the get together after the funeral, using my sister’s cell phone (luddite that I am, I don’t even own one of those), desperate to hear Clint Budd’s voice say “Your story made it.”

I’m sure people at the funeral thought I was a jerk. But I didn’t care.  I needed the good news.

After the funeral, my sisters and I flew home.  My mother hadn’t gone to the funeral of one of her oldest friends.  She couldn’t.  My father was in the hospital, and he was dying.  Cancer was crushing the life out of him, just the way it had my uncle.

I went to the hospital and told them both my good news.  They were so pleased that, right there, in the hospital room, we began planning our trip to Winnipeg.  Dad pretended to be hurt that we weren’t planning on taking him too, but only for a minute.  You just can’t play those games very long when you’re dying.

We thought we had a few more months.  I thought I was going to be able to come back from Winnipeg, and tell Dad all about our adventures.  But I couldn’t.  He died three weeks later.

My aunt came to his funeral — and that’s when we firmed up the plans for all of us to go to Winnipeg, to the Auroras.  That bit of light at the end of a god awful long tunnel.

I’ll tell you tomorrow about the convention itself — how the sci fi and fantasy boys LOVED my aunt, how great our panels went, how much fun Ryan had (ha!) and how it felt to stand on the podium not once but twice at the Aurora awards.

This one was for my mom and my aunt.  I’m so glad they had a good time.  And I’m so glad I could give them a little bit of light.