Month: December 2016

advent calendar

Advent December 12

By on Monday, December 12, 2016

Advent Calendar images from Minyreve.

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advent calendar

Advent December 11

By on Sunday, December 11, 2016

Advent Calendar images from Minyreve.

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advent calendar

Advent December 10

By on Saturday, December 10, 2016

Advent Calendar images from Minyreve.

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advent calendar

Advent December 9

By on Friday, December 9, 2016

Advent Calendar images from Minyreve.

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netgalley copy

Review of Inspired! by Maria Bukhonina

By on Thursday, December 8, 2016

I woke up at five this morning, and couldn’t trick myself into sleeping again, so I grabbed my iPad and read Inspired! because if you can’t have beautiful dreams, you might as well stare at beautiful things instead.

Inspired! is a collection of better-written-than-wikipedia-although-containing-the-same-superficial-information entries about twenty different inspired people (actually, one of them is a dog and some chapters are about a partnership, so actually twenty-five people and one dog). I’m not sure how a dog is inspired. It’s a cute story though — Hachikō. My impression is that Inspired! is supposed to be a sort of glossy, flipping-through-it book you find in museum gift shops. Or maybe it’s for tweens/teens to learn about inspired people (and dogs). I could picture myself reading it at the dentist to pass the time. I doubt I’d purchase it though.

Ultimately, it’s an icing book — you aren’t going to feel very full after reading it. Plus, and I am assuming because of copyright issues, art that is referenced in the text isn’t always reproduced (it’s like the book didn’t even know that it was going to be my looking-at-beautiful-things-while-insomnia’d book 😉 ). It’s a bit like a listicle made into a book with a sort of random application of the word inspired (Alexandre Dumas père vs Hachikō vs Bonnie and Clyde vs Suzanne Valadon vs Picasso, etc.)

Inspired! by Maria Bukhonina went on sale December 1, 2016.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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short stories

the ever weakening concept of meghan

By on Thursday, December 8, 2016

Have not been sleeping well. May be going slightly sleep-deprived crazy.

***

I tell myself stories to fall asleep. I started when I was pregnant. I broke for a bit, a few months this summer, but I’m back, telling myself stories I started once but never finished. Sometimes, after a month or two of head space, they float away, off to try their luck, I assume, with someone else who might write them down (if anyone does end up writing a story about The Trading Post in Norwood, Ontario, know that I’m the one who was offered that story and passed).

There’s one story that starts in a feral front garden, with a wasp’s nest and a pathway under the bushes. Some sort of bushes. I don’t know their name. When we bought our house, Neil’s mum had to come over and tell us the name of the plants in the garden.

You really don’t know this one? she asked me.

No.

It’s mint. She picked it up and smelled it. Then she gave me some to smell. She was right; it was mint. I guess I should have snuffled around on the ground, smelling all the leaves before she arrived, but no one told me you’re supposed to do that when you buy a house. That was not in any of the promotional mortgage materials the bank gave us.

So I don’t know the bushes. I named the characters, two of the three so far. Sarah, and then another name, because I realized that since naming them a few weeks ago, I’ve forgotten one of the names. It was common, could be masculinized, but for a girl. Stuck in my head right now is Teddy, but what is that short for? Theodora? That’s not too common. Was the child’s name Charlotte (Charlie?) Louise (Lou?) The name was perfect. Why didn’t I write it down.

The story’s lost now even though I might call the child Edith (Ed to Ted to Teddy almost makes sense).

***

I drank a lot of coffee this morning. My heat goes like super-bass.

***

All my stories are again out. Let the rejections trickle in. I hate submitting. This one wants page numbers, this one wants my address at the top left of all pages, this one wants no identifying marks, this one wants docx, this one pdf. The bureaucracy of writing was also not in the promotional writing materials that anyone ever gave me.

***

Coffee heart pounds and collapses. My chest is hollow, concave. Sleepy meghan dissolves.

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