Day 13: Sometimes Your Diet Gets In The Way.

I have started a diet. Woah! What?!!!  Me diet? Ha! I never used to have to think about my food intake. When I was in high school I would frequent the doughnut shop across the street daily on the hunt for chocolate eclairs or bow ties. Whichever one had the most rainbow coloured sprinkles would accompany me back to the school hallway where I would sit in front of my locker and slowly savour my treat; much to the chagrin of the pack of cheerleaders that for some reason seemed to pass by me everyday. They must have been hungry watching me. I never gained a pound. I was a solid 100lbs until I became pregnant with my first child. At slightly over the nine month mark I hit 130lbs. Not bad. Child number two put me up to almost 150lbs. Child number three came out at almost 100lbs, I swear! That pregnancy ended with a mind blowing off the chart weight of 180lbs. The minute I shared that moment with my scale I changed my diet and exercised every night. In only two months I had returned to a respectable size. Time, children and life in general has seen my weight go up and down since but never to a size of ill repute until now. Somehow the boot camp this summer, work outs at the Y, walking to work and back and daily walks with the dog helped me to gain a ton. Literally I think! So, diet, here I come.
Instead of eating an eclair in front of my peers today I brandished a sliced hard boiled egg. That was my snack. A pack of almonds was my breakfast. My colleagues and I discussed the merits of my doctor recommended South Beach Diet. No carbs for two weeks, then a slow re-introduction of healthy carbs. Sure. I can do that. I think.

The Hot Air Balloon: Big, round, full of hot air and symbolizing lofty ambitions.

But it is going to require a lot of concentration and commitment (I admit, I caved and had a chocolate bar this afternoon). My will-power is sputtering on weak batteries as it is, so my writing may have to give. I don't know if I have will-power enough for both projects. Oh, but wait. I am not writing these days. Good then. Expect to see me 20lbs thinner before Christmas. That, or I will drop a 20lb manuscript on your desk.

Day 12: Sometimes Life (and Death) Get In The Way

I was speeding along down the literature highway. I was flipping through pages like wind through the napkins on my picnic table. I was drinking in words from Stieg Larsson and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Then the unthinkable. My favourite 'wordsmith' passed away. She loved collocations. She inspired me to teach. She and I shared a passion for music and words the Dead and Cohen. Her passing was like slamming into a fiery truck; the kind that slides slowly towards you down the side of a mountain and you watch knowing that you cannot get out of the way.

I haven't read since. I haven't written since. I know She would tell me to shape up and get back on track. Fortunately a window has opened. Through my grief I can see clouds of opportunity and I know She would be very happy for me. Nothing stopped her from galloping after her dreams. Even at the end she was able to hold her very own literary creation in her arms. So starting today I am going to wholeheartedly approach three particular projects blessed in the knowledge that I am healthy and able to do so. Sunday will see me participate in the CIBC Run for the Cure. Unlike the Beat Beethoven run...this one is more of a Beat the Bitch that is Breast Cancer run. Also next week, I start a new job working at the library. I have dreamed of working at the library since I was a child tearing every book off the shelves and begging my dad if I could please take them all home. And third; I am going to start reading again. I am alive and healthy and instead of having the attitude that 'life gets in the way' I am going to make my way of life the only way to live.

Now. Which book to read first? How about Mark Twain's 'On Writing and Publishing'. Baby steps.

Day 11: Read. Read. Read.

Just a few of my piles of books.

They say that if you want to write a book you need to read. Read a lot and read a variety of books. They would be those writers who write about how to write a book. I figure they should know. After all, I have read many of their books. They make lists that read like a whose who in literature. They make lists that read like first year English class at Anywhere University. If you are Canadian they make lists that include Margaret Atwood, Margaret Laurence and Micheal Ondaatje. They make sure to include Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Faulkner. They include in their lists Henry James, James Joyce and Joyce Carol Oates. Kerouac, Salinger and Steinbeck. Twain (not Shania) and Tennyson. Those of us on Face book have undoubtedly received those lists whereby we check off the number of classic titles that we have read and pass it on. Many of us are in book clubs where we read books like The Kite Runner and Sarah's Key. Then there are the series of books that we are sucked into; Twilight, Outlander, The Millennium Trio of books and so on. I have been busy reading this summer. I have been catching up with the classic titles like To Kill A Mockingbird and Uncle Tom's Cabin. I have also read biographies of Rob Lowe and C.S. Lewis. On my nightstand are stacks of books that I am 'in the middle' of. Books like A Passage to India and Aspects of the Novel by Forrester and Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton. Then I have books that I aim to read one day. The Interpretation of Dreams by Freud and Swann's Way by Proust are collecting dust along with my collection of Simone de Beauvoir books. I have books that are dog eared and have broken spines from my reading them over and over again. Books like Plath's Bell Jar and Kerouac's Dharma Bums. Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Thoreau's Walden round out this set of books. I also have a pile of books set aside that I have collected from the library. They are the books I have picked up for research. You see, the book I am hardly writing these days requires that I learn a little about economics and globalization. So bring on Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine and some book called Reefer Madness (not about pot, or the movie. If you want a book along those lines try The Electric Kool Aid-Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. Another of my favourites.) about the black market along with a couple of  idiots guides to economics.

Some of the books on my bedside table.

I went to Indigo the other day and to my delight they were having a sale. Buy three and get the fourth for free! I have now added Leonard Cohen's Favourite Game and Beautiful Losers to my library, along with Kerouac's Big Sur and Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. I can't wait to read, and re-read, these books!
Oh yeah, and I can't wait to get writing.