July 2010
7 posts
Try it On Tuesday: July 20th
I am thrilled that I wrote this in one short burst just this morning (maybe an hour, with some interruptions for coffee and Lego piece finding). It goes to show me that I need to do it more often, the writing in bursts to play around.
Inspiration, in no particular order:
-the dress, and my position in the bathtub (a wonderful suggestion by Julie, the photog!), led me to think of mysteries
- the...
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Three Thousand Forty-Six Hits by 9:30 am
for HJSH
If she was being honest, she had two accomplices: Chrissy, her friend, and Keith, her son. But, as her head was slowly guided into the back of the waiting patrol car, she vowed to herself that their names would not be mentioned. There was no reason why she would have to divulge the names of her “accomplices,” partners in crime. Years of watching cop shows and reading...
July 17th, 2010
slightly belated, but more coming … got a few good ideas today! You’ll see that I changed the title from what I was originally thinking, and even changed the first line …
Hey, tomorrow’s Tuesday! I’ll post something new.
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All That's Missing is the Sparkle.
The small shop just past the corner of Mellon and Rhodes consigned a good number of the more extravagant frivolities of the neighbourhood. At various times over the past three years, it had housed, for however brief a time, exactly one thousand eight hundred seventy six different articles, ranging from the predictable to the esoteric. Joyce Berry’s not insubstantial handful of gold had ended...
erm ...
Have I really not posted since JUNE???!!!??? My word.
Well, I can offer very little in the way of excuses. I did have to watch every match of the the World Cup (Fiona is a card-carrying kickette); I did have to enjoy the summer heat that has enveloped my neck of the woods (hello, beach, I love you); I did have to take some steps toward remunerative employment at some point in my future (some of...
June 2010
7 posts
June 9th: inspiration
Winsett himself had a savage abhorrence of social observances: Archer, who dressed in the evening because he thought it cleaner and more comfortable to do so, and who had never stopped to consider that cleanliness and comfort are two of the costliest items in a modest budget, regarded Winsett’s attitude as part of the boring “Bohemian” pose that always made fashionable people, who changed their...
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Social Hierarchy (June 9th, 2010)
Amidst a very select circle of her friends, Aerie remained the one most persuaded by the idea that happiness would come with the perfect presentation of a glorious home. When Aerie walked down the driveway of her home, set back from the road as it was, she could not help but feel the tender pride that comes with the possession of something everyone uniformly described as magnificent.
Aerie had...
Oh, and...
there is only one sentence in these 1000 words that I like and might consider using in another context. These really are writing exercises, remember! I just go with whatever flits into my head at the particular moment of writing. Frankly, I am often surprised it is articulate!
x fi
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Oh, hello there! June 2, 2010
Today’s post comes after a brief —but all too long —hiatus. I’m back. New dresses, new ideas to work on! I’m excited about it.
So… some context for today’s post. Julie, my fantastic friend who acts as Fiona’s photographer, snapped me sitting hunched over on the edge of a stool. This dress was one of the last ones we did on that day. We had spent the...
Reality Creation (June 2, 2010)
There are two types of people - those who come into a room and say, “Well, here I am!” and those who come in and say, “Ah, there you are.” ~ Frederick L. Collins
Maria was agonizing. Not about anything in particular; that would make too much sense. At least, this was her thinking. In her mind, right now, it made sense to agonize about a particular something. But just...
April 2010
1 post
Miss you all!
My ‘need more hours in the day’ hiatus is almost over — I can see the light at the end of one tunnel — and I expect to be back writing for the blog in a week. (Gasp! I’ve said it out loud … now I must produce something … good thing I keep a notebook!)
Listen: Fiona will be baaaack with a vengeance in the spring and summer. Lots of new dresses, new...
March 2010
3 posts
March 2, 2010, Inspiration
The mannequin made me think of a bicycle leaning against a side of a house. The playfulness and the glint in my eye made me think of an illicit affair. I long for summer.
x fi
March 2, 2010. "Furtive"
Furtive
She watched the figure on the bicycle negotiate the rocky path that led from the gate around to the side of the house. The path was wide enough for only one person, a small one at that. It had been covered in gravel some years ago, when Michael still cared to keep up the appearance of interested homeowner. Now, tufts of grass shot through the odd stone that remained, green shoots of...
February 2010
12 posts
23 February 2010
I am happy with how I spend the hours in my day. I do, however, have many many many ways to make myself happy. This small but important fact explains why I need more hours in a day …
I’ve been doing some fun stuff lately, in addition to my editing and novel-writing. I’ve been working on a few short pieces to send to small magazines. They are all ideas that germinated here, so I...
23 February 2010: snippet
Siobhan made a half-hearted effort to enjoy herself at the gig. She wanted to have fun, she really did. There was a big part of her that just wanted to lose herself in the music, feel the crush of the others in the crowd. She had thought that the date would be an opportunity to be enthusiastic. The group-injected enthusiasm of the crowd, though, merely served to heighten whatever emotion it was...
ARGH!
I’m seriously annoyed that I just typed out a whole bit about the inspiration for the bit here and several new updates and then the site gives me an error message. frustrating.
Long story short, now. I dropped my son off at playgroup, needed coffee before going to the library, found myself at Tim Horton’s watching a young woman stare off into space from the corner, heard Stevie on the...
16 February 2010, "Overheard"
Overheard
Erika Mors sat alone in a coffee shop. She was a lone figure sitting at a table near the exit. She’d chosen that table because she thought she’d be able to eavesdrop on the conversation of the two men sitting to her right. It had been a flash decision, choosing those men and not the threesome in the other corner. She’d gone with this pair because of their similar...
Inspiration for the {fragment}
First of all, apologies for not giving you more to read. I do like this opening. I will return to it, as soon as I can. This last week has been very busy for me. I’m still putting in my time on my novel (I have people that yell at me, bless them, when I do not put in the time) but I am having to do that around several other pressing commitments, writerly and otherwise. I have not had time to...
{fragment}
Years later, she finds her highschool yearbook and looks up his picture. Her fingers trace over the adolescent blue scrawl, If you ever need a man, I’m your hombre, and she wonders again about a boy who was so sure he could be man enough for her, in the future, in the hypothetical. If she needs a man: recognition that she didn’t, necessarily, that she may not choose a man; and then the strong...
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Feb 2, 2010: Inspiration
Welcome to the first Try It On Tuesday post during Retro Month. Today’s dress: tiers of taffeta, a huge bow, some rhinestones, ruffles on the shoulders (naturally), and a clingy bodice. At one point, dear readers, this specimen was a cute little dress. The side ponytail was my idea — proof that I have a sense of humour about all this. The dress struck me as one that would be worn by a...
Digital Self-Portraits (Feb 2, 2010)
Number 87 Primula Street sat as far back from the road as all the other houses in Springhaven Village, a medium-sized suburb that drew the names for its roads from harbingers of spring. It had a drive, not quite big enough for two cars, and a walkway, that snaked beside the attached garage. Both drive and walkway were identical to those belonging to the neighbour. Tonight, however, it had...
January 2010
23 posts
Jan 26, inspiration
One word: Harlequin. That’s all. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
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26 January 2010: "Pick An Option, Any Option"
Two confessions, in no particular order. Two confessions, that will probably tell you all you need to know about my state of mind at the moment:
1. If I were beautiful or famous, my everyday dramas would ensure me a sure spot on the D-list. Maybe. (But I’d probably be told to dye my hair and get hair extensions, lose twenty pounds and make sure that cute blonde guy on TMZ talks about me...
Inspiration: "Servants to the Club"
The attentive among you will notice that there is no photo attached to this post. The reason is simple: no dress served as inspiration. I felt like challenging myself last night and, on seeing that it was Robbie Burns Day today, decided to try to write something inspired by Burns. Or, sort of vaguely inspired by Burns (Scots, colloquial, robust forms of Scottishness and its potential for...
January 25th: in honour of Robbie Burns
Servants to the Club
Liz leaned over, her thumb and forefinger hesitating only the briefest of seconds before she turned the volume up on the car stereo.
“Those three wise men, they had a semi-prophecy…”
Luke’s hand was just as fast. There was a certain predictability to the jousting: Liz just full out cranking it to songs she liked, Luke wanting the volume to stay at an even level. When he...
Inspiration: January 19th, 2010
Happy Birthday Betsy!
Today’s story comes from a bunch of different places: Pauline, who lent me the dress, is from Scotland; Carol suggested a chip shop off Princes Street as a location and Callum as a boy’s name; Marianne thought of Winnifred (Winn); I suggested A.L. Kennedy, the Scottish novelist, to Kel, as evidence for a point she was making, which got me thinking about buying...
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January 19th: I Won’t Say No; But You Could Say...
I Won’t Say No; But You Could Say Yes.
I think that Scottish people, like Canadians, are often misunderstood and what I like about my Scottish friends and relatives is how quickly it can go from love to anger. It’s a great dynamic. — Mike Myers
The first time I came to Scotland, it was the frenetic pace of the words that grabbed me. We had just made the trans-Atlantic flight, landing...
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Inspiration: 12 January 2010
Today’s story is entirely inspired by the dress: black, short, topped with sequins. It made me think of cupcakes. I’ve been toying with the idea of having one of the characters in the novel I am working on own some kind of food business, so I wrote a cupcake shop. This short piece was sort of to see if I could pull it off convincingly. Let me know if it works for you.
There is no...
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Andrea Kitchen on the Case of the Missing...
“Thanks for doing the cupcakes on such short notice. I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to get them done. I’m really happy with how they turned out,” said Holly. She was a new customer of mine. Women who buy decadent cupcakes on short notice generally fall into three camps: Emotional Eaters, Guilty Friends or Over-Compensating Bosses. I hadn’t quite pinpointed where Holly fit. She’d rushed into the...
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Inspiration - January 10, 2010
Another audience paticipation story. I asked for song titles or song lyrics from five friends. I had the following things to work with: songs from The Dixie Chicks, Lily Allen, Blue Rodeo, Taylor Swift, and Switchfoot; brown strapless dress from Melanie (who is my esthetician, which is important to know, as well as a friend); a bitchy mood. The title is a line from Lily Allen’s...
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At Worst I feel Bad for a While (January 7, 2010)
At worst I feel bad for a while
I like to lie to estheticians.
It’s nothing that would hurt anyone. Sometimes I tell her that I have kids, inventing detailed soccer tournaments and witty anecdotes about the last time they had haircuts. Sometimes I tell her that I just moved back to Canada from England, dropping parts of verbs, throwing in bits of English slang. OhJesusChristAlmighty and the...
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January 5th's inspiration
Yesterday I posted a status update on Facebook asking my friends to suggest five words to include in today’s story. I got six: glamorous, luxurious, feisty, spackle, trite, and brazen. Five adjectives and one noun. To this I added the dress of the day, a black slip dress worn with a Tiffany key. Here’s how my incredibly random and very quick thought process worked: the dress looks...
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On Vanity (January 5, 2010)
On Vanity
My grandmother has decided to redo her bathroom. This decision by a sixty-eight year old woman to remodel and redecorate a perfectly serviceable bathroom has my mother anxious and concerned. It’s perfectly fine for a forty-two year old woman to redecorate after the end of her marriage, even expected, she’ll tell me, when I point out the blatant double standard, but when Nana does it...
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“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if...”
– ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
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