A Novel Approach (To Me)

Tonight was the first night of our course. The other writers all seem very nice. Quite a range of backgrounds, it seems. Miriam seems very down to earth and well…just lovely. It is going to be a very intense 6 months, but also very rewarding. Now to carve out some time to write…

We had lots of rain today and lots more is on the way for this week. I wanted to get out for a walk today but it didn’t happen.  I don’t know why not, except that I don’t much like walking in this weather. Two of my children decided to race around the house after school to see who could run faster in the rain.  Lots of giggles and sopping hair later, they tumbled back into the house.  If they can run in rain, surely I can walk in it, right?

It’s been a busy day.  I really should be catching up on emails.  By tomorrow morning I’ll hit 1500 emails that need to be dealt with.  All have been read, I just haven’t actioned or filed them all yet.  Acck. I just don’t feel like it tonight.  My book (Atticus) and a hot bath are calling me…

I’m having a quiet Sunday. Jeff’s cooking a turkey, the girl’s are watching Season 1 of GLEE on DVD and I’m drinking herbal tea and writing. Jeff just came into the room to ask me if I’m getting excited about Wednesday (Faber Academy) yet. Ummm, yes!!

I’ve been spending some time in my journal hashing out potential story ideas.  The Faber Academy course starts this coming Wednesday and I’m jazzed about it.  I have lots of ideas but I am, of course, nervous that I won’t come up with anything good enough.

I hope to put a few more ideas into my journal before we start so that I have more to choose from.  I’ve been keeping my moleskin with me at all times lately and it helps me to get the ideas on paper. Some might have potential–even if all they end up doing is leading me towards another, completely unrelated, idea.  Others make no sense whatsoever when I go back to read them again and I’ve scribbled them out.

Another odd thing that has happened to me–I’ve started dreaming about the first day of the course. I dream that I arrive at Massey College and:

a) they won’t let me in

b) I forgot to put clothes on and everyone is staring at me

c) I’m wandering the halls (which look a lot like my high school) and can’t find the classroom

d) Any random combination of the above

Yes, I guess I’m worrying about it a bit.  Logically, I know that it will be a wonderful experience. I’m suffering from a case of “fear of the unknown” right now which I know will go away after the first class.  Wednesday can’t come soon enough…

I thought I’d share some more photos.  We are standing in front of the helicopter on Saturday morning about to board to fly over the harbour and Manhatten.

I’m on the helicopter, locked and loaded and only a tiny bit nervous after the safety session that included instructions on inflating my life jacket.  I can’t imagine that if we crash, I’d actually survive to do that. Hence the very nervous grin (notice the raised eyebrows).

Chinatown was interesting.  I definitely felt out of place.  Oddly, the most common displays outside the stores were of sensible black shoes.  All the tiny Chinese grandmothers were hovering and elbowing people around those displays while tiny bent Chinese grandfathers shot disapproving looks at us. Quite humorous, really.  I also saw some interesting food items in the shop windows…such as cooked ducks with heads still attached. It’s an acquired taste I guess?

There seemed to be some form of food festival happening in Little Italy.  The streets were jammed. I absolutely can’t imagine how anyone suffering from claustrophobia would handle this.

We took the subway to Upper Manhattan and got off at Grand Central station.  This is a picture of the concourse.  No pictures could ever do the architecture justice.  It was amazing.

About two blocks from Grand Central Station is the Chrysler Building.  It’s unbelievable.  It’s so tall that you can’t take a picture when you get to the building, because you can’t see the top when you look up.

We got lost inside the NYC Public Library.  It was amazing, but it is so huge that it was difficult to find anything.  We loved walking around inside it though…we are both geeks like that. This is the research room.  They have security guards outside the door that check your bags before you leave the room.  I guess book stealers are rampant in NYC?

This is the Apple Store on 5th Avenue (another “geek” visit).  It’s just off Central Park.  It was unbelievably busy.  The glass cube marks the store above ground. You then need to go inside and downstairs to the actual store which is located underneath the roadway. I played with the iPad, Macbook Air and Macbook Pro.  I tried to find a case for my iPod Touch 4g but they just aren’t out yet.  We had fun looking though.

Right next door to the Apple store (and above ground) is FAO Schwartz, possibly the most famous toy store in the world.  We went in to find the Big Piano that Tom Hanks played in the movie “BIG”.  It was actually quite amazing.  Two staff members were playing it when we got there.  They were dancing on the keys and playing very complicated classical music…very impressive.  That store is absolutely an amazing place for kids (and those who are kids at heart).

Then we went off to Central Park.  It was lovely, clean and well maintained.  It’s a huge green-space in the middle of a concrete urban area.  The thought hit us that if you grew up your whole life in Manhattan, this might be one of the only ways you would or could experience grass.  What an odd thought for a country girl.

NYC is a wonderful place to visit, but I couldn’t imagine living there.

Well, we had a wonderful time in New York City.  We stayed at The London NYC on 54th street (just a few streets below Central Park, two blocks from 5th Avenue and 6 blocks from Times Square).  Not only did it have an amazing restaurant (THE Gordon Ramsey), but the rooms were amazing!  As you can see from the picture, it’s a very tall hotel.  All the buildings in NYC are very tall.

After we got settled in and had a great meal, we hit Broadway to take in a show.  We ended up seeing Rock of Ages which was absolutely awesome in a cheesy, fantastic, big hair, 80′s music sort of way. I’d highly recommend it…but would also suggest you go with 10 of your closest friends.  That’s the only way I can think that the show could have been better.  We had a blast.

The next day we took a helicopter tour of the harbour and the Statue of Liberty.  I may do a photo blog this week just of a few key pictures from the trip.  I loved the heli tour.  I’d do it again in a minute!  After that we headed to Chinatown, then up to Canal Street to do a bit of shopping.  We bought some post cards for the girls and dropped them into a fantastic old post office on Canal Street.  It had the old wickets and drop boxes.

We went back to the hotel for afternoon tea and then headed to Central Park and 5th Avenue.  I went to the Apple store on 5th Avenue (very cool and very busy!) and then we went to FAO Schwartz to see the Big Piano. I have to say, that store has to be kiddie heaven!

That night we had a lovely 7 course meal at Gordon Ramsey’s.  It was, by far, the most expensive meal I’ve ever had, but it was delicious.  I have no regrets.  After that we headed back to Times Square and spent some time people watching and buying souvenirs for the girls.

Sunday morning we found a fabulous little organic cafe to sit and have breakfast and people watch.

That’s me having coffee with the Radio City Music Hall in the background. It was just down the street from the cafe. Oh yes, those bags under my eyes…that was caused by Times Square. We stayed up too late the night before…in awe of the energy and the people.

And that’s Jeff having his coffee.  Rockefeller Centre was just down the street to the right of where he was sitting at the cafe.

All in all, I found NYC to be a great place to visit.  The city is incredibly clean, easy to navigate and–where we were–very safe.  I never once felt uncomfortable.  It was a wonderful place to spend our anniversary and I’ll go back again.

Well, our trip to NYC had a rough start because…well, we missed our plane. They booked us onto the next flight out–4 hours later. We made the best of it. The picture is of Jeff and I waiting at the airport…we are even smiling
We are now checked in at the hotel and the room is great! We’re headed to dinner in a few minutes and then out to see a show on Broadway.

Well, it does appear that the Faber Academy course is legitimate.  They contacted me today and they didn’t rescind the offer *phew*.  I popped online to see if anyone had blogged about this course and what they thought of it.  Even though this is the first time it is being offered in Canada, the course has been available in the UK and France for a few years.  I haven’t found one person who has blogged about a negative experience.  All have written glowing reviews similar to this one from Antonia Hayes in Trespass Magazine.  Another interesting thing, I have a suspicion that one of the guest speakers will be a writer named Stephen J Watson. I’m waiting for the course details in order to confirm. Interestingly enough, he participated this same course with Faber and now, a little over a year later he is publishing his first book called BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP. The rights to the book have been sold in a ridiculous number of countries and the film rights just sold yesterday.  Ummm…wow!

I thought I’d do a quick test post from my iPod. This one has a camera which is going to make posting when I’m traveling a lot easier!
The picture I’ve attached is of my 12 year old daughter. It was taken in low light so the picture is pretty bad. However, it takes not a pretty good picture in good lighting. The camera on the iPod isn’t really meant to replace a point and shoot, but it will do in a pinch.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled on an article in the Globe and Mail from last February that indicated that Faber Academy had decided to come to Toronto. The details seemed extraordinary to me…it was almost too good to be true.  They would offer two different six month courses, one for writers interested in long fiction (novels) and one for those who write poetry.  I immediately jumped over to their website to look at the course on writing novels.  The course director and primary teacher is Miriam Toews (pronounced Tâves), author of numerous highly successful novels–many of which sit on my own bookshelf.  Her most recent being THE FLYING TROUTMANS.  I read further, and to my delight, one of the guest speakers will be none other than:

Yes! Margaret Atwood would teach one of the classes.  I couldn’t be more excited. There were many other established and award winning authors who would be doing guest sessions over the six months but I was sold based on these two writers, whom I admire.  However, I then noticed that the application process closed in two days and required that I submit both a letter of application along with a sample of my writing.  I also looked at the price.  Wow!  Far more expensive then any writing course I’d taken to date. I stewed about this for about 24 hours and then submitted my application. I’d come to the conclusion that one never knows what could happen unless one tries.

I told them outright that I had not been published, the length of manuscripts I had written to date and the reason why I wished to be considered.  I then, knowing there wasn’t any hope that an unknown writer without having any publishing credits to her name would ever be accepted, promptly tried to forget it.

Then I got an email from the Academy telling me that they were pleased to offer me a place in the course and that they were impressed with my application.  My reaction? Shock and disbelief.  How in the world did my writing pass their scrutiny.  Yes, I’d worked hard on it and was pretty pleased with that scene, but I’m a total amateur.  I began to think it was a hoax.  A scam to take money from poor unsuspecting fools like me who want to be published but never will be. Aaaack!  So, being me, I began to do my research.  The article was in The Globe and Mail, the CBC news website, and in the Arts section of the National Post.  All trusted sources of information. So far so good. Then I sent a tweet to Margaret Atwood.  If it was a scam, surely she’d be horrified to see her name used for promotion like this.  Indeed, she confirmed she would be teaching one of the classes in January. At this point, I started to really get excited.  It was time to break the news to my husband that I wanted to take the course and let him know the cost.  I will give the man credit, he only flinched slightly when I told him the cost.  Then he immediately encouraged me to do it.  He’s a good man, my husband.

The course will be held at Massey College in Toronto.  I looked it up too.

I don’t know about you, but the dining hall has a flavour of Hogwarts, does it not?  It’s a beautiful campus from the pictures I’ve seen.  The course runs for two hours on Wednesday nights along with about six Saturday workshops.  I’m both thrilled and frightened. A part of me is terrified that they’ll realize they’ve made a horrible mistake, that they intended to make the offer to someone else and that I’m off the list. I’m going to focus myself on positive thoughts and wait for the course details to arrive.