Twice In One Week?

Perhaps blogging more than once a week is asking for trouble... oh, but how much more trouble could we be in anyway? The business sections of all the papers keep finding metaphorical cliffs for companies and entire industries to fall off, the Raptors manage to lose horribly to the 76ers, (letting the not-as-good-as-they-looked-last-night team shoot a crazy 55% from the floor for the game) and it's a miserably grey and rainy day in November.
Which makes me wistful for grey and rainy Ireland.
I don't want to go into too much detail about my Amazing Irish Adventure, lest I spoil things for the book. But I do want to mention, at least briefly, the wonderful, kind people who helped me on my travels.
Travelling in another country is a fascinating, absorbing experience for anyone. But a middle-aged woman is perhaps ideally suited for the type of travel that requires the traveller to disappear, to blend in, and slip among the throng unnoticed, discreetly making notes and listening to others talk. At 44, if you're a woman travelling alone, you travel alone. No-one is going to start up a conversation with you unless they have to; shop keepers, waitresses, and lost tourists seeking directions will form the bulk of your encounters.
This is great, much of the time.
But some of the time it's horribly lonely.
It's especially lonely if you're used to a bustling house full of Guitar Hero-playing children and their friends, set to the soundtrack of bins of Legos sent crashing to the floor as eight-year-old inventors scramble to find that one crucial piece for their world-weather-controlling device, telephones and doorbells ringing non-stop and someone howling at an inscrutable, non-compliant computer.
In the end, Ireland was an almost perfect balance between that long sought-after state of being left alone with my thoughts, and not being left alone.
But I think I might have gone a little mad, had I not had the great fortune to meet certain people during the first week of my trip. The Hopkins family - Dermot and Cathy, and their lovely and inspiring daughter Alice - are the sort of people who make you reach for a thesaurus, because the ordinary adjectives - like "kind" or "intelligent" aren't glowing enough. How many people would take a complete stranger under their wings, trap themselves for an entire day on a boat with her, just so that she could see how her characters could manoeuvre a vintage river barge through a lock and under bridges and along a canal?
The incredible Hopkins family fed me, let me drive their magnificent boat (!!!) and showed great patience and generosity as I pestered them with questions. In the process, they gave me a glimpse of just the sort of warm, loving, family Hazel and Ned will encounter. I could never ever repay them.
But I also had the good luck in that first week to stumble upon two of the very finest places to stay in the Irish countryside: Markree Castle, just outside Sligo, and Lough Key House B&B, just outside Boyle. I could travel for months and months and spend untold thousands of euros, and never find anywhere as welcoming and wonderful. Markree Castle was perfect in every way, and staffers Rachel and Alex could not have been more helpful. And Lough Key House - a stone Georgian B&B straight out of the best novels of Noel Streatfeild and E. Nesbitt, introduced me to the incomparable Emily, Frances, and their good friend Lydia, to whom I owe so much. These are people I will never forget. I could not have invented Lough Key House; I am so grateful that Frances has.
My travels took me to Yeats country, Connemara, Galway and the Aran Islands, and saw me criss-crossing the mid-western counties, before finally ending up in Dublin. In Connemara I was fortunate to have a fantastic guide, Fergal, from Ireland West Tours, and in Inis Moir, I was privileged to share a pony and trap with Yolanda. And in Dublin, Evelyn made sure my stay at Waterloo House B&B was everything I hoped it could be.
I needed to make this trip, to write the book I want to write. And I spent nearly three weeks in a frenetic race, trying to take in everything I could, to leave nothing undone. But in the end, the people I met will shape my writing at least as much as the museums, the cathedrals, the stone age and medieval monuments, or the scenery. I'm so grateful to everyone.
Obviously, travel of this sort is not challenging in the way that it would be if one journeyed to a place of danger or privation, or even simply to a country with a language and culture that differed dramatically from one's one. Clearly any sense of dislocation is minimal when you're exploring a country already familiar through books, films, or televsion - a country where they speak your language, a country whose history and culture shaped that of your own.
Even so, travel can make you stupid.
At least, it can make you feel stupid.
You know, for example, how to go into a store and purchase something. But in another country, you will probably stand - or queue - in the wrong place, and fumble with the money. Perhaps you'll be able to read the signs or names of places but chances are excellent you will mangle them in the pronounciation. And even if you've made the prudent decision to avoid opposite-side driving, you will still have to navigate those roads as a pedestrian - and remembering which way to look turns out to be far harder than it sounds.
Everything is more complicated, yet laughingly simple or obvious once you've figured it out. And you are always surrounded by strangers for whom - of course - buying a Luas ticket or taking a bus is all second nature and plain as the egg on your face.
I'm very grateful for this trip for what it means for the book. But I'm also grateful because I feel as if I just spend several weeks living the life of a child. Because surely this is what it's like to be young? To be trying every day to function in a world that you're still busy de-coding, surrounded by systems and procedures everyone else seems to know or understand. To constantly have to tug on someone's arm to ask how or why?
How easy it would be, in those circumstances, to grow frustrated or fretful.
How amazing it is, then, that children behave as well as they do.
The helpfulness and kindness of so many people I met in Ireland made my journey the trip of a lifetime. I'll try to remember that, the next time I'm volunteering in my children's school, or hosting playdates in my harried home.
j

The Lazy Blogger's Return!

I'm back. And even though I suspect no-one ever actually reads this page, I apologize anyway for the extended absence. Look at all the incredible things that happened while I was gone! Summer, for starters. Here in Toronto, Canada, we had grave doubts summer would ever arrive. But it did and it was everything summer should be. At least, I hope summer came to the city - in truth, I spent it mostly in the country, at an 1858 farmhouse, with 98 acres of pasture, cornfields, and woods. It was the first goof-off summer I've had in years. We picked wild strawberries and raspberries and watched beavers dam the creek, and we climbed trees and kicked soccer balls and we turned croquet into a blood sport (surprisingly easy to do). We slept under the stars and sang songs around a campfire and swam and gardened and talked to frogs and mink and rabbits. We built and launched rockets. We lost kites to hungry trees (including one especially voracious maple) and we startled the deer that came to drink the cool creek waters at dawn. We had a summer.
After all the snow and grey of last winter, we made every moment count.
But before we knew it, autumn arrived, and with it the return to school, elections here and in the United States, and a new-look Raptors team with the aging (but still great?) Jermaine O'Neal and the slender but stealthy Roko Ukic added to the roster.
Lots going on.
And thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts, I missed it. Well, most of it.
I was in Ireland.
Yup: Ireland.
!!!!!!
In fact, I've only just returned from the most exhausting, absorbing, exciting, and amazing adventure: nearly three weeks exploring Ireland. Alone.
How? Why? Well, much of the credit goes to my brave spouse, who turned a blind eye to the mounting bills and shouldered the task of caring for three children on his own. And even more of the credit goes to the children, who rose to the occasion with grit and grace, never once setting the house on fire or accidentally bringing peanut butter to school in their lunches.
But most of the thanks goes to the Canadian taxpayers.
Last winter, I received the most wonderful gift: a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to work on a third Hazel Frump book. According to the rules, I could use some of the money for groceries and childcare, and some of the money to travel to Ireland, where the next adventure takes place, to research the book.
I can't tell you what this grant has meant to me. When I visit schools, I am usually asked, by younger readers: "Are you famous?"
To which I reply cheerfully that I am not.
The follow-up question is most often: "Are you rich?"
Rather less cheerfully, I explain that I am not.
"How come?"
"Because... I write children's books."
I explain that writing for children is a very expensive hobby. I'm lucky to have a husband who can support me, and children who recognize that some things that are worth doing come at a cost. Children's books, and children's authors do not, as a rule, make much money - J.K. Rowling notwithstanding, they never have. And to be brutally honest, my books are not selling well.
Now, it may be that my books don't sell for the simple reason that they aren't very good. Most of the time, particularly at three a.m., that is what I think.
But then I remind myself that although most bestselling books for children are terrific, many terrific kids' books never become bestsellers. Sometimes good books - like good TV shows - don't find their audience. Sometimes they are cancelled.
Just ask Joss Whedon.
So when the Canada Council for the Arts awarded me that grant, the money was important (oh so very important) but even more crucial was the vote of confidence. I had ripped open the envelope and tossed it on the recycling pile, and the letter was drifting down to join it, before the first words of the opening sentence registered: "We are pleased to..."
Pleased?
That didn't sound like a rejection. And I should know - I had thirty-four rejection letters for The Mystery of the Martello Tower before HarperCollins came along. Some of those letters were written by people who clearly relished the task, relished it more than might be considered seemly; still, no-one had ever been bold enough to use the word "pleased" when rejecting me.
I snatched the letter back and studied it, reading it three times before the words sank in. The Canada Council for the Arts was awarding me a grant. Me, the forty-four-year-old mother of three whose books were languishing unsold in storerooms across the country!
Someone out there believed my work was worth supporting. Someone not related to me.
I can't begin to explain how wonderful that was. Is.
In the end, of course, I will have spent far more on writing the next book - on travel and subsistence - than the grant would cover. But that's hardly the point. The letter - and the money - buoyed me more than I can say. I am now determined, so very determined, to write a good book, a better book, my best book (not to mention a book that might actually sell) because of it.
I want to prove the Council right. I want Canadian taxpayers to know that they were right to support me, and that their support meant everything, that it made the difference between a story in my head and a book in the library.
I left for Ireland just as the global economy slid off a cliff. You can imagine the guilt, the worry. I lay awake a few nights before departure, fretting: should I cancel the trip and send the money back?
It was too late, too many costs were sunk, too many arrangements made; alea jacta est, as they say. So I went. And it was everything I could have hoped for and more and better.
Next post, I'll tell you about some of my Irish adventures, and the incredible people who helped me along the way.

Legend of the Lost Jewels

The latest installment of Hazel Frump's adventures is hitting bookstores now!!!!!!!
I thought bringing out my first book was scary, but the release of The Legend of the Lost Jewels has me petrified. What if it's too dark, too creepy?

Or worse - what if it's boring?

I imagine every writer hopes that their second book will demonstrate some sort of growth, or improvement - tighter pacing, a more fluid style, a stronger command of language. But what if you had to write that second book very, very quickly - and at the same time, you were re-writing that first book for a U.S. publisher, taking out characters, adding and deleting scenes? Could you write a stronger, more compelling sequel? Or would you struggle just to keep all the plots straight?

The first time around, many reviewers compared Hazel to Nancy Drew. On the surface, this is a bit perplexing. Hazel is not a young adult with her own car. She's 12 years old - she doesn't drive, doesn't have a boyfriend, and the last thing she's yearning to be is an amateur detective. Hazel just wants to be safe, with her family, and left alone to shoot hoops - a classic reluctant hero. Hazel is Cary Grant running through a cornfield. In the first book, The Mystery of the Martello Tower, Hazel spends a great deal of time trying to figure out what's going on, as people and paintings disappear and menacing criminals follow her everywhere. Like any reluctant hero, she tries at first to run away from trouble. But trouble, of course, follows her. Eventually, she realizes her only chance lies in trying to out-play or out-wit the bad guys.

I think evoking Nancy Drew is a polite way for reviews to signal that the Hazel Frump Adventures are genre books - not high-end literary fiction. I'm not offended by that - hey, they're not high-end books! But I wish reviewers would just come out and say that. Because - not to take anything away from Nancy or her Hardy counterparts - the books are nothing alike.

In children's fiction, the characters in a series are usually trapped in amber. The appeal lies in the way that the same characters face the same - or remarkably similar challenges - over and over again. But the Mystery of the Martello Tower didn't sell all that well, so by the time I began work on The Legend of the Lost Jewels, I was already concerned that this might be the last adventure for Hazel and Ned and the cousins. So I set out to write more of a sequel, one that would let me peek behind the curtain that fell at the ending of Martello. A sequel that would explore not only the lives of the main characters, but also what happened to some of the bit players after the happily ever after.

I really hope that Legend succeeds. Once again, Hazel must solve two mysteries. A modern-day treasure hunt that goes awry provides much of the danger and adventure. But in a creepy twist, Hazel and Ned also uncover clues that something dark and terrible happened in their family's castle more than a hundred years ago, leaving a legacy that has shaped the lives of many of the characters we met in Martello.

Man I hope it works.

I guess we'll see.

Battle of the Books

I know many wonderful, inspiring teachers. I know many wonderful, inspiring kids. It's puzzling to hear people malign today's schools and teachers and students but I suspect it was always thus. (I remember in my high school Latin class reading Pliny or Catullus or someone moaning on about "kids these days" and how the whole Empire was on a road to ruin paved with slothfulness and generally uncouth behavior.)

But just imagine the creativity and intellectual curiosity it requires to stride into a classroom each morning, knowing that two or three dozen minds - unique brains, all - will be seeking help understanding that day's lessons. I have a hard enough time conveying simple information to my three children. How could any one person possibly hold the attention of so many diverse creatures, let alone devise the keys that will allow them to unlock their potential? I love visiting classrooms but I always leave full of respect for the teacher who remains behind. What a hugely important job.

I don't know who invented the concept of Battle of the Books. I figure it just has to have started with a teacher or a librarian. But I've seen it now at bookstores like the venerable Woozles in Halifax, and also in schools on the west coast. I hope it's viral. I hope it spreads across the globe. If you haven't encountered an example of Battle of the Books, let me explain: schools compete with each other by having their students read books on a reading list, then answer questions based on the books' content.

I can't describe the thrill when a Google Alert pops up in your mailbox, and you discover that your book has made it onto the list of someone's Battle of the Books. Now, somewhere hundreds of kilometres away, kids I've never met are reading my book! Maybe they're even talking about it! Maybe some of them will send me an email or a letter! Maybe they'll read the next book too!

And there are other great reading programs now well established across the country, like the Willow awards in Saskatchewan or the Forest of Reading in Ontario, where kids read from a list of recommended books and vote for their favourites. (You can't vote unless you've read a certain minimum number of books on the list.) I've volunteered in my local school library for the past ten years and I can testify to the passions that swirl around these programs. I've even attended the awards ceremony, as a chaperone for students from our school, and I've heard kids in the audience around me arguing the merits of their favourite books, right up to the moment the winner's name is called. American/Canadian Idol just can't compare - these readers are thoughtful, analytical, opinionated and inspired.

There's no shortage of reasons to feel grey or despondent in this world. But when I feel discouraged, I head to a school, a library, or a bookstore. They give me hope.

mayday mayday

How can it possibly be May? How can an entire month - nearly two - have passed without a blog post?

All too easily, my friend.

I spent most of April in the nineteenth century. Not figuratively, as I did when researching Legend of the Lost Jewels. No, I mean I actually lived as a Victorian. In the space of a few scant weeks my vacuum died, my dishwasher died, my car - and I do mean this literally - blew up. Big boom. Clouds of smoke. Thousands of dollars of mysteriously uncovered by warranty damage.

And in the middle of all that, four of the five members of my immediate family were visited by a most determined colony of head lice. (Which four members, you ask? Naturally, I'm sworn to secrecy. But I can tell you this much: it was those of us with hair.)

Weeks later, when I finally emerged, blinking, from my Dickensian state? Playoff time. Hmm. Local reporters may cringe before Sam Mitchell, like he's Stringer Bell in a nicer suit, but that's just cause they give up about 75 - 100 IQ points to the man. Each. It says here that Sam Mitchell is an excellent coach but I believe I called this season last fall, when I pointed out that the Raptors, while apparently an awfully nice cast of characters, were relying for toughness on a player with a broken foot. A European player, not to unduly indulge in anyone's fondness for stereotypes, because any guy willing to play on the strength of his tendons gets cred for toughness. Not sanity, perhaps, or intelligence, but playing with a big old crack in your ankle bone sounds pretty darn tough to me.

But apart from that gaping chasm in the roster? I thought Rasho Nesterovic had a truly impressive season. Seriously. But doesn't that just speak volumes about our roster? I don't honestly know who will get through to our former number one draft pick, but someone better find a way to help Barnagni play like he's seven feet tall and fast, because we have enough depth at the one, ta very much. And here I should just add that - unlike many of my fellow callers to great Fan 590 sports radio - I send my love to both our point guards, to the selfless, steady Calderon and the mercurial, magical Ford. If the league has room for both Iverson and Nash, surely the Raptors have room for two tiny little playmakers? Still, Bosh, the hardworking racehorse, needs more talent in his stable. It's nothing personal about these guys. I've worn AP's jersey since he arrived and I love the aging rookie Moon as much as the next guy. Jason Kapono had great hair all season long (and great game through much of the post season). And Carlos Delfino? When he was good he was very very good and well, you know...

I'm not saying I want to see us sign an Artest or a Bowen, but someone has to grab rebounds and throw elbows and go to work on their guy. But when the toughest guy on our team is wearing a finely tailored suit and holding a clipboard and the rules say he can't cross centre court... well, we're just treading water and the sharks know it.

Man, I could never have survived in the nineteenth century. I can do without the car - even a non-combusting version. But I wouldn't want to inhabit a a world with no vacuums, no dishwashers, no Raptors.

Just rampant, unchecked armies of head lice.

silly rants

So here's the thing: it's March. This makes it roughly 5,623 months since winter began. People around here are growing testy, irritable, pinch-faced and grim. I'd like to write about happy things but that's just not going to happen. Not in March. So if you'd rather not read a rant, check in again in April. Or maybe May...
I have just a few things I need to criticize. First, there's this television commercial. And right now you're thinking "Oh, I know the one! I bet it's..." And probably you are thinking about some other truly horrid piece of advertising. I'm sure you are correct and it is loathsome. But in this commercial, a small band of badly-dressed women with unfortunate hairstyles and fussy accessories is sitting around a table in a mostly empty, blandly underwhelming restaurant. Instantly, you know that if this place was for real, you wouldn't want to eat there. The menu would be familiar, unimaginative, yet still far beyond the "talents" of whoever was in the kitchen.
A 50th birthday cake (not an especially enticing or elegant one) sits off to one side. Briefly, the women "welcome" the newly half-centurian "to the world of ..." And then they each list what are apparently the most important qualities of this world - sagging skin, wrinkles, brittle bones.
It's a commercial for calcium supplements. And a savage, should-be-satire of North American mores.
Now, I've got nothing against calcium. And yup, osteoporosis is an important health issue. But this commercial has pretty much guaranteed that from now on, I'll be getting my calcium through full-fat Reblochon and Epoisses, Etorki and Mimmolette, all the way from France, my friends. And while I'm at it, let's toss in a little Machego from sunny Spain, and some artisanal cheeses from Quebec and Saltspring Island!
If anyone has the nerve to invite me to a dismal white tablecloth and dusty rose eating establishment for ANY birthday, let alone one that marks someone's half-century on this earth, I swear I'll run screaming from the door, and I won't stop until I've reached the Petit Dejeuner on King Street, or Edward Levesque's Kitchen, or Eigensinn Farm, or just about anywhere they care about food. And when we reach that appropriately groovy place, we're sure as heck not talking about our skin or bones. If I get to turn fifty, and I can celebrate with my friends, we're going to talk about theatre and books and art, and what is happening with Burma or Kenya or the Niagara Escarpment. Somebody better have an opinion on whether the latest NBA trades made any team better, and everyone had better realize we're all darn lucky to be here, no matter what we look like.
But we will look good.
And I don't mean that in some sappy, our internal beauty will be shining through kind of way. We will look good. And what's more, we'll have strong bones and healthy, wrinkled, lived-in skin, from fifty years of being in this world, reading and working and thinking and raising families and caring for each other, not to mention working out and running and going to the gym, and shovelling. Shovelling snow. Lots and lots and lots of snow. Heavy, wet, icy snow. Fluffy, sparkly crystals. Brown and grey slush.
You just know that in that commercial, it's March - all year long.

People Read

There's this nifty little program at my local school, to encourage boys to read. They throw open the library early one morning and put on a pot of coffee, and invite boys to come on in and read with a grownup. The idea is that the boys will bring one of the men in their lives - their dad, their grandpa, an uncle, a big brother, or some incredibly cool guy who, despite a lack of blood ties, will cheerfully show up late for work or his morning basketball game at the Y because he took the time to read with his little buddy. It doesn't even have to be books! I can just picture some of the dads in my neighborhood cracking open a NY Times and walking their sons through the stock tables or sports section. "Hey, yesterday was the trade deadline, Connor - Let's take a look at what Isiah Thomas failed to achieve!"

It's a fine notion.

The only teensy tiny little catch was that the school decided to call it: Dads Read.

Now, I don't know about you, but I know a few kids who'd have a hard time coming out for something called Dad's Read. In most of those cases, it's for one simple, sad reason: Dad is gone. Each of their stories would make you weep - it's cancer, or a heart attack, or a car accident...

Or sometimes Dad didn't die, but he just moved on. He married someone new and started a new family and he's busy. Or maybe he never showed up in the first place.

As much as I wish every child in every school had a dad to read to them, wishing just won't make that happen. And it's all very well to say that any older guy can show up, it doesn't have to be a dad, but if the program is still called Dad's Read, well...

So people complained. And kept complaining. And eventually they changed the name.

You might think the new name would be something all encompassing and simple, like: Men Read. Me, I like the sound of that. I like the word: men. It covers the waterfront, as it were. Whether you're a tall skinny guy with a hip goatee, an aging ex-athlete with bad knees and middle-aged spread, or a creaky old gent with a cane, you're a man. And men read.

It's kind of a nice progression: boys read, they grow up, become men. And they read. Men read.

And they don't all become dads, but they do become men. And men read. Pilots and flight attendants and doctors and football players and musicians and nurses and gardiners and oh you get the picture.

But so many grownups seem uncomfortable with the words "men" and "women". It has to be "boys night out" or "getting together with the girls" or "ladies day" at the ski hill/golf club. In fact, when you look around, there's an almost frightening dearth of men and women.

Anyway. They renamed the literacy program "Reading with Male Mentors".

"Well that sounds groovy," you say. "I can sooo see myself bolting down my cereal and rushing for the door, yelling over my shoulder 'Move it, Male Mentor! Time to read!'."

Actually, I can kind of see that. Sadly.

I can also see myself designing and building a superBionicleLegoMegaBlox creation called MentorMan. He'd tire easily and have weak eyesight and maybe a nagging rotar cuff issue from the last time he tried to be "down with that". But his heart would be in the right place.

I suppose if "men" sounded too, uh, normal, they could have said Dudes. Dudes Read? Or maybe Guys - the word "guy" seems to have replaced "dude" in some circles. Guys Read? Or heroes - Heroes Read! That could work - except that women are heroes too. And this is supposed to be about the men. The men who read.

Hey, nothing against mentors, but isn't okay to grow up and just be, you know, a man or a woman?

And on that note, this woman is making tea.

Winter in Toronto

This time of year, you can feel the vitamin D disappearing from your cells. Things can get a little odd. For some inexplicable reason, Toronto decided not to remove any of the snow from its streets this winter. Now, Toronto doesn't get a ton of snow, for a Canadian city. But a few million people, their cars, trucks, bikes, buses and streetcars, can only cope with so much. Eventually, the streets began disappearing. So did cars. People and pets were next. The mayor had to act. Last night, a squad of beeping, flashing, iron behemoths rumbled onto my street around 11 pm to do battle with the enormous ice floes that had turned driving in this city into one giant game of chicken. Like a family of winter-chomping Gigantosauruses, these creatures hurtled themselves over and over against the banks of what had once been snow, but now, after weeks of deep-freeze, was the texture and heft of concrete run through with shovelfulls of rebar. It took only four hours and twenty minutes of ceaseless battering to clear my block. By 3:20 am I could stand at my window, tears of joy in my eyes, as I surveyed the strangely denuded streetscape below. They had taken it all. Well, almost all. The bottom layer of ice remains, immovable, obdurate, an invitation to slip, to slide, to skid, to uselessly pump your brakes, and know that it is still winter in Toronto.

A few NBA teams cleared house as well just before the trade deadline. I'm happy for Shawn Marion and LeBron James, as they emerge, blinking, from a long winter into an early spring full of promise and hope. Miami needs Marion, and LeBron needed serious help. Ben and Wally - not to mention Delonte - could be just the ticket. But I think the trade made Chicago better too. (Honestly - hasn't the east become so much more interesting this year?) But closer to home, as fond as I am of Calderon and Delfino (and I am fond) my fingers are still crossed for the full, unbridled return of a healthy TJ Ford.

(Oh - if you're wondering what happened to my house league team, they too shrugged off their winter woes, and those six losses and one tie that began the season? They were followed by a six-game winning streak. Sweet!)

a weekend of basketball

I have a tendency to go on about basketball. I know this, and yet I cannot stop, even if the listener's eyes have glazed and his breathing has slowed, his pulse barely detectable. I can't stop. So if you'd rather read about soccer or hockey or cricket, no harm, no foul, off you go now. The rest of us want to re-live the glories of the weekend.
I am, sadly, a terrible coach. What I lack in technical expertise, I try to make up for with enthusiasm. This never works. But my house league team this year comprises a terrific bunch of girls. How do I know this, when I see them only once a week?
Well, we lose. A lot.
But we lose with style, with grace, with grit. We (okay, they) walk off the court with burned, skinned arms and legs, heads held high. And no matter how bad the coach was, nobody has ever slugged her. Not once.
Last weekend, we posted our second win of the season.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was something to see. We had only seven players but they played with the spirit of ten - double and triple-shifting without complaint, running as if they had the wind at their backs, never quitting. They did everything we'd talked about, everything we'd practised. All in the same game! They set screens (and they used them too) they passed, they rebounded. Oh, how they rebounded, grabbing more offensive rebounds and defensive rebounds in that one game than we have all season. (I swear.) They played tight defence and on offence, they moved the ball so well, it was... it was like watching a jazz ensemble catch fire in a jam session.
I won't tell you the final score, because you'd just get cranky at me for running it up. I guess I should have told them to slow it down, to shoot less... maybe that would have been the gracious thing. But they'd never played a game like that, not ever, and I didn't want them to lose a moment of it. I wanted them to know what it felt like to win, and win big. And I wanted them to keep playing the way they were, because it was so beautiful to see.

And then, the next day, the Raptors played the Trail Blazers, and the spectacular Brandon Roy, (#six pick in the 2006 draft) nearly ran away with a win. But Chris Bosh found crushing reserves of strength and skill in double overtime, playing such deeply intelligent basketball, that Toronto just had to win. (Of course Jose Calderon helped.) Sure, there were defensive lapses, by Calderon and, most spectacularly, by Jamario Moon. But Anthony Parker played a truly incredible game, with a season-high in points, and inspired defence.
Two days, two teams, two wins. Wouldn't it be great if you could capture this feeling, like music on a disc, to replay whenever you needed a lift?

How about that LeBron James?

The thing about basketball is, it can break your heart. I've been a Raptors ticket holder now for eight years, so I know a little about hope. And about how swiftly and easily it can be crushed into dust.

We played an amazing first quarter in Sunday's game against Cleveland. Breathtaking, fast, elegant offense (Chris Bosh with a behind-the-back pass!) and the most inspiring, suffocating defense. (Anthony Parker and Jamario Moon!) Oh, you should have seen it. It was stunning. I was stunned. Even the second and third quarters weren't terrible, although we did fritter away a 20-point lead (seriously, would it kill us to grab a rebound now and then?)

But in the fourth quarter, LeBron James woke up.

And that, my friends, was that.

On the brighter side, my editor called today and the manuscript is going ahead to the copy editor!! This means I have weeks before it comes back to me for revisions!!!! Just think of all the things I can get done: laundry, tidying, sorting my closet according to the Dewey Decimal System... And maybe, just maybe, this means the sequel isn't too deeply flawed after all.

But it's so hard to know. Striking just the right degree of alarm in a reader's heart is a tricky business. Parents worry that the characters spend too much time alone and unsupervised. But I fear boring the reader more than terrifying her. That is what keeps writers up at night I think. At least, it keeps me up. At 3:00 am I am often lying in bed, imagining a boy beginning to read The Legend of the Lost Jewels. He starts off well, his expression impenetrable but his fingers whipping through the pages. And then, he stops. Bored. Somehow, I have lost him. Somehow, the boy is no longer interested in what happens next. Like LeBron James for three quarters of a Sunday afternoon basketball game against the Toronto Raptors, he is thinking there is something else he'd rather do. Why did you stop reading, I ask. But before he can answer, I am jolted awake. The 3:35 am freight train is rumbling past.

Random Thoughts on the New Year

Ack. I'm blogging. I knew this day would come. I've dreaded it. And now that it's here, it's just as bad as I'd feared. I have nothing planned to say and yet the compulsion to ramble on and on and on and on and on and on and - where was I? Oh, yes. Rambling.

The thing is, the latest draft of my manuscript is with my editor now, and so, for a fleeting moment, I am free. But it won't last. Presently the phone will ring or an email will arrive, and I will not be free. I will have work to do. Maybe the sequel is boring. Maybe it is too creepy. Perhaps it will make grownups fretful. Perhaps it will give impressionable children dangerous ideas about the proper use of "free time". I will be asked to make changes, minor alterations, small - oh, infinitesimally tiny edits. And all for the good of the reader. Nay, for the safety and longevity of the reader. What if a child, reading my book, is inspired to mayhem? What if a girl, perhaps ten or twelve years old, decides to delve into history and see for herself what those pesky Fenians were up to in the late nineteenth century? What if a boy, 11, decides to create his own invisible ink, or send secret messages using a complicated cipher? The responsibilities of an author, a children's author are immense.

Or not. Maybe all I do is open a door. I hope it's an interesting door; I hope it leads to a world that children will enjoy visiting. I've worked hard and my fingers are crossed but I don't know. The editor is wonderful and kind and she will try to help me fix problems and make the manuscript better. But I won't truly know if I've succeeded until the book is published and readers find me and email me and tell me what they think.

Just wondering whether this sequel will work has set my teeth on edge. My brain hurts. I need tea.

Will post more later.