hot seat

Today's photos were taken by and are the property of Jim Leonard, who kindly gave me permission to reprint them here. Please do not use these images without permission, thanks.

My Hot Seat stint in misc.writing went okay, much to my relief. :-) There were a couple of questions about Xlibris, but most were focussed on Inkspot, my writing, my comic strips and Urban Tapestry (I gave a plug for our albums and for Conchord, of course). I was also asked, "What is filk?" :-) I directed people to the definition(s) on The Dandelion Report.

Basically, being in the Hot Seat meant that ANYONE could ask me questions, usually with some discussion in the group along the way. I was highly amused when, partially in answer to the question "How did Inkspot get started?", Sal Towse (who was my Markets Editor for Inklings) provided a link through Google to an old misc.writing posting from 1995:

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From: ohi (ohi@gold.interlog.com)
Subject: Children's Writer's Web Page
Newsgroups: misc.writing
View: (This is the only article in this thread) |
Original FormatDate: 1995/04/03

I've compiled a list of pointers to pages that might be useful for writers, especially those who write for children. If you want to check it out, the URL is:

http://www.interlog.com/~ohi/dmo-pages/writers.html

Comments welcome!

Debbie Ridpath Ohi -- morgaine@utcc.utoronto.ca
(Toronto, ON Canada)† http://www.interlog.com/~ohi/home.html
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Holy cow, is that an old posting. The URL is from when I used Interlog as my hosting service, and the e-mail address is a carry-over from my University of Toronto days!

Sal's an Internet research goddess, by the way. You should check out her Internet-Resources.com site, especially the section for writers.





My favourite question in the Hot Seat session was "What's your favorite sandwich?" :-D Thanks to Bob Pastorio for asking this.

My answer:

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Yay, I love food questions. :-)

Peanut butter and jam is my favourite. I'm so boring. It's comfort food.

Second favourite is roasted red pepper and goat cheese sandwich that a friend of mine makes that is to die for.

Third favourite is the Cobb sandwich that my mom-in-law makes in her restaurant.
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Parki is the friend who makes the roasted red pepper and goat cheese sandwich, by the way. Yum. My mouth waters just remembering how good it is.

So what about the rest of you? What's your favourite sandwich? Please answer in Blatherchat.





Yesterday, I tried running in downtown Toronto. It was raining on and off, so I stuck to running close to buildings, beneath the overhanging roofs. The benefit was that I got to run outside but stay out of the rain at the same time. The downside was that I kept running into second-hand smoke because of all the people taking cigarette breaks. Augh!

Going to the cottage in a few hours. Jodi has kindly agreed to help keep an eye on my Market Watch column while I'm away. Thank you, Jodi!!!!

I'll post again when I can. If I don't post tomorrow, it means that either (1) we couldn't get into the lake or (2) the power lines are down at the lake.

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Andrea and Rand in the open filk circle at FKO a couple weeks ago. Photo: JL.
	Paul in the open filk circle at FKO. Photo: JL.
	Jodi on stage with Urban Tapestry. Photo: JL.
	Erica and me in the back of the main programming room at FKO. Photo: JL, though the overexposure in the back is my fault (I increased the overall brightness so you could better see Erica and me and then changed the photo to grayscale to compensate for the overly bright colours).

ice-out ritual

Every year, Jeff, JBR and I try to make it up to Canoe Lake in time for ice-out, an event which usually occurs in late April and early May. It's tricky timing, since it's difficult to predict exactly when the ice thaws off the lake. Jeff even started an online poll for friends and family on the topic.

Because of the unpredictability of the event, it also makes it hairy to schedule our regular lives around this time since, with a couple of days' notice, we may have to drop everything and head up north. I'm sure some of our friends think we're nuts. What's the big deal about ice melting? I mean, it's JUST ICE. Go open your freezer door and put some ice cubes in a glass and watch that, for Pete's sake.

I won't try to explain why Jeff and JBR want to be at the lake for ice-out, though I could probably guess. I'm sure the motivation for each is somewhat different, as is mine.

So I'll just try to stick to explaining why ice-out is so important to me.

I have to begin with my attachment to the cottage. I didn't have any, at first. It was Jeff's dad's cottage, and Jeff's family had gone there every summer. He had much more of an attachment than I did, though I enjoyed being there, enjoyed the beautiful scenery. It was Algonquin Park itself that held more emotional significance for me, and especially Canoe Lake.

My family used to go camping every summer when we kids were little, and frequently we'd go tent camping or car camping in Algonquin Park. I have strong memories of campfires and roasting marshmallows, of swimming in the cold waters of the lakes, of walking the trails, of going on day canoe trips. I'm sure we paddled past the Ridpath cottage many times.





Years later, I started going up to the cottage with Jeff. I remember Jim and Diane dropping by to visit. I'm pretty sure Dad and Ruth and Kaarel were there, too, but I most clearly remember Jim and Diane. Those of you who have lost loved ones have probably noticed this, how every memory becomes so much more significant after they're gone. That's where the line in my Homecoming song came from, by the way: "Each moment is a gift I take with me: a memory." I think part of me wrote that song for my brother.

When Jim and Diane died in a car accident two years later, Jeff and I went up to the cottage after the funeral. It was a time of grieving, but I did find a measure of peace in the surrounding forest and the lake. Pain, too...I kept remembering how much Jim had loved the outdoors, and Algonquin Park...but I was determined not to let my grief turn good memories into bad ones.

Over the years, especially as I became more integrated into the Ridpath family (which wasn't hard :-)), I also grew to love the cottage and the lake because of the memories that Jeff and I were creating there on our own.

And in the end, all these experiences distilled into my own emotional attachment to the lake and cottage, but especially the lake. I've always been a big water fan, both saltwater and fresh. I love the sound of the waves, the rain hissing across the lake, the sound a paddle makes as it dips into the water.





I've always seen ice-out is a unique time in the year when the lake hesitates just before waking up for the warmer weather; it yawns, stretches, shakes itself. I love to be around when that happens.

So much in our lives can be produced at will, manufactured, enhanced, reconstructed. I'm all for technology, but there's always a part of me drawn to events like ice-out, which are completely at the whim of nature, especially ones which are as dramatic as the thawing of ice off an entire lake.

I remember standing on the dock of the cottage, feeling the wooden boards shudder beneath my feet as large pieces of ice were grinding up against the edge of the dock, buckling and shattering, bits of ice spraying across my feet.

I remember going outside the cottage in the middle of the night to listen to the groaning of the ice echo across the lake, like a huge and slumbering beast turning sleepily in the darkness.

I remember drifting in a canoe with Jeff in the middle of the lake near the end of ice-out, the thin shards of ice tinkling musically around us as the wind rippled across the water. I will always remember that sound.

Definitely NOT the same as watching an ice cube melting in a glass. :-)

Anyway, we plan to take off for the cottage later this week. We got a report yesterday from someone on the lake (she and her husband run the permit office there) that the ice just turned black, usually a good indicator of an impending thaw.

If the ice hasn't started breaking up, we won't be able to get the boat across to the cottage, in which case we may just turn around and come home, or (more likely) choose to stay somewhere nearby to wait a day or two in hopes that the ice goes out soon.

Chances are good that we'll miss the exact moment of ice-out again, that we'll catch the time just before or just after, but we'll still find a way to enjoy our time up north, I'm sure.

I'd rather take the chance than not. Keeps life more interesting that way, don't you think? :-)





As you can tell from most of the latter photos in today's Blathering, Annie and Sara are now proud owners of two guinea pigs, their very first pets! They've named them "Boo" and "Stripe".

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Today's Blatherpics:

	I took this cottage sunrise photo taken last year. I did not enhance or change this photo at all and believe me, the sunrise was even more gorgeous in real life!
	Jeff and Jim on Canoe Lake, 12 years ago. See that thing Jim's doing with his hand, with it resting on his leg, palm-up? I do that, too, and have also seen my dad do it. Must be a genetic thing. :-)
	Annie and Sara with their new guinea pigs, just outside the pet store yesterday afternoon. Photo by my dad.
	Sara's guinea pig, Boo.
	Annie's guinea pig, Stripe.

collab

The photo above is of John Rose, owner of Bakka Books, the best science fiction bookstore in Toronto (598 Yonge Street). Michelle works there part-time, and I dropped by yesterday before we went off to a nearby coffeeshop to work on the short story.

When our laptop batteries started running low, we packed up and went to her place to work instead. Had fun hassling Michelle's brother Gary before we started writing again. Gary was mocking Michelle and me for our...er...enthusiasm for Boromir as played by Sean Bean in Lord of the Rings. Both Boromir and Aragorn were just "a couple of scraggly white guys in beards", as far as he was concerned. :-D

Michelle and I went through the whole story and worked on bits that needed adding or changing or rewriting. We used her iPod to transfer text files back and forth, which I thought was pretty cool...I never thought to use the iPod for anything other than MP3 files.

Working on this short story collab was much more fun and educational than I expected. Thanks so much to Michelle for inviting me to be her collab partner in this project! :-) The fantasy anthology (working title: FAIRY TALES) is slated for publication by DAW sometime in 2004.

On other topics, I couldn't resist the recent intriguing e-mail invitation:

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You were nominated by an anonymous mw participant to sit in the Hot Seat and talk about what you do, how you first started inkspot, how you got your gig as a columnist, etc., and to offering pearls of wisdom to the unwashed masses.

We know you're busy, and we will take "no" for an answer, perhaps, but not without calling you poopyhead. If you say yes, we have a spot open next week. It would only require a day or two of checking the newsgroup to answer questions. (Unfortunately, but predictably, there've been a couple of flames--but not as many as we'd anticipated. We ignore them and let them die.)

So if it sounds like something you can stomach, and you can offer a little of your time for free, we'd love to interview you.



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So hey, I'm in the misc.writing "Hot Seat" today. Feel free to drop by the newsgroup to witness my public humiliation. :-)

Filk News:

OVFF conchair, Lori Coulson, has asked me to spread the word that the deadline for the Pegasus Award nomination ballots has been extended to MAY 31st becauase the OVFF PR reports were sent out so late. You can find the Pegasus Awards page and nomination ballot here.

Merav Hoffman has asked me to spread the word about the Mike Rubin Tribute Concert which she is organizing for Contata. She is still looking for performers to participate. If you are interested, please see this page for more information. Mike Rubin was a New York SF fan who died of cancer in March 1995.

guinea pig

Kudos and an Inkspot pen to both Andrea and Beckett for correctly guessing the last two Mystery Photos (Andrea guessed Graham, Beckett guess Reid). I'm especially impressed by Beckett's guess since she's never met my friend Reid! :-)

Spent most of yesterday in restaurants (morning) and coffeeshops (afternoon) working on the short story collab. The intense focus on the short story reminds me all over again of how much I love writing fiction. I enjoy writing nonfiction, but there's something about fiction writing that is so much more absorbing (for me, anyway).

I'm thinking about scaling back temporarily on my nonfiction to focus on getting my novel finished and out to my agent by the end of June. Unfortunately this would mean scaling back temporarily on income as well, but I would really, really like to have my book out circulating. Jeff's supportive of this, but I still want to think about it.





Looks like Sara and Annie are going to be getting a pet guinea pig! The whole family's doing a lot of research on the topic (as you can tell from today's photos). Sara was reading aloud to us from one of the books she borrowed from the library.

Jeff and I have agreed to take care of the guinea pig when my sister and her family go away for vacation. We're both a bit nervous about the possible risk, of course...the main concern being WHAT IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO THE GUINEA PIG WHILE IT'S IN OUR CARE? Geez, I remember how traumatic it was when Sara's pet snail died.

I've pleaded with Ruth to make sure the girls pick a generic-looking guinea pig that would be easy to replace in a hurry (as I imagine Jeff and I driving frantically around Toronto hours before Sara and Annie come back from their vacation, combing the pet stores for a lookalike guinea pig), but she says she's leaving the choice entirely up to Sara and Annie.

Argh! Does she have to be so REASONABLE?





Today's Poll Question: What pets did you all have as kids?

Here are some of ours (the ones I remember, anyway):

ZEBRA FINCHES: Can't remember their names, sorry (Ruth would remember, I'm sure). Our pair ended breeding and having about half a dozen chicks. Pretty fascinating to watch the whole process (eggs, hatching, chicks growing up) though it sure made a mess. I remember we named one of them Spock. We ended up giving them away to our Avon lady.

HOUDINI: our gerbil. Can't remember what his original name was, but we renamed him Houdini because he kept escaping.

MARTHA: My pet hermit crab. The most boring pet I ever had. She/it was dead for a week and a half before I noticed. I kid you not.





TRUDI: Australian terrier, much beloved even though she did look a little bit like an oversized rat when we gave her a bath (hence the reference to her appearance in Reid & Luisa's song).

Ruth, Jim and I researched dogs for months because we knew our parents were resistant to the idea. We put together an impressive-looking (at least I remember it being impressive-looking) project. Dad and Mom said they didn't want a dog that was too big, too noisy, or too mean. So we spent a lot of time in the library doing research (the Web didn't exist back then :-)) and finally collated our findings, showing a comparison of different breeds for size and noise and temperament (supplemented with our own drawings and photocopies), concluding that the Australian Terrier was the best choice for our family. We begged and pleaded, promising to take care of the dog, to be responsible for cleaning up after it. My parents finally relented.

Despite all of our promises, my poor Mom ended up doing all the cleaning up after Trudi. I can't believe we did that to her. Funny thing is, Ruth, Jim and I were absolutely sincere when we swore up and down that we would be the ones to be cleaning up the yard. I feel bad about this now, obviously. And I did apologize to Mom, years later. She seemed to have a good sense of humour about it.





But partly because of this, Trudi became more of my mom's dog than anyone else, really. Which is why it was so hard when we finally had to put her down (the year after my mom died of cancer). I felt so sorry for the veterinarian who had to do it...Dad, Ruth, Jim and I all insisted on being there for the injection, and we were all bawling during the procedure. We were crying partly because of Trudi, but there was also a lot of leftover grief over Mom there as well.

The poor vet. :(

No cats for us...we were all pretty allergic. I still am. I also have a sneaking suspicious that Jeff and/or I are going to be allergic to Sara's and Annie's guinea pig, but taking an allergy pill now and again is a small price to pay for their pet-joy.

Speaking of which, I've had several people ask me what I meant when I said that no pets were allowed at my virtual birthday party. My answer? It was supposed to be a joke! Honest! I thought it would be funny to include that stipulation for a virtual party in our virtual apartment (no pets allowed in our real-life apartment...guess we'll have to just smuggle the guinea pig in somehow when we have to babysit it).

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Today's Blatherpics:

	One of Sara's and Annie's lists of potential names for their impending pet guinea pig (depending on whether it's a male or female).
	Sara researching guinea pigs.
	Annie researching guinea pigs.
	Ruth researching guinea pigs.
	Annie's drawing of a guinea pig.
	Annie and Sara and Jeff at bedtime.

plotting

Had a good session with Michelle yesterday. We finished plotting out the story and decided who would do which of the remaining scenes. Michelle also helped me get through the scene I'm currently working through, which has been driving me nuts.

ME: "...so I've rewritten this stupid scene FOUR TIMES but can't seem to get it right. (insert more ranting and beating of head against wall here)"

MICHELLE: "Um, so what seems to be the problem?"

ME: "It's this Maggie character. She seems to have taken on a life of her own and keeps doing things that I don't think fit with the story so far. Argh!!" (I explain details)

MICHELLE: "I think you should just let her do what she wants to do."

ME (after a long pause): "I beg your pardon?"

MICHELLE: "We'll just have to change bits of the earlier story, but I think it'll work."

ME (trying to resist the urge to throw my arms around her in desperate gratitude): "Oh! Okay!!"

We went to Swiss Chalet for dinner; I had the E.T. special. Love that mini brownie cake thingy at the end, yum. Jeff was amused when he came home from work and saw our geekgirl stuff strewn across the dining room table: both of our iBooks, Michelle's iPod, my digital camera (see photo at top of today's entry).

We'll both be writing these last scenes today, then go through an edit of everything for consistency, etc. Deadline's Monday! I'm sure Michelle did a bunch of writing last night; she's definitely much more a night hawk than I am. Her most productive writing hours are when I'm fast asleep. :-)

Kudos to Andrea for correctly guessing that yesterday's Blatherphoto was a young Graham Leathers!

The photo below is of a non-filk friend...any guesses? He's in my Cast of Characters.