Writing

 People are always asking writers. "Where do you get your ideas from?" When that question comes up in the rare instances that someone takes an interest I generally quip "Plots R Us" and hope they change the subject.

The fact is writing comes from a great many places. Sometimes it happens mechanically. You start with, I will write a story using this setting. Then you build the story using factors like characters, toss in a reason for them to do things and a problem that gets in a way of them doing those things. You put the story together like building a leggo house. 

Sometimes things just come to you. When it does the skill involved is getting that amazing fully fledged idea down then working with it to make it into a three dimensional tale. No one publishes their first draft. The times when they do they generally learn fast it was a mistake. Yes, I bet you could name me some script or book that was great the first time out. Don't depend on being that person. 

I've talked around the where does this stuff come from subject didn't I? 

Output needs input; a writer is or should be a person who watches and pays attention. They often read a mammoth amount. I have a little issue with that in that I tend to absorb writing styles. Writing while reading confuses my personal style. 

You also need to let your brain connect things. Don't be afraid of the images that bounce around in there. 

 You are not thinking of jumping off that bridge with the subway line underneath. You're just putting a troll under there. Run with it. 

Sometimes a friend's working life gives you ideas. I have a friend who is a vet tech. She works in a lab connected to a hospital. Listening to her talk about work had me thinking of all the mice. That led to thinking about dead mice. That led to thinking about ghost mice. That led to Poltermice. 

 

So if you have to do any writing at all just focus and learn to let your imagination do the work and know that its not going to come out right the first time. That's what rewriting is for. 

PS; click the link below if you want to check out my work. 

History

 I don't know if its shown so far but I am a bit of a history geek. This is a problem in a country like Canada if you have no more than a casual interest in indigenous culture. That's a curious thing with history and archeology in general. You bump into a culture and fall in love with its history. This produces the picture of for instance an American diving into Japan and losing themselves, a Brit falling in love with Egypt and the Pharos or a Balkan scholar spending his life studying the Inca.   

I like Europe. In particular as my language skills are rather slim, the UK. I love the intense feeling of people having been living in their cities and towns for a long time.  I've felt that in only one city in North America and that's New York, a city that's been around far longer than my entire country.

Where I'm typing this if you could send me back two hundred years I might be standing in a farmers field. I'd be just as likely to be facing a moose. If you stand in Piccadilly Circus (in London) and go back two hundred years it would still be Piccadilly Circus. Technically it would also smell of horse poo and the people would look like extras in a BBC drama only most of them would be a lot dirtier and the cast would probably be more culturally mixed.

Toronto has made an effort to save at least some of its past. 

This is called the flatiron building. It was built in the early days of the city; before the city planners stepped in and said streets need to be in a grid so you could find places. Its shaped like a triangle with a very nice park in behind. 

This is one of the cities first school houses. I can't remember when it was built but they had to heat it with a wood stove.

This is from a historical home that has been preserved. Its on the northern edge of the city. I sometimes daydream of being the lady of the house and having my friends over for tea. 

Then I remember I like voting and having a say in my future and being able to express opinions on things without a man deciding I'm mentally incompetent for holding a different opinion than his and having me committed to a mental institution just on his say so. 

The past, any past, is a great place to visit. I'm smart enough to not want to live there. 

Laundry

 There are rules with laundry rooms. If its in a private home one don't let your pets curl up in the dryer no matter how cute they look cuddling in the warm clothes. Yes I know its not that likely that someone will turn it on without looking but do you want to take that chance? I don't.

Then there's the shared laundry in an apartment building and your old standard the coin laundromat down the street. I lost my favorite laundromat several years ago thanks to the strip plaza raising the rent to the point where the owner just retired instead of paying. 

I was then left with two options. One was a laundry so beat up literally half the machines were out of order. The other was and is in much better shape but twice the walk. This is not a fun trip in the winter. The way my knees are getting lately its not a fun trip in good weather either. I am therefore limited most of the time to the room downstairs.

Here's where the rules start becoming uncomfortable. For me at least. In a public laundry if its super busy if you leave stuff in a washer or dryer and you went to the store or something and someone needs that machine its generally accepted that your stuff is going to get taken out and put somewhere so the machine can be used. 

Lately this building has attracted tenants that will put a load in the washer on a Friday night and not bother to come back to even put it in the dryer till Sunday evening.  There currently is a load of white goods set aside on a table that has been in the laundry room downstairs for over a week. There is a load I personally took out of the washer today and put on the dryer that sat in that washer all weekend. I really don't like doing that but I need clean stuff. 

I don't know about you but I don't own that much stuff. I'd never be able to lose track of an entire laundry basket load and forget that I carried that basket load (there's a basket there as well) to the room downstairs. Maybe some emergency cropped up. Its the season for that sort of thing. Still after a week you'd think there'd be one quiet moment to wonder, "What happened to the white towels?" 

Cant think of any pictures I have to go with this rant. I thought I had a video of my new laundromat but I can't find the thing. It's got a rather fun mural. I'll grab a fresh shot of it next time I get sick of not being able to do some laundry and decide a walk wouldn't be that bad. 

Here's a random picture of something historical. 

She's spinning wool with a drop spindle. No matter how annoying laundry gets at least I don't have to make soap by straining water through wood ash to get lye then mix the lye with the rendered fat of dead animals. So there's that.  

Journaling

 Self help types always sing the value of journaling. I've never been quite sure what that entails. I think one is supposed to write down one's thoughts, dreams and feelings. I don't think this would have worked for me in the past. Not in the present either. Frankly what I would be writing down would simply reinforced a lot of negative stuff.  

No one wants to deal with that mess. Do positive people living happy busy lives get told to journal? Not sure about that but I suspect they're to busy doing all that living to scribble down LIFE IS GREAT.

 

I think this is the closest thing I will ever come to journaling and while it so far has tended to touch on what I think of the world I doubt it will get very personal. I'd rather be funny and honestly be it blog or journal I have this problem with writing things down that are really personal. Someone is going to read it and there will be problems.

Sure you can hide the books you write in away but sooner or later someone is going to stumble over them and then depending on what you've written there could be problems. Take my late mothers parents. (also late by the way) My grandfather kept a diary for years. In going through the mountain of things he left behind when he passed my grandmother found his diaries.  She read them. This was not a good thing. A mess if you will.

 

So while a lot of me will leak out into these little comments on life you wont be getting my dark side. I know my dark side. Trust me you aren't missing a thing. 

Cheap joke or sheep joke you decide.

Time passes

 I went to see the new James Bond movie recently. Not really going to review it here . I will only say I enjoyed the nods to the decades of history this film series has and I found the ending rather sad. It took a day or two to process why it felt sad and the reason involved change.

Times Change: that's not some deep profound secret they just do. I was a girl growing up in the 60s and a teen in the 70s. Back then no matter the genre hero stuff was almost exclusively a MAN thing. 

With the exception of Wonder Woman or Mrs. Peel from the BBC show The Avengers, female hero's were all Bat GIRL or Super GIRL. Its almost like they tacked the GIRL versions on as a marketing ploy so they could sell pastel colored versions of the male costumes at Halloween. 

The Bond movies of course were an animal unto themselves. The capable female characters almost always worked for the big bad guy. There was a Bond Girl of course but she was mostly there to look good and have sex with Bond. Then she'd get killed in the second act and give Bond the motivation to kick bad guy butt. More recently the woman went from being one dimensional to two then three dimensional heroes unto themselves. Bond stopped winning quite so often and his drinking caught up with him. 

I think I'll miss the old Bond a bit.  At the same time as a writer of female heroes myself I can't say I completely disagree with the change. Its our turn to step up and kick bad guy butt. Just like Mrs. Peel.

If you want to check out my hero's you can try; 

Or this one 

Find both at    Amazon.com/author/tabithabaumander 

Public Art

 There's a lot of different kinds of public art. There's the kind that comes at the end of an illicit spray can. That sort can actually be quite striking but for the most part I find it a bit messy. That's just me though you have a right to differ. 

Sometimes there is what I like to call accidental art. This is a collection of things or images that should be called art but aren't and frequently go unnoticed. 

This was not intended to be art. Someone just stuck a fur collar on a bike stand in the middle of winter a few years ago. I call it the super model. 

Then there is the stuff that is intended to be art but is kind of confusing. 

Mr. Clown head here was part of a city wide over night art fest called Noi Blanch. (French readers will pardon my spelling I hope) Not sure what it was supposed to represent but it was odd and of course gone the next day. Of course some art is more understandable and is meant to last.

 

If you look for it, just about any kind of art does its job. It makes you think. Sometimes its  nice soft thoughts like the sort generated by Mr Bronze Puppy here. Others are more problematic like Mr. Squish Faced clown. Thinking is the point. If you just want an image you can click and you have it. Art is or should be something more.

Now if you will excuse me I'm needed in another dimension. 

Day off

 When you are a kid, day's off, like teachers professional development days, are amazing. You get to see TV that you generally miss or only watch if you are sick and so don't really enjoy. Fast forward to me at 62 I gave up watching TV ages ago because I started counting the commercials. TEN there are TEN commercials every single time now.  I used to groan when there were two or three. You can seriously forget what you were watching.

Forgot where I was going with that. Look at this picture why I try and remember. Not sure who they are right now; politicians I expect. 

 

Oh right, back to day's off. Its great as an adult to have a day off because you can get into places and do what you want to do and get out without bashing your way through throngs of people. On a side note I've started counting noses I can see when I go into situations where I shouldn't see noses. Depressing. Its been almost two years can we learn how to wear a mask please?

Oops, did it again. Took a turn I didn't intend. Here's another picture. I think its from a Day of the Dead celebration several years ago. 

What was I saying. Oh yes. Movies in particular, for me at least, are much better on a weekday afternoon. Weekend afternoons are second on my preferred list. Even before covid I was never a fan of crowded movie theaters. I only go nights if its a social thing and I'm with a group of friends. Speaking of friends I'm meeting one for lunch. 

After all its my day off. 

Being a grown up

 I didn't plan on being a grown-up, it just happened. Every once in a while I feel a bit cranky when I think of the subject. When I was younger I had just enough fun to know that over doing it can get you into trouble. I traveled, saw and did things that most people put on their bucket lists.  

Then I became an adult and started doing adult things. It will not surprise you to hear, being an adult is not fun. Its satisfying, educational, great and miserable in turns. The fun on the other hand is a little thin on the ground.

Not sure where I'm going with this except that I had a three day weekend to look forward to and I blew it by being an adult and picking up a shift for Friday. It was the right thing to do but I wont deny there were fun alternatives I could have looked into. 

Life is like a path that you follow, frequently blindly. Sometimes just sometimes its preferable or even healthier to veer off the path and have some fun. 

 

Its Sunday Lets do something.

 When you're younger that tends to be the feeling. I don't have to work/go to school, today lets DO SOMETHING.  Generally you don't have the money to do anything really good so you have to compromise and togetherness happens. I'm writing this at ten thirty in the morning. I have got up got dressed, had breakfast, connected with a woman who picked up two reusable shopping bags full of knitting that I produced in the past year and a half. I still have two other bags but they have been promised to someone else. A hand off on that will happen MAYBE Tuesday. (watch this space for bulletins) 

Yesterday in spite of questionable weather I managed to get down town and do some filming. I based a novella of mind on a location where there is a Catholic grade school next to a very fine old church. I want to call it a cathedral but a cathedral is where a bishop is in charge and that's somewhere else. It may have been a cathedral in the past but at this point its just an extra nice church and at one point it had a grave yard which included fever pits. 

In the mid 18 somethings Toronto started getting its share of potato famine immigrants and sadly typhoid fever traveled along with them. When they decided to put a grade school there they moved the bodies from the church yard to somewhere else and paved over the graveyard to make a playground. 

I learned all this from a Docent who was a volunteer tour guide doing historical tours around the city for the Royal Ontario Museum. I learned lots of cool stuff on this tour. The city planners decided to name that area Corktown, not as i thought because it had an over abundance of people fond of the bottle.  The first and biggest wave of Irish happened to come from county Cork. 

What stuck in my head was the simple fact that I doubt the people moving the bodies bothered to sift the soil to pick up every little bone. My writers brain instantly translated that into a ghost story screaming to be written.

So I did. 

 

Anyway the video clips I took yesterday will go together to make a promo video I hope to put on the amazon page for this book. Not sure when that will happen. 

If your interested in the book in the mean time you can go to    amazon.com/author/tabithabaumander 

High Park

 

There's a big park in Toronto called High Park. It has, tucked into one of its many little valleys, what is generously called a zoo. Basically its a double row of paddocks. It works as a zoo though if you are five and your parents cant afford the big fancy zoo at the edge of the city.

Looks like he thinks I owe him an explanation doesn't he? The zoo is constantly being threatened with closure particularly as the neighborhood around the park becomes increasingly gentrified. Old money always has lived there of course but for a long time there was a lot of the middling sort and even a bit of poor. Not much of that anymore. 

Now would be the time to make an OX(ymoron) joke. Its a good thing I'm above that. In any case thankfully the zoo abides. I think some of the committee Karen's have decided that its a good thing to have and are crusading to keep it and make it better. Say what you will about your basic Karen they give great committee. Someone needs to I'm terrible at them. 

                                                                     Deer me its getting late.

                                                                    I'll see myself out. 

Days and days and days

 I'm writing this on a Thursday morning. I rather surreally was sure that yesterday was Thursday. I found out I was wrong when I went to check my lotto tickets and found out its not Friday I still have today and tomorrow to get through before I get to just fall on my face. 

Sometimes my day job is like that. Days worth of grinding without much reward. Working from home I don't even get any casual banter to lighten the mood of the day. That is the real downside of working from home. I have learned there are plenty of up sides. I spend less on transit of course. I also have less unproductive time involved in travel. 

I could start a blog. No wait I already did, this is a blog. Never mind back to my point. 

When you work in the company of people, if you or someone else is having a bad day you can joke around and bring up their mood. Or you can remind each other of days when its been worse. That's not really a thing when its just me and my view out my bedroom window is the wall of the house next door. If I lean a bit I can see the upper part of a pear tree that's two doors down. If you're interested the pears are all off and the leaves have started to turn.

Almost time to start my day. Its Thursday. Not Friday. Almost Friday if you squint a little. Its sitting on the other side of the pear tree just out of sight.

 

Movies I can afford please

 There were two different films I wanted to see this weekend: the recent Bond film and Venom 2. Tricky thing is This is a holiday weekend and theaters have developed a bit of an inconvenient habit. On holiday weekends the films that are a going concern get put into the VIP theaters or 3D theaters depending on the film. The conventional level versions are not shown. 

This morning I checked the theater's web page then went off to find that instead of 10$ senior rates they want 23$ our of me. 

I have one word for that. NO.

If I am paying over twenty dollars I want actors on a stage than you very much. I like theater. I can't afford it but I do like it a lot. When it comes to movies however I really feel that if an ordinary working person has to work more than an hour to get them in the door then something is seriously off. 

VIP will never see my face and as for 3D its a total pointless waste. The only time I go to a 3D movie is when my friends are going in a group and I want to go along. There were also a couple of times on Christmas when my kids and I went to fill the afternoon.  

Please Hollywood just tell me a good story. 

On a side note It seems like its getting farther away from the last lock-down and I'm getting used to going to the movies. I went to buy popcorn and froze as I looked at the 9$ price tag then said no. I went and got a hot dog instead. Real(ish) food and it was only 5$

By the way I'd give Venom 2 a firm 3 stars out of 5. Don't expect to much just lean back and forget reality for a while. 

Thanksgiving Weekend.

 A word for any Americans reading this. Yes Canada has Thanksgiving. No it has nothing to do with politics, settling in North America or anything of the sort. Its just a harvest festival. 

I've had Thanksgivings at all ends of the spectrum. From massive dinners with relations that I never talk to at any other time to take out Thanksgiving special from Swiss Chalet. I really think small is better.

For one thing you are less likely to bump up against that relation that lives a life so alien to you they are on another planet. It doesn't matter what form the difference takes from political and social views to the simple old fashioned financial. Sometimes the parties involved are either completely blind to any differences that have developed between you or have problems setting aside their own realities and just existing in the same room. 

I could give you a list of bad experiences but it occurred to me recently. Most of my bad experiences with holiday dinners (and ordinary family dinners in general to be honest) happened so long ago that half the people involved aren't here anymore. Of the people that are here I consider them and stay silent. To do otherwise is simply not worth it. To speak might take strength but to stay silent takes wisdom. 

So here's a thought as we head into the season of:

YES YOU CAN GET TOGETHER SO LONG AS EVERYONE HAS HAD BOTH SHOTS. 

Be wise, think twice, and if it really doesn't seem prudent get take out instead. 

Remember a light on its own is still a light. 

The Scooter

 At the beginning of this summer someone tried me out on one of her fold up bikes. She wanted company to go riding with; sadly I was not up to par. Fair dues she biked daily I hadn't been on a bike in years. The degree of which I sucked however had me thinking. I wanted to buy an electric scooter. If I was this bad at a bike I'd end up killing myself on a scooter. Also my knees were becoming scary bad. (you're not a kid anymore warning)

Exercise was the solution but I've never been into deep knee bends or pointless walks to nowhere. Then there was the scooter issue. I still want one. My solution was get a non powered scooter. Surprisingly hard to do in a city on lockdown. When that second lockdown ended I went and did it; scooter and helmet. 

I don't know if you ever watched anyone riding one of those things but the best way to do it is slightly flexed so you can react to the road. (knee bends to strengthen knees CHECK)  It also takes some balance and I think I have rediscovered my center of balance. It takes energy too and I have walked into my apartment after fifteen minutes scooting dripping sweat.  

Its also fun. I mean what do you want to do deep knee bends? Or do you want to go flying?

Now if you will excuse me I'm late for my morning flight. 

The things you start.

 The things you start when you are bored and then forget. I apparently connected to this site a long time ago and then completely forgot. Gee what has happened since then.

Plague.

But back to people not going crazy and refusing the thing that would stop them from dying if they get sick. Honestly you get the Polio shot don't you guys? How many people are in iron lungs these days ONE. That guy has been in it since the fifties. 

On to things that aren't stupid. I have an amazon page now and a lot of self published books. I also have some books published with a couple of small presses. I don't sell very well but you cant win them all. Some day my time will come. It may come after my death a la Philip Dick but it will come. 

I'll close out with two things I overheard recently. One odd one cute.

ODD

WOMAN; well what happened

MAN; I was so wasted I didn't even know I'd been arrested. 

CUTE

MOM (trying to get the three year old to move through the grocery at more than a snails pace) VIVA

GIRL Los Vegas

MOM VIVA

GIRL Los Vegas

Each time the kid said Los Vegas she'd bounce along a bit faster then slow down. 

Yeah that's life. Excuse me I need to go warm up my work computer. Thanks to Covid my job experimented with distance working. They like it so much I am now a dang hermit. 

I need a life.