The Overlook Hotel

Sorry that this week's post is a day late. Spending most of the weekend up at the cottage has messed up my routine. Plus, there was a pretty good hockey game on last night (Go Sens Go!) Anyhow, on with the post...

I have a Facebook friend who sends out a note every now and then asking if anyone has a secluded cabin in the woods that he can rent so he can do some writing. I have often thought that this would be my optimal writing locale. It's quiet with lots of beautiful nature to reflect on life and generate wonderful ideas, and I am unlikely to have access to the internet - at least not on anything but my cell phone (which is easy enough to ignore because it's slow and such a small screen).

As it turns out, I am not in a position to just take off for a couple months and write a book. My day-to-day existence requires me to wear a few hats: father, husband, project manager, friend, son, brother, cousin... writer. As a result, most of my writing happens on my couch in my living room, which works well enough but is far from what I would consider ideal. If I really want to buckle down I'll go sit in the big chair in the bedroom. I suppose I could go to a local coffee shop or a park if the weather is nice - or anywhere that has a bench to sit on for that matter. Ultimately, those all seem like a lot of a hassle for only a little gain. 

Of all of my realistic options the only one that seems to guarantee a good spurt of words is the chair in the bedroom with some white noise blaring through some headphones and my wifi turned off. This is what leads me to believe that a secluded cabin might just be my ideal writing spot. Of course everyone is different and there are many other options that could work. Are any of these on your list?

• Beach house surrounded by gulls and waves and a light breeze
• Leather chair surrounded by mahogany and walls of books
• Bean bag chair, tattered note pad, and that old pen that should have run out of ink years ago

Wherever it is, whatever you prefer, is there a specific place or setting that gets the words flowing better than any other?

On the other side of that coin are the things that take a productive writing session and throw it right in the crapper. For me, this is a list that's probably a wee bit too long. In no particular order (and sadly, nowhere close to exhaustive):

• An Stanley Cup playoff hockey game
• A golf tournament where Tiger Woods in in contention
• Someone mentioning me on Twitter
• The Internet
• Shiny objects

You can see now why I think a cabin in the woods is my ideal writing spot. Realistically it could be any place where I am as far away as possible from anything on that list. That being said, regardless of your circumstance and location one thing is certain: all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. 

~ Andrew

For Mom

I normally associate reading with my father. Not that my mother doesn't read, but she doesn't read the types of books that I do, and she's more than likely to be found with a crossword in her hand (or a stack of them!) or a watering can or a gardening glove or something to refinish old furniture - or a glass of red wine. Every time I'm at my parent's cottage and mom is there I will be asked to help out with one or more of these chores (especially the red wine), and when she is not there at the same time we are there is a  really nice note asking for one of these items to be done (along with a plea for me to not kill all her flowers - a particular skill that I have that I must have inherited from my father).

Now, while I associate my (more formal school principal) father with books, I associate my (less formal gym and substitute teacher) mother with words, specifically which words to use in any given situation and most importantly how to make them my own. If anyone were to ask me how I developed my writing style my response would most definitely be - from my mother.

You are not my mother! You are a SNORT!

Growing up, I spent more time talking with my mother. She's just a wee bit more in tune with her emotions than my father and we share a similar sense of humour (I have to be careful which emails of hers I open at work). I am very passionate and always looking to bring levity to a tense situation and my mom encouraged this throughout my childhood (yes, I embody the cliché that my mom thinks I'm funny). As such, I've often looked to my mother to provide guidance on how to phrase various written phrases documents.

One particular time I was on the phone with mum, talking about my upcoming career change and how my current employer wanted to do an exit interview. I had no experience with this before as it was my first job after graduating university so I sought out advice from her on my official departure letter. Well, it's a darn good thing I did because she certainly helped me avoid my first ever 'bridge burning'. While I enjoyed my job and most of my coworkers and had a lot of respect for my boss, I had some very honest opinions about the organization as a whole. My mom talked me through the finer points of communicating such opinions and the result was an exit letter that expressed my thoughts honestly and tactfully.

Later that year I received this book for Christmas:

My mom's not-so-subtle advice

Suffice it to say, this is a well worn book that has travelled with me throughout my career. I keep it at my desk and co-workers who happen by often inquire as to its contents, and if I have found it useful. I simply reply, "Have I offended you with an email recently?" when they reply, "No", I point to the book and say, "That's probably the reason why."

More than just that, and back to the part about my mom insisting that I leverage my sense of humour as often as possible, I have taken it upon myself to ensure that when I have to send out one of those "I'm Going to be Out of the Office" or "Where's Andrew?" messages to my co-workers that I make it funny, or at the very least entertaining. With my mother's voice echoing in my head as I type, these are more often than not quite tasteful and completely appropriate for the office.

I bring this particular style, casual with a dry wit, into a lot of the things I write and if you read a few of my blog posts you will see what I mean. It is definitely a style I can call my own, and I owe a lot of that to my mother. Heck, she can take credit for even more than that. In Grade 9 she even sat me down at the kitchen table with an electric typewriter and forced me to practice typing until I was up to a respectable 45 words a minute (okay, it's not that respectable, but it was good enough for a passing grade. Just so you know, I'm up around 70 now). Where would I be now if I was just hunting and pecking with two fingers across the keyboard? Certainly not cranking out a blog post every Sunday, that's for sure.

My only wish now is that I was paying more attention when she was imparting advice on how to pick a tense and stick with it. I wonder if she'll give me a deal on editing when I'm finished the first draft of my novel...

~ Andrew

Hey Mikey, I Think He Likes It

So my wife and I took the kids to see The Croods today. If you're not sure what this is it's an animated movie featuring a caveman family who, to this point in the story, has survived by spending as much time as possible huddled in a cave. The father's favourite saying is "Never Not Be Afraid" and he makes a point of showing them over and over (and over) again that anything new is to be feared. Now, I won't spoil the movie for you, but suffice it to say that this notion is to be challenged and the family may or may not experience something new and may or may not live happily ever after.

Fast forward a couple hundred thousand years and here we are. We have evolved quite remarkably in that span of time and yet there are still so many traits, mannerisms, or instincts that we possess that hearken back to those cave dwelling days. Fight or flight immediately springs to mind. The overwhelming need for the male of the species to impress the female is another one. Sadly, men did not evolve in a similar fashion to their feathered friends and become adorned with colourful plumage.

Stolen from Wikipedia

If you're anything like myself you've also hung on to a little bit of the Crood father as well. Things that are the same are safe and things that are different are not. Change is bad. Now, I'm no Luddite by any stretch, but I am most comfortable in my routine and have a healthy appreciation for the way things are. So when it was time to discuss the possibility of an e-reader I was far from comfortable. 

I've tried reading on my iPhone and on my laptop and I'm not a fan. An e-reader is different I am told. An e-reader is just like reading on a book, but better! My father, who probably hasn't been on the Internet for a decade (since I showed him how to use Google to look at boobs find sports scores), switched over to an e-reader more than a year ago and he loves it. He has no idea how to get books onto it (the neighbour does it for him), but he loves it. 

My daughter reads a book about every three or four days. It may take her a week if she has a few of them on the go at once. She's getting an e-reader for her birthday whether she likes it or not. I will soon run out of storage space for all her books and will probably wear out a path to the library as well. My wife figured that a good way to test out this gift would be to get one for me and then I could put it through the paces and we could let our daughter try it out. I did the research and decided that I wanted a more "traditional" e-reader. I would not enjoy reading on something with a shiny screen that also played HD video. I needed something that most resembled an actual book. I settled on the Kobo Glo, and lo and behold my wife gave me one for my birthday.

I loaded up some books I've been meaning to read and picked up a "book maintenance" program that allows me to keep a consolidated library of all my ebooks in all their formats (and convert them to Kobo format too, if I want). I loaded a couple new books for the future on there as well and I started reading Caramel and Magnolias by my friend Tess Thompson. I read in daylight, at night, low light, lots of light, direct sunlight, morning, afternoon, and evening for a week. I used all the features I could think of on the device and I gave it a solid test drive. 

The verdict? It's just like reading a book, but better! 

So there you have it. It is possible for me to embrace and accept something new. Believe me, I am just as surprised as you are. Now, I wonder what's next?

The Book Was Better

Stolen from http://themovieblog.com 

There is a lot of anticipation surrounding the movie The Great Gatsby, which is due to hit the silver screen for the fourth time on May 10th, and within hours of its first viewing we are certain to hear a chorus of reviews.

Like this:

• "What a great movie!" 
  - People Who Think Leonardo DiCaprio is Cute

Or maybe this:

• "It wasn't as good as the TV movie in 2000 with Mira Sorvino and Paul Rudd."
  - People Who Like to Watch TV Movies

Or possibly this:

• "It wasn't as good as the movie in 1974 with Mia Farrow and Robert Redford."
  - People Older Than 50 / People Who Don't Like Leonardo DiCaprio

Probably not this, but you never know:

• "It wasn't as good as the movie in 1949 /1926."
  - People Who Like Old Movies

I am going out on a limb here and predicting that the most common review you're going to hear is this:

• "The book was better."
  - People Who Have Read The Great Gatsby 

I have to (shamefully) admit that I have not read the classic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, but in general terms I'm okay with the assessment that movie versions of books aren't as good as the books themselves. I also don't think it's a fair comparison to make because movies are working with a handicap.

A handicap you say? How do you figure? With all the money and star power and marketing and technology at their disposal, how is it possible that they could be at a disadvantage? It's actually quite simple: for all the things movies have going for them, when you get right down to it the advantages are finite. There's only so much money, so many special effects, and only a couple hours to work with to tell the story...

Movies have limitations, imagination does not. 

At the end of the day, the reader constructs their own set of images and all the subtleties and nuances that make the characters and their environment real are (for the most part) in control of the reader. This holds especially true for books where the writer does a particularly good job of showing the reader what's happening without forcing them what to see.

I have never considered myself to be an avid reader (hell, I haven't read The Great Gatsby), but before I traded Homer and Shakespeare for Newton and Einstein I enjoyed it quite a lot. I was, however, absolutely fascinated with movies. I worked in a movie store for several years, took a film class in high school, and at last count (two decades ago) had watched over 5,000 full-length feature films. After all that film watching there is one that, for me, shows that behind every great movie is a great writer. That movie is Pulp Fiction.

Stolen from http://wallsave.com 

The screenplay for Pulp Fiction is an absolute pleasure to read and I'm certain that had it been a book it would have been a great one. Maybe not an all time classic but a spectacular work of writing nonetheless. Even still, I can't help but think that Pulp Fiction is at its absolute best as a movie. It's one example I can think of that showed me the limitations of my imagination.

As it turns out, Pulp Fiction was up for Best Picture with two movies that the Huffington Post lists as being better than their literary originals: Shawshank Redemption and Forrest Gump (the latter getting the Oscar nod). So while it seems possible for a film to rise to the occasion, I would assert that it's an uphill climb that gets even steeper for books that history has deemed "great". Would you put Shawshank Redemption or Forrest Gump in this category? I can't say for sure because I haven't read those books either(!) - but Modern Library doesn't - and neither do the readers they polled. This according to their 100 Best Novels list.

It's worth noting that those readers have 7 of their top 10 books written by either Ayn Rand (4) or L. Ron Hubbard (3), and neither of those two names appear in Modern Library's Top 100, so clearly there's a difference between what the "experts" think and the general public thinks. One thing these two groups can agree on is that The Great Gatsby is a really good book (ML's board ranking it at #2 and their readers ranking it at #13). So, will the latest edition of the movie hold up?

I doubt it.

What I do know is that I should read the book and I'm definitely going to see the movie - and I'll probably enjoy both to a certain degree - but for very different reasons.

~ Andrew

Recipe for Disaster

It starts with the idea that anyone with an internet connection can go and find instructions on how to make a bomb with a common kitchen appliance. Sadly, this idea isn't new. The information has existed for decades, but the technological age in which we live makes this information all too easy to obtain. You would be right to think that there must be violent motivations behind the desire to create such a device and put it to use, but that's not always the case. 

There's a company in the U.S. currently publishing blueprints that you can simply plug into a 3D printer and then print yourself restricted parts for firearms, like the lower receiver for an AR-15 assault rifle. When asked about what his thoughts were on the fact that this was one step closer to anyone being able to manufacture a gun that could pass freely thought a metal detector the co-owner of the company, Cody Wilson, replied:

"I think there’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing in a moral sense. We’re pursuing what we think is a step toward liberty..."

The first time I was exposed to the question of social responsibility when it came to published material was in high school. There was a rumour floating around that someone in the school had acquired a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook and people were freaking out! Well the adults were, but the students, they just wanted to see something blow up. Several years after publication the author of the book had a change of heart and wrote the publisher requesting it be taken out of print. Due to the manner in which the copyright was assigned (to the publisher, not the author) the author was told that that wasn't going to happen. William Powell, says of his infamous book:

"The central idea to the book was that violence is an acceptable means to bring about political change. I no longer agree with this."

While I applaud William Powell's change of heart, the content is still readily available and it continues to promote violence. You can't un-ring a bell. But this isn't a post about gun control or anti-terrorism (though I happen to feel that both of those things are generally a good idea). All of the above are examples of content that's driven by an agenda (terrorism, civil liberties, political protest). But what about when the agenda is simply to entertain? What happens when a work of fiction becomes the Anarchist Cookbook for the sociopath living next door? 

This is a question that recently popped into my head when I was driving to work and listening to Metallica's Nothing else Matters. For whatever reason, a spectacularly disturbing scene popped in my head as the song played. I imagined it as a soundtrack playing over the events as they unfolded, the main character singing along as he committed heinous acts of evil and atrocity. If I think about it, there's nothing unique about what I envisioned - I'm sure several movies, televisions shows, or books have captured the essence of this scene several hundred times over - but when the song ended I paused my music and drove the rest of the way in silence thinking to myself, What is this crazy serial killer's motivation? What would drive this individual to commit such unspeakable acts of violence?

Before long, I had established a back story for my antagonist, the motivations behind his actions, and a suitable ending that, depending on which way I want the story to go, could either please readers or make them scream in frustration (i.e. getting caught or getting away with it). Once I had these ideas in place, and after a day's worth of work of thinking about something else, I was left to ponder, What if any of this were to be used by someone in real life? 

Part of me thinks it's ridiculous to worry that a work of fiction would end up driving someone to act on it, but it happens all the time. It's not in the same as distributing bomb making instructions or blueprints for restricted gun parts but is the fact that the book is labelled as fiction enough? I would like to think so, but at the same time I still feel somewhat responsible of making sure that it's crystal clear I'm talking bullshit for your enjoyment and that it's not a how-to manual or some demented personal wish list. I suspect a lot of artists struggle with this, but I'm not really sure.

Anyway, at the end of the day I can always get Bono to step in and make things right.



~ Andrew