Wintergreen Studios

Alrighty my babies, I know in my last post I promised an entry detailing the delights of my recent trip to Montreal. The meals! The shopping! The booze! The hangover! The amazing spa-ing! The parking tickets that were avoided! Every exciting, delightful detail will be relayed. Before we get to Montreal, though, I have to spill the beans on this most amazing weekend I've just had. Yes, yes, those who are keeping score (rude) that is two weekends in a row when I abandoned my family for selfish pursuits, but really, my family is small and low key and seems to be perfectly content without me, so it's hard to work up a really extensive guilt trip.

This past weekend, through a series of twisty, fate-y turns, I ended up taking a three day writing workshop with Lawrence Hill. Not only was Larry (yes, that's what we were asked to call him) a really good writing teacher -- insightful, helpful, engaged, interested... But it turns out he's a very nice guy, a good listener and a pretty good swimmer.

The weekend would have been fantastic if it had just involved learning about the craft and business of writing from Larry, but it was so much more. The seven other participants (all women) were also amazing... Just this fantastic group of fascinating ladies who each had interesting stories to tell about their own lives. There were no whiners or weirdos in the group (though, I do have a friend who claims that if you can't spot the weirdo in a given group, it's because you yourself are actually that weirdo -- if so, sorry ladies!).

Again, that kind of serendipitous wonderfulness doesn't happen often, but maybe what sealed the deal on the magicality (totally a word) of the whole thing was the setting. Wintergreen studios is a secret hideaway tucked away in the backwoods of Ontario. It's down a long a windy dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Off-grid and built as sustainably as possible, the main lodge and its surrounding buildings (including a tiny little cabin called the Hobbit House that was tucked away in the woods... totally adorbs. I contemplated staying there, but then chickened out because, murderers) were made from recycled materials, and often with straw bales, which is totally the de rigueur building material for the environmentally conscious.The place is the brain child of this brilliant, multi-talented Renaissance woman, Rena Upitis who  bought the land and envisioned the whole wonderful, magical place.

Suffice to say, the food was incredible, the setting stunning, the people nurturing and funny and inspiring and the whole thing was like a giant feast of creativity that will nourish me for months to come.

Amazing.

So sorry m'ladies and m'gentlemen! I have failed in my self-imposed posting schedule and it's because life reared it's ugly head...

I'm trying to revise my dissertation for publication (gah!); do this ridiculously labour-intensive promotion application for my work (double gah!); work on a new novel (triple gah! but also, fun!); train for a 10 km run (oh my God, my knees, my poor, sore knees); deal with a twerpy toddler who has suddenly decided that going to bed is for suckers (rude) and I also squeezed in a truly fabulous trip to Montreal where I shopped, ate, drank, spa'd and shopped some more. One of the things I bought were leopard print leggings!!

 Anyway, Montreal deserves a whole other post of its own, but I'm hopeful that I will get back to the blogging very soon. I'm actually swanning off for another glorious weekend -- this one in the backwoods of Ontario, where I'm doing a little writer's retreat...

Stay tuned my babies!

A time to write

Carving out time in the day to write can be very tricksome. My work day is obviously consumed by the high energy adrenaline rush of performing my urgent, life or death duties with utmost concentration, effectiveness and precision.

Evenings consist of snack-preparation, meal-making, colouring-book colouring, meal-eating, bathing, bed-putting and then being so brain-drained that the only option available is to collapse in front of Don Draper and Peggy for 45 minutes of vaguely boring, vaguely ominous, beautiful-looking television before crawling off to sleep.

Since I love being in bed by 10 and actually am deliciously excited when climbing under the covers by 9:30, staying up late is not an option. Weekends get eaten up by fun stuff, and when I do get the chance to write (like now, at a friend's cottage, while everyone's at the beach and I'm up here for the kiddo's nap) I work on "quick" stuff, which is usually blog or Internet-related...

All that being said, it can be challenging to actually work on creative-writing. Wah wah, I know, First World Problems.

I've made a new resolution for Fall though... Nights are longer, days are cooler, children are back at school, we're mere days away from a barrage of Christmas advertising ... The time seems right (of maybe I should say WRITE - hardy har har). I'm going to get up at 6 every morning and devote an hour to writing, not blogging or Internet browsing, but actually producing new material. It is time. I will do this. I will.

Caption Contest

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Sometimes at work we'll come across a particularly random photo and play a little something called "Caption Contest" --- anyone have any ideas for this one? 

   

Beaver Attack!

This is the most amazing radio interview... It paints Canada's national symbol in a whole new light, but really, the hero of the day is Penn Powell - the man telling the story in a matter-of-fact, if slightly bemused, way.

Some choice quotes...

"I slip up under the beaver."

"He was wet like a greased pig."

... then the crazed animal goes for Penn's "Honeymoon jewels."

In the end, though, despite the ferocity of the beaver attack, Penn is forgiving.... Actually saying, "I hold nothing against the beaver whatsoever."