I have joined the illustrious gang of "winners" who have completed a gruelling month of writing 50,000 words for a novel.
I reread some of it already, and it was good and bad!😄
Now, to put it all together. I am overdue in actually finishing a novel, a goal a little more recognisable in the general public than being a NaNoWriMo winner!
I would show you my certificate, but my google blog and my pdf refuse to cooperate today! You will have to take my word for it!
The first graph proves that I am not an overachiever. The second proves that I am inconsistent. Together they prove that when I want something, I can get the job done! Also, I am very motivated by deadlines!
During this month, I have worked my full compliment of shifts (can you tell which were my two work weekends :)?), vacuumed my house, kept up on laundry, changed my car's winter tires, gone out to dinner with good friends, signed a contract for a bathroom reno, visited Ottawa for an overnight getaway, participated in a book club, visited two art gallery exhibits, fed my kid three times a day, had a friend over for a late Thanksgiving dinner, hiked, shovelled, watched a few Christmas movies and shows, and caught up with friends and family.
I am proud of what I have accomplished, but my life will be a lot simpler on December 1st without the singular focus necessary for this event!
My earliest memory of a Canadian Pacific (CP: now the modern Fairmont) castle-like hotel was a trip that my family took to Banff. It is a memory stitched together with just a few images. Some of my memories may not have been the same year or even in the right place, but there are two things I remember strongly: waking up at least one day in the campground and doubting my dad’s proclamation that we were in the mountains, until the fog finally lifted to reveal the rock face that had been completely obscured in the dark right beside our tent, and the outrageous and hilarious freedom of wearing garbage bags with our arms poked through because of rain, feeling none of the usual embarrassment in knowing that everyone we met was a stranger anyways.
I have a vague memory of stopping for a hot chocolate in the lobby of the Banff Springs Hotel, but maybe it was just a look in the lobby. I have a picture of the hotel that must have been taken from some height, and looking down into the valley, the hotel was the scale of Neuschwannstein, and resembled the castles that I later knew were as an adult in Europe, with the ruins of Heidelberg found in the fog being a strong memory with no photo. When I moved to Montreal, I am not sure I understood the breadth of the CP hotels that spanned the country. I think that Quebec city’s Chateau Frontenac (CF) may have been my only knowledge of a hotel with the turrets and dramatic rooftops outside of the Rockie Mountains, but I am even unsure of that timeline, and that I would have connected the two spanning such a distance as where I grew up to where I ended up.
What I do know was that I started a file folder with the bills and room cards for all my Fairmont Hotel stays over the years, and this is the timeline that I am more certain of, although given memory’s unreliability, there is still some artistic license likely to be present.
From my records;
My first Fairmont booking was for a conference in Toronto called the North York Emergency Medicine. It was 2007, and I did not go alone, leaving my then husband and my one year old daughter to their own devices while I spent long days learning. I remember that we took pictures in our bathrobes, and that my daughter was just starting to walk with confidence, using a toddler sized rolling walker and enjoying the enormous carpeted floors of the lobbies and hallways. The hotel was the Royal York, and I can’t remember if it was this visit, or another in 2009, but we took the train that actually brought us to the train station that still serves the hotel.
The following year, 2008, we booked a room at the Hotel Frontenac in the summer, and now we full blown chased after the little tyke who ran away if she could! No walker needed!
In 2009, I indulged in a night to celebrate my birthday, staying at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in hometown Montreal, with a view down on my favourite reminder of Rome (Vatican City, actually) that is Mary Queen of the World cathedral, and the incredible Sun Life Building that sits kitty-corner to it.
The Chateau Laurier was next, during a year that I was developing the intention of becoming a premier member. That year was 2011, and there was a midwinter promotion in concert with the Holtz Spa in the nearby Byward market. I went with two friends that I knew from a group of long time friends. At the time I don’t think we had spent any time together by ourselves, but that trip changed things. Both of these women have become very important to me, likely beginning with that stay. This also is likely to be the start of the idea for the book I am on day three writing. Certainly, CL is the closest Fairmont hotel to me unless I stay in Montreal, so has been the easiest to visit. It has never had the heart stopping increases in price that CF has had, and it is now officially the CP hotel that I have visited the most, thanks to my recent visit there with one of the two women that accompanied me there ten years ago.
The three characters may have developed on a different timeline, but it is interesting to see the parallel of three women from that visit. I know that two of my original characters were based on others, and not on my travel companions, but even down to the room we had with 3 separate beds and a view to Parliament Hill feels primordial to where my story has evolved from. I also wonder if all my reading of Nancy Drew (ND) and her two best friends could have played a part. I think I may have even added a boyfriend, like Ned, to balance out the estrogen. The Mystery at Chateau Laurier was the original title, which sounds like a ND mystery, and the name stuck until my first NaNoWriMo in 2019, when I started to fill in the characters, but the mystery plot never developed, or was very awkward.
I started going to the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) conferences beginning in 2011, and travelled to quite a few cities this way. I found the cost of the exchange rate, and the demand in the US cities almost unaffordable, so was not able to consistently stay at a Fairmont. I did enjoy my stay so much in Boston at the Copley Plaza that I returned with my family, this time with a time booked to walk their lobby dog named Caty (pronounced Katey). I remember a little room in San Francisco that was the peak of what I was willing to pay for a night, especially for a room that I was literally only using to sleep in. It was steep in price, but also in real estate, and I when the sting of the cost wore off, I was glad to have stayed truly in the heart of San Fran, even if it was just for a short time.
I started this blog in 2012 on a spinoff trip as a Rick Steves superfan with an incredible stay at the Fairmont Seattle. Eating alone turned out to heighten each meal that I ate, and certain foods still come up as fond memories. Spanish fig loaf found in a brick at the international section at the grocery store, and several failed attempts to make the breaded cheese croutons that topped a vegetable bisque soup come immediately to mind. The food was accompanied by the luxurious surroundings and a pianist! I can also recommend that fall is a great time for eating out!
Today I was reminded why I had the idea of a treasure hunt, when I found an envelope from October 26th, 2013 addressed to Princess Pirate, Room 373, and was dotted with pastel coloured and sparkly stickers in the shape of hearts and with happy horse faces . I don’t remember the ruse, but I wrote at the top, I believe addressed to the front desk staff:
BONJOUR. LAISSEZ MOI Á LA RÉCEPTION
The first clue must have been hidden in plain sight in the room, left to be found.
It read:
Good morning, Rebecca!
Today I have a treasure hunt for you!
The first clue is waiting for you at the lobby’s front desk, where I checked in. Just ask for a message for room 373.
Good luck,
Love,
Mom (smiley face emoji)
The second clue read:
Ask your daddy to help you find Albert Einstein’s photograph.
Below it is a desk.
Check the right drawer for your next clue.
P.S. This poodle is for decorating our shoelaces.
The third clue read:
Good job!
You found the next clue!
(Editor’s note: I am hearing Blue’s Clues in my head now. I think that might have been my inspiration. Unfortunately it may have also been my aspiration. This was not great work, which is why I have had so much trouble making it into an adventure worthy of a novel!)
This place I found when I visited the castle last winter.
I loved it and am so happy to use it’s hiding place today!
Don’t leave the room, but look for a lamp with a stack of books.
Don’t be afraid to be a detective.
Be curious - I promise it won’t break!
The fourth clue was the last clue, and it read:
Wow, that was the toughest spot to find.
Hope you are having fun!
Now it is time to return to your room.
Find the “safest” place and press the numbers of your birthday - month.
Don’t forget to put 0 (zero) in the tens spot + day.
(Editor’s note: I think this is confusing, and I don’t remember what the gift was!)
Hope this is a good gift for a princess!
Enjoy your castle!
I have long admired the construct of a murder mysterday, but before binge-watching was a thing, the closest thing we could come to was binging a series of books, which was hard to do given the constant wait required repetitively for the next book in the series to be released to you after putting it on hold. Even then, with authors like Agatha Christie who had long ago finished writing, it seemed like a far-fetched idea to have so many murders around one person, usually in a small space, or in a small town. These eventually transitioned to murder mystery shows, and the sequence of so many victims quickly became too terrible for me to bear. So I have still never read all of Agatha Christie’s books, and I don’t binge watch crime shows for fear of becoming so despondant as to be suicidal. I like the “twist” though, and when I started writing this book in 2019, I thought that I would take inspiration from the idea of a letter, but it turned out not to be a very interesting device for a plot twist.
I took inspiration at least for the protagonist Stephanie from a Tissot painting that I have loved for a long time that hangs in the National Gallery of Canada called The Letter. It is a medium sized painting set in a beautiful garden. A woman with an elegant black gown and hat from the late 19th century holds a letter in her gloved hands that she is actively shredding. The multiple pieces hang impossibly in the air behind her, as if caught by an updraft. She is surrounded by fallen horsetail chestnuts, so I always imagined the park to be in Paris. She stands on the grass, which is a big no-no in a park in France, and there is only one table behind, so although I had imagined that she was in a public place, maybe she is at her own private residence and the man behind is not a waiter but a footman maybe. I don’t know what is happening, but her face seems confident, making the expression closest to disgust. Maybe she has been stood up with a letter carrying the excuse? Whatever is happening, she is not devastated, but this is just the beginning of a story in my mind. She is my first truly original character. She is not based on anyone I know. She is her own persona, although I have to admit, she is also the character most like myself!
So there you have it. A story written over two Novembers, from 2019-2021, started a long time ago. The three women characters have been developing on paper and in my mind for along time, and they probably met the Chateau Laurier during a cold a grey fall in 2011. It was not a trip very far away, but that weekend changed my life. It brought me to dear friendship with two extraordinary women, had me fall in love with the architecture and history of the hotel, and started my writing inspiration for the story that continues to challenge me today!
I am barely keeping my eyes open, but I have passed the 40,000 word mark this morning, and am able to finally go to bed at 23:55 because I have passed the 42, 500 work count today. It was a big one, and it's going to be no small feat to write 2500 words a day for 3 more days, but I am back on track, and looking towards the finish line.
Good night wrimos!
Good night moon!
This month is going quite smoothly, but I tend to be a chronic underachiever! Although not far from the stable graph line sloping upward to 50,000 words, I have only surpassed it twice, November 4 and 5th. It would be easier to finish on time in one week if I had, and my failure daily to reach the target is sobering. On average, I am writing 1460 words a day, which is why my current word count needed is 2137. A small deficit kept from November 7th grew significantly with weekend shifts with 0 imput (losing me a 21 day in a row and every day writing. The holy grail of achieving your daily goal for 30 days isn't even on my radar!)
In addition, this year, several in the Montreal group (of which I am grateful for their motivation) are already at 50,000 words and writing beyond! It's exciting to see how some took off running and left a bunch of us the dusk, most of them with day jobs and some of them with lives!
That being said, I finished my last (night) shift yesterday, and feel somewhat lucid today, so I have a really good chance to get this done. My only glitch is a 2 day trip to the scene of my story with a friend, in part to celebrate our current age before upcoming birthdays. I hope she knows how much time writing takes! If not, I am going to be losing sleep for the last push!
What is exciting to me this year is to see how preparation helps. In an ideal plan, your house is in order and your freezer full of food, as well as 30 plot points or scenes for a place to start every day. Still, I have 6 characters, one that is likely to end up on the cutting room floor, that I have enjoyed following around. I never got into those video games like SIM city where you create and world, but I feel like it's very similar. In my hands, my characters resemble awkward monsters like Frankenstein's, and like the early CG effects associated with creating people and putting them in situations.
The other factor was a very frustrated creative writing teacher that initially I found very critical. With time, I saw that what he was criticizing was a group of writers that were excellent at writing what they knew (their own reflections), but the class was meant to create something new. That is not easy, and it was not easy for our teacher to get us to live out our fantasies. I am starting to get it, finally. After decades of journaling, my ability to report and reflect is not bad (not good, but not terrible!), but I have to create something new.
The question of, "What if" is a great starting point. What if my character living an ordinary life of a daily grind has something extraordinary happen? What then? That is when the fun starts!
Next, when your characters are boring you, there are ideas like: Flashback to explain their emotions. Grab a tearjerker. Stir the pot. Forget the rules. Write the rules. Depend on insanity. Some of this I credit to Scarlet, our Montreal leader extraordinaire. Some she would credit to a packet of cards from the Writer Emergency Pack by John August, like Change every blessing into a curse, That's Not the Dragon, and Standard Procedures.
My fellow Montreal writers have also been inspiring. We have virtual sessions where we chat and inspire, and then write for 30 minutes of the hour. There is some competition in how many words we each type, but it is a friendly one. Like yoga, most of us are just competing with ourselves, and at times the days with the lowest word counts are necessary moments in creating the next new idea. There is also a group that hangs out at different times on A Writers Mess on a server called DISCORD, and the sprints are frequent and short, with lots of nice things (if you are willing to learn a little coding) and helpful people to coax you along in your journey. You can even use the BOT to do it all by yourself! I found that helpful last night at 23:43!
As an exercise in not judging what we write, this elusive goal keeps the critic on our shoulder in check. Afterwards, some serious judgement will be necessary. At one point I was so tired, and my character had had three name changes, that I couldn't remember what to call her!
I have learnt that your soundtrack cannot be too slow, and my new favourite is a 25 minute 42 second CBC recording of Alexandra Streliska "Inscape". I also recommend google docs. It has an excellent autocorrect for grammar, keeps a word count total or for a highlighted part. Plus, my daughter has more than once been my IT support to help me get out of trouble!
So today I start at 35,043 words in my count. A few are plot points and not yet stories. I am taking a risk not using these words to contribute to my word count, but I think reflection is a powerful thing and I might not have much bandwidth after this to consolidate my thoughts. Last time (and for the first time in 2019) I wrote 50,000 words, I couldn't look at it for months. It speaks to under training, and reminds me of the marathon I ran once. I was in good shape and definitely did some training, but after I finished, I didn't run for months. Not great!
I am excited to put the two parts of the story together, and I have put out feelers to a few people willing to read at least part of it. This will not be great Canadian novel published for the world to enjoy, but it will be a stepping stone to something else. If nothing else, it is wonderful to see the process if you just keep applying the work!
Good luck to all my NaNoWriMoers out there. Whether you make your goal, or fail to achieve it but do something else instead, you are a winner! Showing up is more than most are able to do, and you did that and more! I am so proud of you!
REWARDS:
Word sprints 658 in 30 minutes PR!
Vocabulary to incorporate (can you find the six words?)
On the island of Capri, in a hypogeum populated with boats bearing tourists, seeking its cerulific waters, an otacust in a boat wheepled in alarm when he saw a man disrespectfully avulsed a zoetic creature from the stone wall.
2 days with no words is killing me now! I must keep it up until my next shift, and then not give it up no matter how bad I feel afterwards. 1667 minimum a day to the end. Half-way I am crawling back at 21,705.
Monday morning write-in gave me 2000 words in 2 hours. My best word count!
I was on call on the wards for the last time change. It worked out no different for me, because although my call was one more hour, and my pay was by day, so no overtime, I didn't get called in, or even called. Others had to work overnight for one more hour, with their compensation being overtime.
When I got to work, I asked the two nurses who got an extra hour that night how it went. The first nurse had slept the extra hour, and she was very pleased. The second nurse couldn't sleep in, but enjoyed the extra hour before work.
I had managed to sleep in, but I found myself wanting to also have a longer day. In that moment, I realized that this is why I am often frustrated with how much I want to get done in a certain amount of time. I was given an extra hour, and felt like I lost one. My expectations are impossible!
One of my daughter's friends name (the son of my friend whom I met through our kids) is Justin, and I first heard about a show called Justin Time. I think it was the jingle that she first told me about.
I tied it to (in error) a series of books in the juvenile fiction category about a third grade boy, named Justin Case, by Rachel Vail, (followed by a series about his younger sister, Elizabeth).
Now, on a search for tourist activities in Ottawa, I found on the Diefenbunker website in a the Museum at Home tab that Justin Case was a Canadian mascot for the Civil Defence!
While listening to 99pi this week, I discovered a company calledInteraction Research Corporation that makes safety cards for planes that are called Just in Case. (TRIGGER warning: the producer and Roman Mars are unapologetic for interfering with the potential safety of thousands of passengers by the theft of 300 cards.)
Also, of note, was the connection with PM Mackenzie King and a man named Igor Gouzenko who defected after working as a cipher clerk and spy at the Soviet embassy. The Royal Commission created by PM King investigated espionage in Canada, and was a starting event of the Cold War.
I was at the Farmer's market today, and on the way from my parked car, I saw a used bookstore I had never seen before. Turns out it has been there for 15 years, but I usually park the other way, and never crossed its path.
Bookstores and libraries have been special places for me for a long time. I have fond memories of a mobile library in front of my elementary school, before the local library in our new development suburb had a building. I remember the local library with endless collections of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and Asterix and Tintin and how to be a spy book and sign language. I remember a larger library that had rare books of plays that we tried to act out in a puppet theatre made from refrigerator box. It was the first place I read a book that I regretted that there were no ratings for books. There were movies by then, and you could be sure of what you were getting, but if there was sexual aggression in the book, there was no warning on the back cover, and once you read it, you couldn't unread it. Even the church I went to had a small library, so that in all my growing up years, the only bookstore I remember being in was a Christian bookstore, and then the University bookstore for textbooks.
The first bookstore I remember being in was near Trinity Western University in BC. My ex-boyfriend and I found nothing more fun than browsing through the aged pages of a local bookstore in the sunshine. When I travelled to Europe, the draw for English books was so strong that people gave word of mouth instructions on how instructions on how to find the Shakespeare multi-level bookstore on Unter den Linden in Berlin.
My favourite bookstore in the West Island of Montreal was just one major street away, and better than the bookstores that were downtown. That didn't stop me from visiting it when I went by, but it gave me such grief when it closed down that I don't think I have visited the other downtown haunts in case they too have closed.
I once knew the son of a wealthy man who inherited a bookstore as his first business venture. I don't know that it was ever sold as a business, but I know the son did other things in IT instead. It always reminded me of a church pastor that deserved to have a bookstore. He loved books more than anyone I have ever met. His house was packed with books. They were stacked up like temporary walls in the living room, around furniture. His wife was a saint in her tolerance of his habits. He was not a hoarder in other ways, but with books, he had as close to a problem as anyone. He would buy them bulk. Once it was a truckload. But he read the books he received. Underlined passages in them. Was inspired by them. Quoted them in sermons. Lent them to friends. He told a story that he would read books on open quiet highways while he drove with his knees, until the day that he hit a piece of lumber on the road, and realized his folly before worse happened. I wish I could rent out a space for this man's personal library, because I know him well enough that it would be a lending library to all.
Even my favourite movie is a romantic comedy set in a New York bookstore. It was adapted from a film set in Budapest that is called Shop Around the Corner. Although it is a Jimmy Stewart black and white film that I have a soft spot for, I prefer the movie that it inspired called You've Got Mail.
Inner voice - italics
?clearer. Less censured. In some characters, more sure; in others, insecure.
It should be clearly different than outer thoughts.
Back story - research
What’s next, flow
Velocity, rhythm
HOW CAN YOU TELL WHETHER OR NOT SOMEONE WILL BE A GOOD FRIEND (5 minute, in class)
You can only tell if someone will be a good friend over time.
It is easy to know if you like someone or not often within a few minutes of meeting them. But friendship requires more complicated decisions and character traits than the common interests or sense of humour or agreeability that makes the first encounter the start of a friendship.
It is much harder to have a good friend. They need to be able to respond to some of your needs. They may need to know what you need even when you can’t tell them. Some traits that make a person easy to know initially do not guarantee that they will be a good friend over time.
Even more complicated is the fact that two people are changing over time.
Authenticity vs hook
Mina bird
*Background story
The sound of the city at night
What is the coolest thing found in nature (awe-inspiring)
I am really proud of …
The sounds of the city at night
Sometimes when I am sitting in my house in the suburbs, I am amazed at the absence of sounds. I think myself very lucky, and do not miss living in downtown.
When I go for a walk, I hear neighbours talking and laughing in their yards. The leaves in the trees rustle in the wind in the summer. They swish around the street when it is fall. Sometimes there is the sound of rain falling and striking objects as it lands. Other times, the wind swirls around in gusts, and seems to come alive as its own entity.
With the windows open in the summer, the occasional car sound passes by. For a wonderful year, there was not even a plane that could be overhead. But now, the planes seem to fly low and frequently just as the sun sets, putting my teeth on edge. I hardly notice the crickets looking for love, or the shuffling of a skunk or raccoon through the yard until it passes. Then the tranquility returns, and the symphony returns to my ears, restoring my calm. The fall usually brings the sounds of geese leaving for the south, travelling under the safety of the night sky, and honking their good-byes.
Each morning, the newspaper delivery car drives by at 5:30 with a defective muffler, and wakes me up with the violent shaking of my windows. If I am lucky, the birds chirp me back to sleep until my alarm goes off later.
Last year, when they dug up my street to place drains and rebuild the roads, I actually learned to fall back asleep to the sounds of heavy machinery instead!
Recently, I went to downtown for supper, and I was surprised at how calm the sounds were after dark. I usually visit the city during the day, when it is jarringly loud at times. I think of my streets as quiet in comparison. But in the right streets, downtown has a quietness too. Less animal noises, but the hum of a quiet version of itself.
I hear a low grumbling, and I sleepily recognize that the night is coming to an end. I am instantly awake, as I race to the door. It’s garbage day, and I have to get the garbage to the street before the truck arrives at my house!
FEEDBACK:
Recognized as a compare and contrast essay
Less seems - directly is
Sometimes is weak - rarely, from time to time
Silence to noise
Take out downtown
Move through the night temporally - natural order of time
