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I just finished reading A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews, winner of the 2004 Governor General's Award for fiction. It takes the form of a 16-year-old girl's memoir in a small Mennonite town in southern Manitoba. While reliving memories of her older sister's and mother's disappearances, she stumbles toward her own inevitable collision with the ( Read more... )

At 1 a.m. I finished reading Anne Lamott's Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. ghostsandrobots and daisydumont, my first intention-completely forgotten in mid stream of consciousness-for engaging in discussion the other day, was to tell you about this book. It owes a lot to Natalie Goldberg, but is more honest, moving and inspirational (if that's possible ( Read more... )

My book review of Becoming Animal was published in the March/April edition of Off The Shelf.

The daily junk removal habit has gone well so far, except yesterday morning. I left for work in a hurry, didn't even see the little picture by the doorknob, and simply forgot. It's not really a big deal, just a reminder why my place gets so cluttered in the first place: distraction. This is a good habit for me to work on, because most days it comes ( Read more... )

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Last night was my turn to take some work for critique to writers' circle, so I transcribed the first two entries from the winter journal, with a few editorial changes, and printed them. Longhand writing is so much more vital. Why have I tried to do all creative writing on the laptop for the past three years? Because it's convenient (not a good ( Read more... )

Last night while reading Becoming Animal in bed I had a strange, unfamiliar experience. The chapter made sense, but at a certain moment I recalled an earlier paragraph that seemed completely unrelated to the subject. I reviewed the previous page, couldn't find the bizarre passage, concluded it must have come earlier, and decided to read on.

A few ( Read more... )

Last night I went to bed at 10:50 and read the introduction to Becoming Animal with enough alertness to make notes in the margins, look up unusual words (interbeing, recondite) and remember what I had read. By then it was 11:30. I didn't feel sleepy yet, but it was time to call it a night. I went to sleep easily and soundly until the radio came on ( Read more... )

I succeeded in going to bed by 10:30. I expected to have a hard time getting to sleep, especially since I had forgotten to take mirtazapine until I was getting ready for bed. Usually I take it an hour or two earlier to help make me sleepy. Of course I frequently ignore the sleepiness and stay up to do whatever I feel like doing; precisely the ( Read more... )