clutter

I don't have a cluttered desk at Cowork, because I have to clear it off every evening when I leave--nothing on the desk, nothing on the shelf above the desk (except for the official notice that it is reserved for me on Mondays and Fridays), and nothing in the three drawers that I used to have full to over-flowing when I rented this desk "permanently." I have a small suitcase that I use to bring to Cowork anything that I need to use at the hot desk.

At home I have a small desk in my bedroom. It's handy for me to use when I make a phone call or need to make a quick note to myself. Too small to allow it to get cluttered. It's a roll-top desk, borrowed from my son Steve, and it has a shelf-like top above the roller. I have pictures made by my son Ken, and a box of his with his brother's pumice stone inside. I keep the pumice stone because there's some dried blood on it, from Frank's forehead when he rubbed a wart he should have left alone. I also have some pictures of St. Francis of Assisi, a couple of crosses, a small statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and some printed out prayers. I guess it's a shrine of sorts, devoted to the memory of my eldest son Frank (1957-2005) and my second son Ken (1959-2012), both victims of the demon Cancer. I don't consider this shelf to be cluttered.

 My bedroom itself is cluttered with boxes and bags of things that have yet to be sorted since we moved to Penticton in April 2016. I'm working on it. I've made more progress than you might imagine, given that I still haven't finished in three years. Everything that didn't have an obvious place to reside, got put in my bedroom. Now, most of it is getting tossed in the garbage anyway. I just have to look at it first, and decide.

It's my head that's cluttered. I come to Cowork to write. Sometimes, I print out documents sent to me by the church where I serve on the Church Council, or documents from various doctors that I have to read to my husband and are illegible on my little iPhone. But mostly, I want to write here. I've been working very hard on my autobiography, If Anyone Should Ask, now on Decade 7 of my life. Finish this decade and Decade 8 and I'm done. It's rough. Not much editing. But it's not for publication. If you aren't a member of my family, there's no chance you'll get to see it. I mentioned it at the writing critique group I belong to, and the "leader" said she "had concerns about it." No she doesn't. It's absolutely none of her "concern" at all. She was "concerned" about my using anecdotes. She writes non-fiction books about submarines, so I guess she doesn't have any anecdotes. It was her husband's profession, and her knowledge is second-hand at best. So, autobiography aside, what else do I write here?

Today, I've taken refuge in this blog. I'm writing about writing, or not writing. Being at this desk only twice a week, I feel a bit nervous when I'm not making good use of the time. Blogging is good, but creative writing is better. At home, I've been reading about short stories, and reading short stories from all different sources--classics like Guy de Maupassant and Hemingway, for example, and contest winners from 2019 Short Story Contest at the CBC. I think I could write short stories long-hand in notebooks at home, between Cowork session. Maybe submit something for the 2020 contest.  Sounds like a good plan. So far, no progress.

So what should I be doing at my hot desk at Cowork? Besides my autobiography and blog? It's the novels that are cluttering my mind: First there's the trilogy that was sabotaged when my thumb-drive went crazy and turned the whole thing into a mess of upside-down question marks, and I lost my first book, House of Secrets. And about half of the second book, Baby's Breath. And notes for the third book of the trilogy, Flowers and Flames. I'm sure I have most of the above printed out, but I haven't the courage to look.

Then there's the book I started when I was taking Creative Writing courses at UBC.  I guess I started it long before that, but it was in one of these courses that I got pushed to go outside of my comfort zone--try a fantasy. Really? I always say I don't like fantasy, but that's not true. I loved Lord of the Rings, The Narnia Chronicles and Harry Potter. Fantasies, all of them. So, I drew a deep breath and re-started my story which doesn't have a title yet. It's a historical ghost story. Historical because the main part of the story is circa 1950, in London, England. Then the protagonists (two girls) meet a couple of ghosts and, in the Bloody Tower of the Tower of London, they meet the ghosts of the two princes allegedly murdered by their favourite uncle. But the boys don't believe it was their uncle, and command the girls to travel back in time to their murder and find out whodunit. (They were smothered in their sleep, so they didn't see it coming.) I'm having a ball researching and scribbling. I can't find the scenes I've actually written, but that book might get done before the trilogy! Maybe!

Almost October

My own birthday kept me busy in September, but on top of that I had to prepare for a Franciscan Retreat.
My husband, Frank, and I are both third order Franciscans, and as such we are obliged to follow our Rule of Life. Chapter (i.e,. the governing body of the Order) have been working on a fresh way of looking at our Rule. So, Frank and I decided that we should put on a Franciscan Retreat with the focus on reviewing and refreshing our Rule. I called it "Living a Rule of Life" and invited our congregation of St. Saviour's Anglican Church and the Fellowship that we used to belong to in Vancouver, as well as our Brothers and Sisters in neighbouring fellowships in the state of Washington. I guess, not counting the local congregation, I invited by name about thirty people. Guess what? No one showed up. :(
Nevertheless, Frank and I feel that we had a successful retreat.
First of all, we began on Wednesday, October 3rd at 5pm with a beautiful eucharist in Ellis Chapel, adjacent to the church. Father Nick Pang, our new priest, set it up. Candlelight. A little Lady Chapel in the corner. Full vestments. All in white. We sang and prayed. It was lovely. The congregation had been invited, but no one was there except the priest and my husband and me. We were so grateful to Nick for this. His selections of readings and the service itself was 99% from our own Franciscan Devotional Companion. The little bit that was not, came from For All the Saints, a companion book to usual prayer book used in Anglican churches in Canada, known as the BAS.
Thursday morning, Frank and I were admitted into the church for our Quiet Day, to which I'd invited everyone plus the thirty Franciscans. No one came. We weren't surprised. Several had responded saying that if we do the same thing next year, they'll try to come. So of course, I hope we can do that. But, on our own, and because Frank can't see to read and make notes, the two of us worked on revising our Rules. His and mine are based on the same template, of course, but in the past we had not known exactly what the other's Rule required. This time, we have our individuality but I typed his up in large print so he can use his magnifier to amplify it enough to be able to read it for himself. Even though he participated in discussing each aspect of the 9 parts of the Rule, he needs to discuss it with his own spiritual director before we approach our regional chaplain to have it sanctified.
Friday morning, Nick came again for the Eucharist that we'd asked for to conclude our Retreat. This time, we were joined by another couple, so it was not just us. We ended with Centering Prayer in the church with others who usually attend on Friday mornings.
We were not disappointed with the no-shows, in fact we really would have been surprised if anyone had come. After all, Wednesday and Thursday and Friday, the days just before Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, were not the best time for the Retreat. However, we didn't choose the date of St. Francis' Transitus and St. Francis Day. October 3rd is Transitus, and October 4th is St. Francis Day.

See my play: The Wolf and the Saint, the Life of St. Francis of Assisi as told by the Wolf of Gubbio

I've posted all the scenes now, so the whole play is now online for anyone to use.  The conditions are: Please let me know when you've produced it, tell me where & if possible provide pictures.  If you charge admission, please donate at least 10% of the gate to a Christian church, or a charity such as World Vision, PWRDF, SPCA, or something similar.
See the blog: The Wolf and St. Francis .

June is more than half over

Time to catch up once again.
It's a busy month, as always.  I do have the garden growing--some of it.  My lettuce is doing fine, and the next row is radishes, and they seem to be okay.  The other rows of carrots, beets, spinach all got eaten by birds, I think.  Maybe they'll be scattered all over the garden bed, if they come up at all.

Writing has been better than usual.  I'm about half-way through the first draft of my murder mystery, and I've rewritten one of my short stories.  It's ready to go.  Just have to buy a postcard to put in with the manuscript when I go to the post office to mail it off.  Yesterday, I took a day trip down to Bellingham, Washington, for the express purpose of buying postage stamps for the "SASE" that needs to be enclosed with manuscripts.  I had to laugh at the look on the faces of the customs officers at both the US border going and the Canadian border on my return when I told them why I had to go to the USA.  "Buy stamps?!!!"

It was a nice way to spend the day, though. I went by Greyhound, slept most of the journey there and back, and just walked around Fairhaven, a very pleasant district in Bellingham.  Next time, though, I think I'll take the bus to the centre of town to go to the library there.  I'd planned to go to the Fairhaven library, but the hours are 2pm to 6pm, and my bus home was at 6:15.  As it turned out, I just walked around for 4 hours, bought my stamps, had lunch, and then took an earlier bus home.  I arrived home about the time I would have been leaving.

So now my short story, "Waves", is ready to be popped into the mailbox, as soon as I have a postcard to address and stamp and enclose with the ms.

Now I'm working on my play, The Wolf and the Saint, the Life of St. Francis of Assisi as told by The Wolf of Gubbio.  I'm publishing it in my blog dedicated to that play.  I hope people will print it out and perform it, with the conditions that they let me know how it went (Preferably with pictures), and donate 10% of any proceeds to a Christian church or charity such as World Vision or PWRDF, or the SPCA.

Community Garden Day 1

Today I spent about an hour in my garden plot next door.  I've been looking out the window at it for few weeks now, wondering what I should do with it, and when I should start.  I see that some people have tidied theirs of winter debris, so that's what I did.  I weeded and raked, and now it looks quite tidy. 
I've bought the seeds.  I know there will be some topsoil coming one of these days.  So, the question is: should I plant something now or wait a while.  I see that some people have already got lettuce growing.  I could do that. We'll see what tomorrow brings. 
St. Francis was once complimented on a garden that grew around the place where he was staying.  He said that it was the result of prayer.  The visitor was surprised and asked if God had just placed the garden there as an answer to the saint's prayers.  Francis replied, "Yes." Then he explained,  "I pray with my hoe." 
So, I'll be praying with my hoe, along with my saint.
I'll try to remember to take pictures and post them here.

Franciscan Chapter

Just a little envious of my husband right now.  He's attending a meeting of the TSSF chapter, at Little Portion Friary, in New York.

October update

It's a busy life that I lead--or so it seems to me.  First and foremost, I need to update the news about my novel, Angels in the Flames:  I did send it to Dundurn, and notified Coteau that I had done so.  I guess my gmail isn't as quick as it should be, because I should have received the notification that the manuscript was in the mail, rejected.  However, Nik Burton kindly emailed me back and said that the decision had been made before they had been told about the simultaneous submission.  So, as it stands, the novel is only with Dundurn although they've been told it's a sim-sub.  I'm planning to send it to another publisher as soon as I can.
Meanwhile, I've been in touch with the artistic director at Christ Church Cathedral, and she has agreed to look at my play, The Wolf and the Saint: The Life of Saint Francis of Assisi as Told by the Wolf of Gubbio.  All I have to do is put it together in an email and send it off to her.  Odd how such a "simple" task can grow into a big job.

Fridays in Lent

Today is the Friday before Palm Sunday, a Day of Penitence for Franciscans around the world.  Counting Good Friday, there are seven Fridays in Lent, today is the sixth--six being an imperfect number because it is one short of seven, the perfect number. 
Today, in preparation for next Friday, I sought out (via Google) the booklet I bought in Jerusalem last year.  I have the booklet "someplace safe", which means I'll come across it in a very logical place but when I'm not looking for it.  That happens to me all the time.  But I knew it was online, and here it is: the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem.  This is the way I prayed the Stations of the Cross with Franciscans in Jerusalem one Friday afternoon.

just had to add it

Hope you enjoy the teacher video as much as I do.  I watch it over and over!  Makes you proud to be a teacher, doesn't it?  If you aren't a teacher, you probably have a skill or something worth passing on to others, so teach a class or write a textbook or a novel that brings to life a valuable truth.  St. Francis of Assisi said, "Preach the Gospel.  Use words if necessary."  There are many ways to be a teacher.  Be a good one.  Make a difference!

the play

Yesterday, at long last, I mailed off a query letter with sample pages of The Wolf and the Saint, The Life of St. Francis of Assisi as Told by The Wolf of Gubbio.  I sent it to Baker's Plays in New York.

spiritual direction

Rule # 9 of my Franciscan Rule of Life deals with obedience.  So, obedient to my rule, I visited Sister Monica for spiritual direction.  It's always refreshing to have this hour with her.  I love being a Franciscan!

writing the play

I did it.  I finally figured out how to make the distinctive headers for each scene while having the pagination continue throughout the document.  I just have to fool the computer into thinking that when I tell it to start the pagination at the number it would have started at if continuing, then it goes well.  As for the needs of other play publishers, who want each act to start at page one, I do the same thing.  The big trick is to watch the tabs in the menu that want to "link to previous section".  No thanks.  Don't do that.  Now, all I need is ink in the printer so I can send the play out to those who want hard copies.  I can send the email copies any time now, I guess.  One more task to complete: take care of the "widows & orphans" in the dialogues so that the actors know where their lines continue on the next page, and where they don't.  All this fiddling!

little portion friary

This is where my husband is spending these few days: http://www.littleportionfriary.net/ .  I envy him the labyrinth!  I'm so glad he's able to have this beautiful experience, since we had to cancel our trip to Assisi earlier this year.  I hope this sort of makes up for it. If you follow the link, be sure to watch the youtube video about the blessing of the animals on St. Francis Day.

the last day

Today was the last day of the Vacation Bible School at St. James. I'm so happy that it was a success. I started the ball rolling by writing the play, "The Wolf and the Saint: the Life of St. Francis of Assisi as told by the Wolf of Gubbio". One of the parishioners came forward a couple of months ago, and volunteered to do the crafts and games sections of the VBS. The crafts would be puppets for the show, and the games would work out kids' energy. The parish priest led prayer and praise sessions at the beginning and end of each day, and told a Gospel story every day. Another volunteer coordinated light healthy breakfasts and lunches for the kids when their parents & care-givers dropped them off and picked them up. My husband played the part of St. Francis in the play, and I was the wolf except on the last day. On that day, a boy who suffers from autism and didn't want to participate in much over the week, suddenly volunteered to play the part of the wolf in the performance for the parents. We did only Acts I & IV for them, but the wolf was onstage almost all the way through. It was wonderful to see this little boy take the part and do it so very well. I couldn't have done it better myself--honestly! We did only the two acts because with Acts II and III, it would have been double the length. However, much to my surprise an delight, the kids had enthusiastically requested that we do it all for their parents. Their response was very rewarding for me.

writing the play

Since "Script Frenzy" time last April, I've been working on a play--I may have mentioned this before--probably. Anyway, I keep thinking it's finished. Silly me! It's too long. I just need to cut a page or two here or there, and that's not easy. With a novel, I can just kill off a character. With an article, I can delete a paragraph (usually). But with this play, there's so much I want to tell. I could easily add another Act, but I already have four Acts. I can't kill off any characters because I N E E D them! So, I keep going over the scenes and looking for words that can be chopped out without killing the tone of the play. I've already done as much "death to all adjectives" as I can, but I'm still finding the little ones that snuck in while I wasn't looking. Last Saturday, at the Franciscan Convocation, I had some wonderful help from my TSSF brothers and sisters. They performed the first and fourth acts, and I was able to see that there were still many places that needed tweeking. It was an enormous help! What was especially wonderful was that they seemed to like the play! (Very important that TSSF should like the play, as it is "The Wolf and The Saint: The Life of St. Francis of Assisi as Told by the Wolf of Gubbio". And if anyone knows the life of that saint and his relationship with that wolf, it's TSSF members.) So, I'm still tweeking. Gotta have it done this week because we're having a rehearsal at the church on Thursday morning, and our Vacation Bible School starts on Monday, August 23rd. The play is a major part of the VBS programme. Nose back to grindstone! Butt in chair, and fingers on computer keys! Quite a picture, eh! hehehehe!

publishers' information

I'm so glad that I'm a member of SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators). There's so much information that comes my way that I would otherwise miss. For example: today there was a post on the listserv for SCBWI/Western Canada that provided a link to Lorimer's guidelines. Now, I have a link for that on this site, but I don't check it every day--not even every week. You may know that I currently have a manuscript at Lorimer's and have been trying to learn the status of that ms, but with no results. So, in today's post I learned that Lorimer does not let writers know if their ms is not being considered. (Not even a "reply" to an e-mail ms status enquiry.) And, although I thought my historical novel would fit with a series they have, I see that they are not seeking historical fiction at the moment. So, now I can send my novel off to the next publisher on my list. And, I can try my hand at writing something that Lorimer (or another Cdn publisher) would like. Meanwhile, I'm polishing my puppet play, "The Wolf and the Saint", to take it to the Franciscan convocation and then produce it at St. James' Vacation Bible School next month.

Vacation Bible School preparation

Preparations are moving along nicely, I think. The crafts and games are being planned. Promotion is, I guess, coming along--although I'm not involved in it, so I can only hope that the ones working on it are working on it. As for my play, "The Wolf and the Saint", it's moving along at a Franciscan pace. That means, slowly but surely. It will be ready for the Vacation Bible School, August 23rd to 27th, God willing and if the creek don't rise, as they say.

summer

Summer arrived yesterday, I guess. Weather notwithstanding. When the sun is out, it's okay. In the shade, we're back to spring. Or winter.
Today I should have been at kindergarten, but I didn't want to pass along the cold I'm battling. I'll go to the farm tomorrow, though. It's outdoors, and the kids aren't likely to be in close contact with anything I touch. Today was the last day for kindergarten, though. Next week, they'll have only half a day in class on the Tuesday, but I have the okay from the teacher to drop in for a moment to say good-bye to the kids. Tomorrow is the last day for the farm, too. Sunday School is done for the year. As for tutoring, I have only one student now--prepaid for the next several classes.
I'd say things were slowing down, except for the fact that August is almost filled up chock-a-block. July, so far, is not quite so full. I don't doubt that it will fill up in no time.
Of course, I still have to finish writing that play!

Vacation Bible School

Last year, we used a commercially developed programme with the theme of St. Paul in Ancient Rome. This year, most of the people who volunteered last time will not be available. This means that, while we had hoped to repeat the programme this year, we would have to replace almost everyone and all the roles would have to be learned all over again. Also, last year we used almost the entire building at St. James church, and one of the key locations is currently under renovation. So. I've prepared a programme myself, based on--you guessed it--St. Francis of Assisi. Using the play I was writing for Script Frenzy, I'm adapting it for use with children doing a puppet show. It still has lots of work needed, but I know what I want it to look like when it's finished, and I think the research is all done. (Research has a way of demanding attention at the most inconvenient times, so I'm not discounting it just yet.) Some folks have come forward to help with the VBS, so I have high hopes. Well, maybe just hopes. A lot will depend on how many children show up and what their ages and interests are. It's all a work in progress until it's over. That will be at the end of the one week programme: Monday, August 23rd to Friday, August 27th, mornings.

computer woes continued

It has been about two and a half weeks that I've been unable to connect with the internet on my laptop. Something is haywire with the router or something, I guess. What this problem means, though, is that although I can write my blog using my husband's desktop, and read emails, etc., I cannot get to my photos to post them with my messages about my trip to the Holy Land. I was doing it bit by bit, and had not got very far before the internet mess happened. So, I've been avoiding the blog in order to avoid grumbling about the glitch. So here I am, grumbling again.
Besides that, what else is new? I'm tutoring three days a week (Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday afternoons), volunteering in the kindergarten on Tuesday mornings, at the UBC farm on alternate Wednesday mornings, leading morning prayer at St. James on Thursdays (except this morning) and serving at Thursday morning Mass (except this morning). I've been looking for a new spiritual director, and that's part of the reason I'm not at church this morning--related appointment. Due to all these activities, I haven't done much revision of the play about St. Francis since last weekend. Last weekend, we were at Rivendell Retreat Centre on Bowen Island, and I used some of that quiet time to research more information on St. Francis and St. Clare for use in the play. Because we were on retreat, though, we missed our TSSF fellowship meeting for this month. St. Francis can sure keep us busy!