Last day in MTL

Last night in Montreal. Sad, because these few days have been amazing. Sure, I have stumbled over several things that have enhanced my Montreal experience, but from the feel of the city and the people here it would have been amazing anyway. So much going on all the time.

I began my day by walking over to Labyrinthe, to see if they had the Dillinger Escape Plan tee they had listed on their site. They did not. Bummer.

My plan for the day was to go up onto Mount Royal to get a nice view of the city and do something touristy. I walked towards the mountain/hill, determined to take a bus to the top. My first stop was a Converse/Dr Martens store, just sitting there, waiting for me.

About a third of one wall of Converse. There were

two walls, and though the second one wasn't

as big, it still held a hell of a lot of shoes.

I walked away with a pair of Batman Converse. Wohoo!

As I came closer to Mount Royal I walked into a nice part of the Plateau with narrow streets lined with trees, small shops and cafés.

Made for strolling down.

I decided to keep walking. Then I came to Parc Jeanne-Mance, which is at the base of Mount Royal. Thousands of people were about, playing soccer, frisbee or tennis, or just hanging out. Soon I heard the familiar sound of a djembe.

Playing capoeira. Very cool to watch.

Onward, up to the Parc Jeanne-Marie, where I found the Tam-Tams, something Meta had told me about. It was like an urban voodoo mass. So hypnotic to hear all those drums flowing back and forth between different rhythms and soundscapes.

Urban ritual in progress.

In the end I decided to walk up the mountain. Up and up I went until I was at the main observation spot. Tiring but a very nice walk.

Walking through the Plateau I saw some posters for comedy shows. Among them, The Ethnic Show, hosted by Maz Jobrani. I like Maz, so I figured what the hell, I'll see if they have tickets. Turned out they had three left for an otherwise completely sold out show. So I bought a ticket, and I went, and I laughed, and I met three nice Italian people who poured drinks into me because I got them good seats.

So now I'm on my hotel bed, a little drunk, writing this. Tomorrow, off to DC to hang out with my old high school classmate Rob. So far this trip has been mind-blowing. Here's hoping it continues that way.

Malls and madmen

Friday was Shopping and Circus Day.

I walked downtown to where all the malls are. They're all connected through the Underground City and offer pretty much any kind of shopping. I finally found a memory card for my phone (curse you Sony Ericsson, or rather, curse you Martin Larsson for using an old phone!) and went wild at a t-shirt/merch store called Labyrinthe. Best tshirt assortment I've seen in a long, long time. I walked away with one Watchmen, one A Perfect Circle, one White Zombie and one Tea Party (the band, not the political movement). Now I shall have to restrain myself from buying tees in New York. Yeah...right.

Having shopped and walked around downtown for a while, I took a breather at the hotel before Circus picked me up. Circus is Moonfish's beau, Moonfish being one of my classmates from Odyssey.

We went by their place, a glorious apartment with hardwood floors, a brick bathroom and a small courtyard with a spiral staircase covered in ivy, and then on to a really good vegetarian Asian restaurant. The best part was the banana fritters. Banana fritters are standard desserts at Chinese restaurant in Sweden, but they tend to be rather soggy sad little things. These were fried to perfection. Nom nom nom.

Then on to the circus.

The big top

We saw the circus troupe Rasposo do their show La Chant Du Dindon. It was very funny and felt like just as much theatre as circus. It was like staring into some demented family's living room.

Note how close the audience is to the action.

It was all acrobatics and aerials, without any fancy machines or effects. They utilised the scene brilliantly, modifying it to suit their needs. It was all done in a single flow and seemed improvised. Very nicely done.

Then snacks and hanging out with some circus people. Then back to the hotel for sleep.

Pics galore 3

So weird to wake up somewhere else than the dorm room today. Below, pics from the last week or so of Odyssey.

The farewell barbecue for author in residence

Gary Braunbeck. Too many people to name.

Gary Braunbeck, Darth Harp and the Commodore.

Djinni, Meta and Sister, at the Indian restuarant.

Best place we went to. Just thinking about it now makes

my stomach go "Go back there, you fool!"

Meta, Sister, Harp, Narcomancer and Alaska, enjoying Indian food.

When OdFellows fight with foam swords, which was a

recurring theme, blood is not spilled. But candy is.

Arts and crafts night preparing gifts for Evil

Overlord and the Commodore goes horribly wrong.

"We're bored."

"Let's braid his beard!"

Not a new concept, but the look was new.

The last nightly walk. Saying goodbye to The Giant Head.

All of a sudden we were in third grade as stalks of grass

simulated insects. As if the real insects weren't enough.

Party Planner and Alaska enjoying a popsicle after the walk.

From the late night get-together on the last night:

Peeko filming away. Alaska trying to avoid being in pics.

Peeko assaulted by lots and lots of beard.

Meta looking for tabs. There was much guitar playing.

The Head had to be touched. Rough and soft at the same time.

Desk Fairy, as I came to be called, and Party Planner.

Alright. I'll say it. Attention whore.

Barbecue man strumming away. Djinni, Party

Planner and the Commodore in the background.

Saran wrap

There are people around me with blue saran wrap around their feet. I shit you not.

We had a barbecue today. Burgers, hot dogs, pineapple (yes, on the grill). And strawberries and raspberries (not on the grill). Then we had tons of cupcakes. The latter to say thanks to Gary Braunbeck and celebrate that Werefox Ninja got a two novel deal today. We all cheered for her. And hate her.

One week left. A week of talking about the business end of things. We will have editor John Joseph Adams as a guest, which will be cool. The lecturers so far have all spoken a bit about the business, but now we'll get to listen to someone firmly from that side.

Peeko and I went to the Mexican place for lunch. Luxury lunch! Then on to Newbury Comics where I bought some more blind assortment Kid Robot figures. I got Zoidberg! Woop woop woop!

We also stopped at the Army store I mentioned in an earlier post. They had some cool stuff, like clothes from 5.11 Tactical and some other stuff. I have two shirts from 5.11, and want more. They only had longsleeves, though, so I bought nothing.

I turned to walk out, and saw one of these on a podium:

Who buys a battering ram?!?!?!

I just realised I broke my timeline now. I did a flashback. A no-no. Damn it. Hopefully Evil Overlord isn't reading this...

Right now, brainstorming session. And some bourbon. I am floating an idea about a girl that talks to a well. The madmen and -women here have given me a lot of good ideas. It looks like it'll be an old-school fairytale. Cool.

Brainstorm

Thursday night. No. It's Friday now. Last day of the second to last week of Odyssey. Such a weird feeling. I've been here five weeks and they have gone by so fast. At the same time it feels like I've been away for months.

Today Gary Braunbeck guided us through alternative methods for building story and plot. He usually starts with an image.

A woman walks into a restaurant. She takes off her coat and lays it on the chair across from her, smoothing it down so it is draped in the contour of a man. Her wedding ring sits on her right index finger. As she sits down with the menu her hands are shaking.

Who is she? What is she doing there?

We came up with five or six scenarios, including spies, secret codes, fairies, shapeshifters, aliens, etc. Gary then mashed all these together and came up with a story that had elements of many genres but didn't truly belong in any one.

Forget genre! Focus on story! Our new mantra.

At this point the Djinni pointed out that maybe we were feeding Gary the plot to his next novel. From the look on his face this might actually be true.

Our crits were done quickly today. Then I got a severe case of cabin fever, and had to get out. The Commodore was kind enough to arrange a trip to Barnes & Noble, so off we went, Meta, Barbecue Man, Dundee and I. I bought two books and copies of a few magazines that publish short fiction, including Asimov's, where I will send my alien sf story.

After the bookstore I shaved my head. Now in mohawk mode, aided by the able hands of Djinni and Sarah Palin. Well...I just noticed it's off center, so maybe not so capable...

Then I attended the daily brainstorming sessions held in one of the apartments in the other house. Very interesting, to sit and throw out plot ideas and then have then torn apart and/or enhanced by all participants.

I floated my latest novel idea, about members of the Varangian Guard becoming involved in a plot to throw the Eastern Roman Empire and its capital Constantinople into chaos. This is just a loose idea at the moment, but I want to set it sometime between 900 and 1200 AD, and stay away from anything having to do with the Crusades. I want to focus on internal conflict in the Roman Empire and the arrival of dark powers in the city of Constantinople.

My fellow Odysseyians gave me some good input. I will intend more brainstorming sessions the coming week.

If I were to seriously focus on writing this novel, I would have to spend months and months doing research, which sounds kind of fun, so I might just start doing that when I come home. So many things to research.

What do you think? Would a viking story set in Constantinople, focused on politics, war and sorcery, be interesting?

Not in a gay way

Sunday night. Tired. Warm. But in a good mood.

I was killed in the write-athon on Friday night. K I L L E D. I wrote 1100 words, which ain't bad. Palin poured out 1900 words. So now I owe her a cookie. I have been pondering a "double or nothing" kind of thing.

Earlier in the week, Peeko the Elf (previously known as Charley Horse) went on a scouting mission and found us another comic bookstore and an Indian restaurant. So yesterday we went, Peeko, Meta, Palin, Barbecue and I.

Newbury Comics turned out not to be much of a comic book store, with only one corner of actual comic books. They did however have a large selection of action figures, tees and other merch from various pop culture franchises, as well as well-stocked shelves off both CDs and DVDs. I could have spent all my money.

I bought a bunch of blind assortment Kid Robot figures from The Simpsons, Futurama and Family Guy. They turned out to be Bender, Groundskeeper Willie, Patty, Bender again, and this guy:

Best. Action figure. Ever.

Death, from Family Guy. A whopping 3 inches tall.

I also bought various knick-knacks for friends, the new This Will Destroy You album (mind-blowing), The Acacia Stain's "Wormwood", a Decepticon sticker and some more geeky stuff. We're going back there this coming week. I want to buy more Kid Robot figures. I want Zoidberg!

The Indian place turned out to be really good, so we're definitely going back there. There's also an Army surplus store around there that I want to check out.

So. Maybe a word or two about writing, since that's why I'm here.

My post-apocalyptic fantasy story turned out to be an apocalyptic story. As in it takes place during the apocalypse. The world ends. It wasn't planned. It just happened, and carried me with it. Go where the story goes.

Over the past four weeks we've learned a lot of techniques around writing. During my learning period I will focus on a few of these techniques for each story. For the fantasy story I have focused on consistent point of view (especially challenging since I am using a different point of view character than the protagonist), a solid three act structure, submitting a story that's below 6000 words in length and without a synopsis, and writing a swordfight. I think (hope) I will accomplish all four.

I have also started on something else, which I may or may not finish. I have several options for my last story. If all else fails and I run out of time I can always submit the werewolf story to the class as well.

Doing the crits today, I realised just how much this class is improving people's writing. I hope others see the same kind of evolution in my writing. Today I've read one story about a female merc in the aftermath of a bloody battle, one about a plush Cthulhu doll (Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!) and one dark fantasy Western. All three really good, all three enough to make me doubt my own writing skills as well as find immense inspiration. One of the weirdest combos of emotions, and one that keeps coming back when faced with the texts of others.

Today horror author Gary Braunbeck arrived. He will be our writer in residence for the whole coming week. He will hold lectures every day, do critiques all week long and hold private meetings with a few students, including me. I sent him my werewolf Viking story, "The Long Night", last week. I expect him to tear it apart and I expect I will learn a lot from that.

We held the reception for him tonight. He was funny, open and had good insights. I am really looking forward to this week.

We've been on a few nightly walks. I declined a midnight walk twenty minutes ago, because I wanted to write and then sleep. Palin's answer? Sleep is for babies and dead people. My reply? And for large Swedish bearded men.

After the reception we went to a pizza place. As we were finishing up, a big bearded guy walks up to our table and says to me:

"Not in a gay way, but I was watching you from across the room, and you emote really well." O . . . K . . ?

He went on to explain that he was an actor who just got a part in an independent movie, and he thought my facial expressions were particularly interesting for his character. While he was telling me this, he managed to get the phrase "Not in a gay way" in two or three more times.

Finally he asked for my number ("Not in a gay way") so we maybe could talk about it. I told him the sad truth that I would only be here two more weeks, and later back to Sweden. He looked sad, and we left.

So now I've been hit on by a guy. Wohoo! Ego boost! Because no way was that simply about my facial expressions. Hilarious. And props to the guy for actually having the courage to come up and talk.

Somewhere in all this the nickname Fjordface was applied to me by Meta. I can't even remember how or when.

Finally, a quote from Mr Braunbeck:

If I see one more zombie novel I'm going to put my head in a propeller.

Peeko turned kind of pale at this, since the short story Braunbeck is critiquing in private with him has a reanimated corpse in it. The results of that crit shall be very interesting.

Why is it late?

This was supposed to have been posted last night, but Blogger was giving me attitude, so here goes.

0110. I have no idea why I am up this late. The crits took a lot longer than ever, and I feel like I have nothing to say. I've tried to get to grips with a swordfight in my fantasy story, and it doesn't feel right no matter how much I twist and turn it.

So I give up for now. It's nice and cool outside, and with two windows wide open I have enough air in here to be able to sleep now.

First, a quick recap of our day. Still talking about style in the lectures, continuing about weakness in style and then on to techniques to strengthen style. We learned that "it was" and "there was" are evil, and should be exterminated, and we talked about why you should put the important stuff in the beginning and end and not the middle of a sentence (it's because us lazy readers only really pay attention at those points). And lots of other stuff.

I finally managed to get a pic of a chipmunk

I slept for an hour after class. I don't get the people that stay up until 0300, writing. How come they're not absolute zombies? Sarah Palin sat up all night today. Not a moment of sleep. She was in class, all smiles. They must have some really groovy drugs over in the other house.

Oh yeah. The house. This is Falvey House, where I'm staying. Two apartments upstairs, housing the five male students in the class, two downstairs housing three of the girls/women and the Commodore.

College housing in all its glory

We took another late night walk. Saw some more fireflies, dancing in the tops of trees. So cool. And we took a stroll to the cemetary, where the monks are laid to rest (we think). Eerie place in the dark.

As we walked back, Charley remarked: I can't believe we haven't made a late night food run.

And it's true. We have been far too efficient when it comes to keeping snacks in the house. This has to change. We need more of a college feeling. Studying like crazy and going out at midnight to buy donuts and coffee. And here's the pathetic part. We will plan it. Yeah. We're adults now.

We have lots of laughs in our apartment, something which isn't always good when it comes to productivity. The following quotes are connected, but were uttered days apart.

Charlie: I love it when it becomes too much for Meta and he puts on his headphones to shut me out. It gives me such a sense of pride.

Meta: And eventually, if you don't stop, I will keep my headphones on while I choke you.

Not that it's that bad. Yet. But it is funny though.

In bed. And fireflies.

In class today we talked about grammar. Punctuation, that vs which, the evils of adverbs, dialogue tags, etc.

Can you believe it, Mom? Me? Talking about adverbs? And not cringing? Well . . . I cringed a little (and right there, before I, is the correct way to use ellipsis. See? I learned something today).

After class and the obligatory visit to the mail room (three packages. All for me! Yay! From Amazon! Yay!) we went to the reading room to do our crits. The reading room is my friend. The reading room is cool. Cold, even. I had to put on a hoodie in there today.

Later today I went to the Taqueria in Manchester with Meta, Charley and Sarah Palin. Much laughter and an awesome burrito. Me likey! Then off to Target to buy food, ink cartridges, etc. I bought a pair of shorts, since I only brought two pairs, and a Where The Wild Things Are-tee. Sweet.

And then write. I am writing a postapocalyptic fantasy story. Sort of. My goal is to have it be around 4000, maybe 5000 words. Our limit is 6000 and I would like to turn in a story to the class that doesn't require a synopsis for the parts I can't turn in. We'll see how it goes. I managed 2000 words today. Which is good.

I have two stories left to turn in. My intention is to use this new one and a revised version of Something Wicked, my submission story. One is due next Friday and the second one the last week, hopefully Wednesday. We'll see. So I have a long time to finish two stories but little time once one is submitted.

I ended the evening with a short walk with Sarah Palin, to get some air. We saw fireflies! I've never seen fireflies before. I really understand why people thought they were fairies.

The other night we went for Chinese food. Barbecue Man had identified a good place, and it was really good. Unfortunately they didn't offer Dim Sum (I wanted dumplings!) the time we were there. And unfortunately I can't remember between which hours they do serve dumplings, so I'll probably miss it the next time we go too. D'oh.

Anywho. The first time we went for Chinese I learned that one must add a little something to the fortune in the cookie. I forgot to tell you people, of course. You add "in bed" at the end. Hence my fortune, this time, was "You have a quiet and unobtrusive nature. In bed."

So now off to be unobtrusive in bed. I will leave you with some quotes:

From Meta:

Conjunctions for the win!

From Sarah Palin, after the car ride to the Taqueria and Target:

All sorts of weird stuff are going to show up in my story because you guys traumatized me.

And from Mr Stephen King:

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.

All work and some play

On the couch, in the stifling heat in the apartment. Fans on, full blast. It's not as bad as it was when we first got here, but it's worse than it's been for the last couple of days. Tomorrow we're supposed to have rain, which is good. Hopefully the weekend will be nice and cool so we can sit in the apartment and write and not have to worry about finding some place with AC.

I sat down with Teacher yesterday, and went through my two pre-class submissions. It was very interesting and illuminating. She gives extensive written notes on the manuscript and over 1000 words on a separate document, for each text. Invaluable.

The element we identified that I will focus my work on this coming week is plot. I have a lot of holes and inconsistencies in my plots. I knew they were there, but I didn't know they were that big. She gave me some pointers on how to fix them for the specific stories we discussed. I might rework one of them to submit sometime over the coming weeks. More on my stories in another post.

Today Teacher continued lecturing on Character and went on to Point of View.

I am happy with most characters I create, and from the notes I've gotten so far it seems others do to. What I have to remember when writing a character is that all human beings are inconsistent, but that inconsistency must be kept in check, or the character will make no sense. In most cases I manage to make my characters complex, and so far I have managed to avoid writing a schizo character. I think.

Teacher supplied us with this quote from Flaubert: ”When we're at our worst, we're at our most interesting.” Basically, put pressure on your character. Take things away from him, put obstacles in front of him on the way to his goal, and interesting things will happen.

We talked a lot about dialogue too, as a way to reveal aspects of character. Personally I think I have problems writing believable dialogue. It always feels contrived and fake, so I was happy to get a lot of tools and tips on writing good dialogue.

For Point of View, we need to ask ourselves this question: Whose story is this? Who is telling it? Through whose eyes should we see it? POV is hard, and very hard to put into words. I might need to buy some books on it, since I have POV shifts in some of my stories, which is not good.

Every day after lunch we sit down and do critiques of two texts, three on Thursdays and three over the weekend. Some of the others have a hard time understanding how Meta (who used to be called Guitar) and Charley Horse (who also got a new name today, but one we seem to have forgotten now) can be in bed before midnight, all our work done. Our theory is that we sit down the second we get back to the apartment, and that we all have experience with critiquing. But who knows?

Sci-fi author Barry Longyear is our lecturer for tomorrow. We had an hour of Q&A with him today. He is totally insane, in the very best sense of the word. He's holding a lecture tomorrow which I expect will be really good and entertaining. I also have a one on one sitdown with him where I will listen to him tearing apart one of my stories. Oh joy.

But it's not all work. We have fun too. We went out and had Polynesian food a few hours ago. The place was cool, with drinks like something out a cheesy movie set in Hawaii, a karaoke setup and good food. We plan on going back, with more of our fellow students.

My fortune cookie said: You will be fortunate in everything.

Everything! Hooray!

And finally, an exchange that took place earlier.

Charley: So. Facebook, huh?

Me: I'm actually talking to people that have critiqued my horror story.

Meta: Doesn't count!

Charley: That's true.

So. I was Not Writing. At Odyssey you're either Writing or Not Writing. Writing good. Not Writing bad. Bad, bad beard. I will try to Write some before I go to bed. Night night.

Laughter! Descriptions! Bananas!

Evidence of fatigue setting in:

Three guys in their thirties laughing their asses off to a Monty Python-ish song, just composed by one of said guys. I can't even begin to explain it.

Today we listened to Elaine Isaak lecturing about description. How to reveal aspects of a character depending on which words he uses to describe something. If he describes a person as thin, skinny, or gaunt. Big difference.

The thing I'm going to take with me is to make lists, before writing the text. What do the readers need to understand my story? I am writing one thing set in Istanbul. I need details on the geography, look and feel and smell, history, details on the bazaar, info on silversmiths, info on amphetamines and Modafinil, etc. I may not need to write specifically about these things, but I will need them as background to make my world come alive.

Overall, a good day. Now, kicking back for a while, to celebrate having survived Thursday night. Later, going shopping for bananas and water (we go through about 1.5 liters per person per day), and then a barbecue in the yard by the dorms.

Tomorrow we're sleeping in (ssssshhh, don't tell Teacher), then off to find some café with air conditioning, to write in, since the campus pretty much closes down on the weekends. If we're good boys and do at least six hours active writing + the critiques we need to do, we get to go to an actual restaurant with actual menus and actual waiters. This is not a rule here, it's something we came up with on our own.