Maureen Bush

Writers on Facebook

I’ve wondered what other writers do when they’re looking for distraction, besides the obvious cleaning the toilet and weeding the garden. Then I joined Facebook, and discovered the answer. They chat on Facebook. Many of the comments are about writing, so we can call it professional development time. Some of it is water-cooler grousing about politics, or chatting about home repairs, because we all work alone and need someone to talk to. And some of it is just absurd. Funny people, these writers.

Maureen

Crow Boy Readings

There’s a new set of readings on my website, maureenbush.com. My husband helped again, the lovely man, recording me reading short clips from Crow Boy.

http://www.maureenbush.com/_book_crowboy/

We’re getting a little better at doing the recordings, as I learn where to stand (to avoid the squeaks in the floor) and how to pitch my voice and… all those things actors learn, I suppose. And as my husband becomes more experienced using Logic Pro, and filtering out all the bits we don’t want (airplanes, in breaths).

Watching a Lethbridge school podcast about their One School, One Book program helped me realize these readings might be fun in classrooms, especially for aural learners.

Maureen

My Movie Sock

My family bought the Jackie Chan movie Shanghai Noon so we could admire my sock.

My younger sister worked on the movie (it was filmed near Calgary), and recommended me when they needed someone to knit a sock. The original request was for a sock and a half, but they couldn’t afford my time at union rates. They then requested half a sock, but I explained socks are knit from the top; half a sock would just be a tube, and unidentifiable. I recommended two thirds of a sock, and they agreed.

I was paid $60 an hour, so this is perhaps the most expensive two thirds of a sock in history. But it made the cut, and has a second of fame in the movie.

To admire it, watch for the older lady knitting on the train.

The rest of the movie is pretty good, too.

Maureen

Three Bears

Another trip to the Rockies. We saw at least a dozen deer, at different times, a cluster of mountain sheep (accompanied by a serious bear jam and people way too close), and three black bears.

We drove up to Lake Louise for the first time in summer in years. My first glance at the lake left me thinking I could walk across it. Then I remembered it wasn’t frozen. The glacial till that makes it milky also stops the eye from seeing down into the lake – that’s my excuse for imagining it frozen, anyway.

Highway construction is grotesque – stretching for miles and miles (I guess that should be kilometres and kilometres, but that has no flow at all), through the highway twinning project in Banff National Park, to the major roadwork around Golden. This is all desperately needed to make the highways safer, but in the meantime . . . sigh.

We visited a lot of lakes. Our favorite was  . . . oh, maybe I won’t share that. It was delightfully quiet.

Maureen

Skellig

I read a wonderful story, Skellig, by David Almond (Delacourte, 1998). YA fiction, very brief, magical.

I plan to reread it, to see how he created such intensity so simply.

In his author’s note, he wrote: “I think that stories are living things – among the most important things in the world.”

I totally believe, especially after reading this story.

Maureen