IRREGULAR & DISORDERLY

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.—Gustave Flaubert.

I spent the past weekend at the Cabot Trail Writers Festival, held in Cape Breton at Colaisde na Gàidlhlig, The Gaelic College. Throughout the weekend, Gustave Flaubert’s advice–above–was like a pedal point in my ear.

At conferences, I usually jump in and find someone interesting to talk to. But a bad cold had hit me on the 4½-hour drive to the festival. When I arrived into cocktail hour, I sequestered myself, hunched and tense with my kleenex, in a lone chair in the back. A stubborn desperation kept me there: having spent most of my writerly life in the States, I wanted to see what it felt like to be in a community of Canadian writers (especially one infused with the spirit of the great Cape Breton writer Alistair MacLeod, who so many of these people knew personally).

The readings were to start in about 20 minutes. While people hit up the bar and ate hors d’oeuvres, I pulled my coat around me, wished for invisibility, and felt terrible.

The first reader was Cape Bretoner Mona Knight, a woman about my age, who had just published her first book, Banjo Flats. She was funny, real, a little nervous, engaging, perfect; her editors and publishers sat in the crowd and beamed. I liked that her book was set in South Dakota (that is, you do not have to limit your landscape or characters to Canada to be considered a Canadian writer). And I loved her writing group, the Raisin Debtors, who were in attendance; they sponsor an annual writing contest for a high schooler (the winner, who read the next day, warmed my Caldera heart).

Seven other readings ensued, that night, and despite sitting so tightly wound in my Nyquillity, I did not lose interest for a moment. A high point for me was when novelist, poet, playwright, and former publisher of Brick, Michael Redhill, read from his new novel, Bellevue Square (now long-listed for the Giller prize).

The weekend continued like this, commanding my full attention. I noticed, in everyone, no posturing, no arrogance, not even a hint of it, even from the ones who’d published ## books and led amazing careers. I don’t know if this is Cape Breton style, or Canadian style, but I like it. The festival’s brand-new director, Rebecca Silver Slayter, (this weekend being her first hours on the job) emceed; she is smart, sensitive, and eloquent, and a writer too (her novel is In the Land of Birdfishes). I hope that in future years she will include writers of colour in the festival roster; this was a glaring miss of the weekend. (I am heartened though that Word on the Street – Toronto, a concurrent Literary Festival, is featuring indigenous writers this year; a CanLit storm around cultural appropriation rages right now–subject for a future blog).

On Saturday, still in my cold-fog, I attended readings/talks by Linden MacIntyre (novelist and journalist, former co-host of Fifth Estate, and also born in Cape Breton) and Sheree Fitch (adult fiction writer and beloved children’s book writer). Both of them were so honest and human in their storytelling–MacIntyre about the horror and shame of war, and Fitch about her new bookstore and “dreamery”–that I wiped tears away (still hoping for invisibility).

On Saturday evening, I added some medicinal whiskey to my cold-care, and enjoyed talking with a few writers at my table over dinner. Anansi Press served us cake for dessert, in honour of their 50^th anniversary, while Sarah MacLachlan (Anansi’s President) told stories of the press’s founding. Just hearing her say the names of the Canadian writers they have published through the decades, many of whom are branded into my heart, was wonderful. Finally, Douglas Gibson, “publishing icon” and president and publisher of McClelland & Stewart (as well as author of two books on Canadian literature) gave a presentation covering two centuries of Canadian writers; he couldn’t know what a well-timed gift this was to me.

But what has all this to do with my title here — IRREGULAR AND DISORDERLY?

Driving back south from the festival to home, I felt that I held the courage and industriousness of these writers in my hands. I felt inspired by their open spirits, persistence, and acknowledgment of the doubts and fears they’d experienced as they wrote.

I thought about all the new freedom I have, no longer dictated by a demanding job. In the last weeks, I’ve sometimes stayed up writing til 5am, and other times woken up to read for a few hours in the middle of the night. As if my new job as a full-time writer doesn’t require normal rest (and too little sleep may be the reason for my cold).

I thought about the days I’ve blown off my writing to go to the beach or kayak or just read all day. Those were sweet and necessary days, I have no guilt. And I’ve produced all kinds of various sentences and ideas and half-poems and blogs and web site paragraphs.

But … it’s time to get real, to focus my time and my writing on a single project (or two, a little voice says? … ah, my foibles).

I paused in writing this blog to draw up a schedule. It is likely overly detailed (like all the schedules I’ve drawn up over my lifetime!). But it will help me, as schedules always have, be moins irrégulier et désordonné and plus violent et original.

Whether or not you are a writer, what are your thoughts on regularity, orderliness, and schedules? Or festivals or conferences? What kind of advice do you give others, or yourself, on working toward life goals? I’d love to hear.

For me, and to paraphrase another Frenchman, Victor Hugo: Schedules are cold and certain friends. *

With love,

Tricia

* Originally referring to books: “Les livres sont des amis froids et sûrs.”