Car riding horse ! yes that's what it says

All is buggered. There is some mysterious problem in my computer that is causing intermittent panic: for some unknown reason, last week, things started to fuck up. I couldn't get on sites, when normally my computer functions at light speed. When I finally did get on them, things didn't work, particularly posting photos (which is what I live for!). Text would sort of post, sometimes. This wasn't just on the blog but on Facebook. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Other things have quirked and eluded me. Some posts have refused to save, or refused to show up at all. (This just happened here, by the way. Everything looked perfect, I had all the photos in place, then it froze and refused to save or post, so this is about the tenth time I've had to find some other way to do this.) I have tried EVERYTHING, and my son the computer genius spent two long sessions with it and tried every purgative, every exorcistic thing that existed in his repertoire (and he does this for a living and has never been stumped before). My husband screwed around with the router, though I don't even know what that IS, and for a brief, blissful while all the problems went away, before they all came back. I would put up with it and try to find workarounds, except - sometimes it just stops. Google Chrome won't even go ON this page and gives me a gigantic brown square, just the background, which is totally absurd. I'd rather have a white page! This is not good, as there is a subtle feeling of erosion, as if the (relatively-new) computer, recently switched to Windows 10, is about to pack it in for good.

The Windows 10, by the way, was a fix, not a cause. This happened spontaneously. Installing Firefox (which now works marginally better than Chrome, but only to get me ON the blog) didn't help. Is it the new photo program that came with Windows 10? Actually, it has been working well, and I like everything but the editing program which I can do in Windows Live. Or at least I've done it successfully up to now, though "up to now" doesn't mean much any more. Is my computer confused? Why? Why does it suddenly work "almost" normally, then go wildly catawampus again (and that IS the technical term)?

The blog is the only way I can express myself as a writer now, sad as that may seem. The only rule is that I do whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want. It's a combination of enjoyable sharing of quirky things, and (sometimes) ranty self-expression. It has no central theme, but similar subjects come up regularly, because these are the things I care about.

So far I can post text without any problem, but who knows what is next. I may have to write with a sharp stick and a little pile of dog poo. This video you see (at the bottom, if it's still there) - I've seen it before, it's fun - would not MOVE so I could write some text under it. It's like sorcerer has gotten his wonky fingers in here and flicked the workings of it this way and that. The WORST is when it all works beautifully again, because the next time I try to use it, one subtle thing will be buggered up - or un-subtle thing - then another, then another, until I am back to the dreaded shit-brown square.

This reminds me of those demonic medical symptoms you get, and believe me I've had them, where when you finally get in to see a doctor, the symptoms are completely gone. Then you go home, a month goes by when you feel a lot better and you're sure you're all right, and then you begin to feel just a little scribbly niggle of pain in the deepest pit of your abdomen. And within a month you're screwed, and on ANOTHER waiting list. Then, just as you walk into the doctor's office, the symptoms all go away.

I've been through that in the past few years, and I am not convinced I am in the clear yet. But this is a mere computer, is it not? Since the worst symptom right now (?) seems to be very erratic posting of photos, MAYBE there's something wrong with - but no, it couldn't be, because the problems started well in advance of installing Windows 10.

I realize this is boring, but I am anxious beyond what I can say. No one seems to understand why it's so significant to me. I failed pretty abysmally at everything else - I can't sell books worth two hoots, though I do think I write good ones. (It's not that, so please don't say something like, "Ohhhh, don't worry, Margaret, your writing REALLY isn't so bad!") Most of what I wrote never saw the light of day. Honest writers, all two of them, admit they have unpublished manuscripts lurking around in their files. I published something like three out of seven. I remember a time when publishing even ONE was a golden dream, something I thought I'd never attain. But I didn't know what it would be like, the loneliness and isolation, the disappointment, and the need to keep it to myself because failure just embarrasses everyone. I've gotten to the point that I just can't do it any more.


This has become a screed. My problems probably won't happen in this post, for the computer sticks its tongue out at me regularly, dangles a hope of wholeness and function. (Oops. After dangling hope by posting one or two images, it now has shut down again. Last time this happened, all my changes were lost and I was back to square one.) Nobody realizes why this bothers me so much, and I am totally convinced other people don't even have it. Or if they do, they laugh it off, it has nothing to do with their identity. IDENTITY? Isn't that just a given? Why do you need to work so hard to maintain it, to support it? What the hell is the matter with you, anyway?

Anyway, I don't know why this is even going up here at all except that I have HAD IT, had it with all the crap that is going on. I know a blog isn't a personal journal, but I also know it's not whatever I have been doing all day for four solid years, with literally thousands of posts. Only one gained a vast readership (I See Dead People: Victorian Post-Mortem Photography) from being on Pinterest: last time I checked, it was at 106,192 views, and the time before that, a few months ago, about 100,000. Considering my average is around 25, that's not too shabby.

I will make an attempt to post some images here. The sorcerer who has been screwing with my head may well allow them this time, who knows. Or not. Like life's problems - no, like MY problems, I am sure everyone else is consistent - it's intermittent and maddening.

Which is why this funny horse video is posted at the bottom.

(P. S. At the moment, I can't even save this, let alone post it. I had to go back and restore all my changes from memory. WHY is this happening? More to the point, how the hell do I get OUT of here??)

Nattering Nabobs

Life is hard enough. Isn't it? But when something you really liked, even loved, suddenly turns bad. . .

This happens with marriages, and jobs, and friendships, and even (incontinent, age-ing, vet-requiring, slobbering, stinky old) dogs.

But when it's something inconsequential, yet still significant, it really gets you. It's a small pleasure withdrawn, perhaps forever.

I've bought the same coffee for at least ten years. A nice, middle-of-the-road roast and grind, nothing fancy, but at its best, oh boy is it good, and dependable. It has that richness and complexity of flavor that any decent coffee should have. It's the same with the decaff. You zip open the can and hear that little rush of air, and the aroma jumps out at you. You shovel the grinds into the basket, pour in the water, and wait.

Just a small thing, of course. Until it turns bad.

It's been several cans now. Hell, maybe six! My coffee has turned bad. Turned watery and bland, with a bitter, even sour undertaste and a nasty whiff of tar.

It's the same brand. Same brand I've used for years, for so many years now it's like a goddamn marriage. Of course I won't name it here, but it starts with an N, and ends with a B, and has an ABO in the middle.

What has happened to my Nabob coffee? I'm buying exactly the same kind, same roast, same grind. Brewing it exactly the same way. Storing it in a cool, dry, dark place.

It's just crap, all of a sudden, and I can't fix it.

The only difference I can see is all the very loud and public ballyhoo about "sustainability", printed on the can and all over the web site. I'm not sure what this means because it goes on for about 500 pages, and we're supposed to read it and go, "Oh, I guess it's worth drinking a sour, lifeless cup of coffee, so long as we have SUSTAINABILITY."

I had to complain. Not because I hate the product, but because I love it! Because I want it back with every fibre of my being. But, of course, there was nowhere to complain, just literally hundreds of FAQs like, "Can I make coffee cake out of my coffee?" and "Can I store turkey giblets in the can?" I had to scrabble around web sites all morning to find a "legal stuff" page with a mailing address that turned out to be wrong, in that the postal code said MJB (ironically, the name of a kind of coffee!) instead of M3B. Had I sent them my (snailmailed) complaint with the wrong postal code on it, it never would've reached them.

The page also assured us we could always "just send them an e-mail". Oh, sure: mjb@badjava.ca?

Hmmmmmmmmm.

So what is going on here? Where is quality control? I think we're just supposed to go on drinking it, and pretending there's no difference, or that it's us, somehow, that we're doing it wrong, or that our tastebuds have collapsed with age.

I've sent customer complaint letters before, and I usually get a form letter back (if anything), and coupons for more of the same product I hate. More, more, more bad coffee! It's almost like the hundreds of writing rejections I've received, though they don't send you coupons. (And no, I don't paper walls with them. I throw them away.)

If they had a taste panel, well? If they had any quality control at all, WELL?? I wonder now, since I wrote to the "legal stuff" address, if they will sue me just for wanting a good cup of coffee.

Or for wanting it back. For wanting that dependable jolt, that aromatic reverse sigh, that roasty-toasty, almost wheaten taste, not just in the morning when I really need it, but any time in the day when I want a lift.

Get with it, guys. Sustainability should apply to taste, too.

(And there's nothing living inside my coffee maker. I do clean it, stinky vinegar fumes and all.)

The summer's gone. . .

. . . and all the flow'rs are dyin'. . .

But it isn't really fall yet. It won't be for several weeks. But we're still on that same infernal system that probably goes back to feudal days, when kids were kept home in the summer to work the fields. Now they just die of boredom and work the malls.

A certain melancholy descends on me now, as I contemplate what the bleep I am going to do to publish this novel. Then I realize I have three manuscripts that need to be published, and don't know what to do with any of them!

The first one is a book of poems inspired by the diary of Anne Frank. I had several highly critical author/editor types read it, and all praised it lavishly. It bounced back to me several times, and I couldn't go on with it, it had too much of my heart in it.

Then there's Bus People. Oh, oh, oh, BUS PEOPLE! I wrote this novel in 2005, in a kind of storm of inspiration. It's set on Vancouver's notorious Downtown

Eastside.

Just as I have never heard of anyone else writing a novel about Harold Lloyd, I have never heard of anyone else setting a novel on the Downtown

Eastside.

I haven't looked at it in so long that it intimidates me. So which one do I lead with? First, I must get an agent. I'm not sure how I did that the first time, and the truth is it just didn't work out (I thought the first person who was interested in my work would be the best person to represent me to publishers.

Wrong!).

It's as if there is some impenetrable brother/sisterhood in the literary world that I just cannot penetrate. I don't know the secret handshake, or I have the wrong blood type or something. My second novel Mallory was all about social alienation and feeling like a member of another species, but I was not aware then of how excruciatingly true this is of me.

Cold shoulders and closed doors.

When it looks as if a door is about to pop open (those reviews I posted yesterday), it blows shut again, and locks tight.

So. . . I hereby post pictures of two little dolls I made for my granddaughters. They are only about 3" high, and I made them with a Wonder Knitter, a little gizmo that is essentially like the spool knitters of my childhood.

I had no instructions and no pattern, and I knitted them all in one piece, switching the two heads back and forth. The dresses were vastly scaled-down from regular doll dresses, which were scaled-down from baby dresses. I am doing everything in miniature.

This keeps me from going insane with worry and pain.

This hurts, it hurts. I know I am good. It took me this long to find out. I have three manuscripts, all of which have the potential to be published and to reach people. And at this point, it looks as if none of them will be. But I can't give up on it. I can't spend the rest of my life knitting. Something's got to give.

The Beatles - Rock & Roll Music

These blogs have a life of their own. This was going to be a serious treatise on "the writer's life" (or should I say, The! Writer's! Life!), but somehow it didn't happen. It's evolving into some sort of nostalgia column, which is a bit alarming on my part.

But oh, these guys.

I stumbled on A Hard Day's Night the other evening, and was quickly sucked in. It had that heady, exuberant feeling the Beatles exuded during the early years, before they lapsed into their jaded I'm a Loser/Baby's in Black/You've Got to Hide your Love Away period. This clip is one of the best compilations I've seen, complete with fluffy head-shaking (which drove the girls mad) and a kind of mad joy. They'd made it past the skiffle clubs of Merseyside and had gone on to (as John put it) "the toppermost of the poppermost!"

Pay attention to 1:18 in this clip: Paul absolutely cracks up at something John has played on the keyboard. These guys were brothers, and sometimes experienced the rancor and Cain-and-Abel rage of blood kin. Yet, separately, neither could write or perform in that same focused, fruitful way. The shock is that they almost never composed together: they wrote songs "at" each other, put them out there and said, "What do you think?", or even "Try and stop me." This jealousy and tension pulled genius out of them that never would have manifested any other way.

OK then, I've come as far as Mad Men and the Beatles. Do you know what I'm avoiding? I do. I am avoiding the welter of pain and residual anguish of being published for the first couple of times. It was a heady experience, to be sure, but at a certain point I fell through the ice. How on earth am I to comment on "the writer's life" without mentioning this? But if I make too much of it, I will be worse box office poison than I already am. Writers must never let on that their experiences have been anything but totally positive. Only ingrates complain.

The truth is, I have a manuscript that I believe is my very finest work, and I have no idea what to do with it, who to contact. I can't do this alone! I am turned away everywhere, before the thing has even been considered. Sorry, we're full up.

I feel as if I am recreating the cold shoulder I have experienced all my life, from every direction and in every area. Is there a way out? I have to pretend I don't need this, pretend it doesn't hurt and I am fine and I don't mind only writing about the past and writing about the Beatles.

This thing is going to die on the vine. In the words of the Beatles: "Help! I need somebody." After becoming a published author, after having my dream come true twice, it's an awful position to be in.

What do you want, anyway?

I have a friend - OK, he's a psychiatrist and probably doesn't know anything - who keeps asking me questions about the writing biz.

"Margaret," he intones (he looks a bit like Pee Wee Herman, in a neat grey suit and with equally strange diction), "if you've been published before, twice, and had almost universally good reviews, why don't you just take your most recent novel and hand it to your publisher and say, here, publish it?"

Why? Because after a couple of years, publishers in general don't know me from Adam.

I don't know exactly how, but I realized today that it happens to the best of us. I know a writer who wrote a novel years ago that was not only good, but great. It bordered on classic, and everyone predicted a brilliant career for her. She was shortlisted for international awards, much feted and touted as a sure thing.

It didn't happen.

Why didn't it happen? Because the writing biz is the most frustrating game in town. There are no rules except "know the right people", and "don't ever say you need to know the right people because it's a LIE, dammit!" (and you shouldn't say such an uncomplimentary thing, even if it is true).

Success is flukey. Some novels do well, but I've been a reviewer for 25 years and have reviewed some 350 books, and I can tell you right now that many of them are weak, too similar to be really noteworthy. They fit the mold, for sure, but they don't turn me on.

Every once in a while, a flukey book makes it (though not necessarily the author). Steven Hall's The Raw Shark Texts blew me away, because it was impossible to describe, involving three-dimensional sharks made of text suspended

in mid-air in dusty old

libraries.

Then there's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Chalk this up to impossible: it's a semi-documentary bio about the life of dictator Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, complete with tiny fly-speck footnotes (footnotes?? Who can get away with footnotes except the hopelessly backward Victorian physician Oliver Sacks, who still uses a manual

typewriter?)

Aligned with this, entwined with this, is a passionate love story about hot-blooded Latina women and the saga of Oscar Wao, a nerdy overweight teenager who carries a Planet of the Apes lunch box.

The rest of them, well. . . that's why I stopped reviewing. They seemed to be what the industry was after - or not? Will we ever hear from Junot Diaz again, or will his next book be rushed into print and fall as flat as

Forrest Gump II?

I realize I risk ostracism just by daring to say anything negative about publishing. It jabs me whenever someone says, "Well, Margaret - when's your next book coming out?"

Like a lot of writers, I believe I have lots of good material that needs to be published. I have just completed a novel about the life and hot-blooded loves of silent screen legend Harold Lloyd (the "man on the clock" hanging 20 stories above the Model Ts swarming below). This novel has legs, and I know it. It has the potential to go all the way.

But it won't, because dozens of people will brush it off before I go into a depression, a depression I shouldn't have because it looks untidy and

obviously demonstrates that I can't stand the heat.

People say to me, "It must be possible to succeed. Look at Stephen King. Look at J. K. Rowling." No one knows that most writers reside at the bottom of a vast pyramid with only one or two writers (see above) at the top.

"Why don't you just ask other writers for tips on getting published? You know, have them read your stuff and make helpful comments."

It's like a politician saying to the opposition, "Hey, listen, I have all sorts of tips on how to get elected. Here!". The idea of writers reading each other's manuscripts hangs around, ludicrous as it is: even if it made sense, which it doesn't, we don't have TIME to do that, because we are busy writing

our own.

The only thing worse is when, after a reading or other literary event, someone comes slinking up to you with a damp manuscript quivering in their hand. "Would you. . . you know. . . "

"Would I - "

"Would you mind, you know?"

They don't even have to say what they want.

I have to tell them, "Sorry, I have so many commitments right now that I just can't do it, but best of luck."

"But how will I get it published?"

Here comes the hidden agenda. They don't want you to read their manuscript - they want you to GET IT PUBLISHED FOR THEM, to hand it to your publisher and say something like, "This is the best thing I've ever read, a sure-fire best seller. Publish it instead of my book, I don't need the publicity any more."

Geez.

Why can't this business be run like a business? Why must I still print out and snail-mail a 10-lb. manuscript to publishers, spending $15 or so, instead of e-mailing it and having them print it out (as if they don't have the money or time: hey, it's their business to scout out talent, isn't it?).

If anybody's reading this, which I doubt, be aware that I'm not taking pot-shots randomly or for fun. I have some real grievances, frustrations that nearly finished me. I also have some very good material which is entirely worthy of publishing. It weighs heavily on me, like a foetus that will soon

die and turn to stone.

There's still time for a live birth. But only just.



http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Letting off steam

Heigh-ho! It took me 24 hours, but I just saw an example of. . . irony. Here in my very own blog.

The theme of it is supposed to be boldness, genius and power and all that etc., when the truth is, I'm about as chickenhearted as they come.

Telling everyone not to make mistakes!

And rather bitterly.

But with a certain sincerity, at least in the moment.

I don't plan on quitting, just proceeding with a hard-hat on.

I DESERVE SUCCESS. I deserve it. Ha, la!

Keep on chanting it, and, Oprah-like, it will magically appear before my eyes.

Well, maybe. I have ironing to do.

Life's candy, and the sun's a ball of buddah

Eye on the target and wham,

One shot, one gun-shot, and BAM -

Hm. Well, it isn't Mr. Arnstein I'm after, but something infinitely more elusive and devious (and it plays a mean game of poker).

I want to get published again. I need to get published again. I have three books written, all finished and ready to go. Three. All are publishable, as far as I am concerned. But has anyone ever seen them?

That would be a big "no".

People have weird ideas about being published. "Must cost quite a lot, I'd imagine. Are you going to take out a loan?" "Is your book going to be on the bestseller list?" "Don't writers all help each other get published - I mean, kind of like one big artist's colony?" Yeah, like I'm going to tell all my sneaky colleagues how to get published so their nasty little novel can kick MY novel's ass!

It isn't at all what you think.

When my dream came true, after thirty years of pining and longing and bloody hard work, it came true the same way it does for maybe 85 or 90% of writers. There was one big popping flare of fireworks, then fast-fading embers raining down, then . . .

nothing.

It didn't matter how good the reviews were (stuff like "fiction at its finest "- no kidding). They meant nothing. I was supposed to run all over the country on my own dime and try to drum up interest. But I also learned that readings and posters and web sites and all that shit made no difference at all.

So what does make a difference? Something called "buzz". If a novel is "buzzy", it automatically has tons of readers right out of the starting gate.

Buzz is like sex. No one tells you what it's all about, or how to get it. You just sort of fumble around, and fail most of the time. And when the novel fails to sell, guess who gets the blame? Mr. Agent? Ms. Publisher? Don't make me laugh!

I can't stop writing, which I guess means something, good or bad. I have kept writing and kept writing through the most hideous, soul-destroying crises of my life. I now have two novels and a book of poems, all of which I feel deserve publication. I WANT SOMEONE TO READ THEM, GODDAMN IT!

In many people's minds, this is sheer ego. "Oh, isn't writing its own reward? Can't you just do it for self-expression?" (Or, worse, "leave it for your children").

No one expects a concert pianist (or a gymnast, for that matter) to play in an empty hall, but we writers are seen as crass and egotistical if we want someone to look at what we've slaved over for years. Stories must be TOLD, not chucked into a drawer. An untold story isn't even a story.

So, Mr. Arnstein, you big galoot, you mustachio'd rat fink, I'm pursuing you once again. Like Barbra Streisand in that ridiculous sailor suit , it's one roll for the whole shebang.

Hey, all you agents, pundits, arbiters of literary taste - get ready for me, love, 'cause I'm a comer - so even if this fantasy-trip is a bummer -

NOBODY

No, NOBODY
Is gonna

rain

on

myyyyy

paaaaaa

(rrrrrrrr)

rrrAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYD-UH!