Samantha Garner, Freelance Web Writer & Editor

A few posts ago, I mentioned how I used to always confuse Mavis Gallant with Doris Lessing. I learned my lesson once and for all after I accidentally bought a copy of the first volume of Lessing’s autobiography. I’d picked it up from a discount book store in St. Jacob’s, Ontario, when visiting my parents. At first I was very excited about it, because I was confused, thinking Mavis Gallant. I didn’t realize my mixup until I returned home and started reading.

I decided to continue once I realized my mistake. I was disheartened at the beginning because it started out so confusingly, Lessing listing her grandparents and talking about them in a way that was hard to follow. I almost gave up, especially since the book was volume one of two and not at all short. But, happily, it got loads better. There wasn’t really a structure to the autobiography. I mean, yes, she does tell her story chronologically, but she digresses into stories and memories that might not have to do with the “plot,” at least not obviously. And she does this in such a compelling way; her stories are so interesting and her tone is so engaging. She was born in Iran and grew up in Zimbabwe, the daughter of British parents who were farming in “the colonies,” and was also a Communist. Though she seemed to like living there (even if her childhood wasn’t perfect), she has a pretty realistic view of this time in history; she leans towards the side of “this was a kind of ridiculous time and I tried to change it in my own way.” Also, I love when people branch off into side stories, especially elderly people who often have a lot of great stories.

Anyway, I read the book eagerly and am now reading the second volume, starting after she leaves Zimbabwe for England with her young son. She writes about her writing process and I thought it’d be useful to share. She writes:

Impossible to describe a writer’s life, for the real part of it cannot be written down. How did my day go in those early days in London, in Church Street? I woke at five, when the child did. He came into my bed, and I told or read him stories or rhymes. We got dressed, he ate, and then I took him to the school up the street . . . I shopped a little, and then my real day began. The feverish need to get this or that done . . . had to be subdued to the flat, dull state one needs to write in . . .

And now, on the little table that has been cleared of breakfast things, replaced by scattered sheets of paper, is the typewriter, waiting for me. Work begins. I do not sit down but wander around the room. I think on my feet . . . I find myself in the chair by the machine. I write a sentence . . . will it stand? But never mind, look at it later, just get on with it, get the flow started. And so it goes on. I walk and I prowl, my hands busy with this and that . . . I walk, I write. If the telephone rings I try to answer it without breaking the concentration. And so it goes on, all day, until it is time to fetch the child from school or until he arrives at the door . . .

So that’s the outline of a day. But nowhere in it is there the truth of the process of writing. I fall back on that useful word ‘wool-gathering.’ And this goes on when you are shopping, cooking, anything. You are reading but find the book has lowered itself: you are wool-gathering. The creative dark. Incommunicable.

She then goes on to recount how different publishing was back then, in the ’50s, how there used to be a close relationship between writer and publisher/editor, and books were sometimes published even though they wouldn’t make any money – just because they were good. Thoroughly depressing. This is why I like small/independent publishing. For the love! Or any other, less cheesy, phrase you’d like to substitute.

Anyway, this was long but I hope it was interesting. Personally, I can’t get enough of reading about the writing/creative process!

English is a notoriously difficult language to learn. My parents are Finnish and Filipino, respectively, and while I don’t speak either of those languages, I can read them aloud near-perfectly. This is because, compared to English, they are easy! There are no silent letters and each letter is pronounced only one way. It’s a dream.

English, on the other hand. Yikes. I think I love it so much because it’s so impossible and weird. Case in point: the video on this page my husband showed me which demonstrates how the I Before E “rule” should, by rights, take 40 seconds to recite.

This one isn’t actually a pet peeve of mine, but my huband’s. However, I think it’s an interesting one so I’m sharing it today.

Before I met my husband, I thought, like lots of others, I thought “begging the question” was the same as “raising the question” – like, “It’s Donut Friday, which begs the question – why am I not eating a donut right now?” It turned out, that’s totally incorrect.

“Begging the question” is actually a logical fallacy. Sounds complicated, but basically, begging the question is a statement that assumes its conclusion is proven correct without any evidence. Like this:

“If donuts weren’t delicious, then everyone wouldn’t eat them.”

In this sentence, the assumption is being made that its conclusion – everyone eats donuts – is true, without any proof of that. Just stating something doesn’t make it true. It’s also using that assumption as evidence that donuts are delicious. For these reasons, this sentence is begging the question.

Make sense? I hope I’ve explained that clearly. As you can tell from the examples in this post, my thought power is being eclipsed by donuts right now. My friend Teri and I have been talking about the office tradition of Donut Fridays, and I’ve decreed freelancers can also take part in it. Granted, those working from home will lack the anticipation of the endless possibility contained within the Tim Hortons box, but even still, I’m off to get a donut. Have a good day!

A few days ago, Anne Wayman wrote a blog post listing what was on her writing desk. I thought I’d respond with a post of my own, though I’m afraid my list isn’t as exciting as hers. We do have an office, but I actually do most of my work in the living room – better light. As such, my “writing desk” here will really be “coffee table.”

• My laptop support thing. I have no idea what these are actually called, but it’s pillowy underneath with a flat surface on top. It sits on my lap and my laptop sits on top of it. Good for when my laptop gets warm from the intensity of my writing (or something).
• An empty mug of tea. A friend of mine brought it back from the UK and it’s oversized and lovely.
• A copy of Why Do We Say It?, a book given to me by a fellow word-liker friend. He and I used to sit next to each other at work, and almost every day we would come across some phrase everyone takes for granted, like “flash in the pan” and wonder how it entered our lexicon. We also used to proofread junk faxes our office received, which often had hilarious grammatical errors. Oh, good times indeed! I’m reading it again to harvest the best ones for a blog post.
• The second volume of Doris Lessing’s autobiography – blog post coming about that too.
• My cell phone, battery low.
• A notebook and pen. I bought this notebook to prove to myself once and for all that I don’t like perfect-bound notebooks. I still don’t, but I will power through.
• An Xbox 360 controller for when it’s time to take a break!

Imagine a bookstore, in a heritage building, that had three storeys of books to browse through. The shelves were laid out in small angled groups. Some were even arranged in a little nook, with chairs inside that you could relax on and browse through. There was even a restaurant on the top floor – a really authentically good restaurant – where you could peoplewatch out the window, or look the other way and enjoy the sight of people enjoying books. And sometimes there would be readings or workshops in this bookstore restaurant.

This bookstore is – was – McNally Robinson, Canada’s largest independent chain of bookstores, and I loved the Calgary location until it shut down, citing high costs of real estate and labour. I was even more sad when the company declared bankruptcy. I thought, for sure, Chapters had won.

But today, I read an article on the CBC website that said McNally Robinson has emerged from bankruptcy protection. Hooray! Good news! Hope!

I’m still mourning the loss of the Calgary location, however. There’s a SportChek in there now. Sigh.

A few weeks ago, I turned on the TV randomly to find PBS was airing a special on Mavis Gallant. I watched happily, because I love her. I discovered her quite late, via a Writers & Company podcast a few years ago. To be honest, I haven’t even read too much of her work, but I love her all the same. I like that she’s kind of scrappy and refuses to answer any questions she feels breaches her privacy. I like that she hasn’t lived in Canada for decades and isn’t a particular paragon of the CanLit “scene,” yet we haven’t turned our backs on her.

I like her more now that I’ve finally stopped confusing her, for some reason, with Doris Lessing, who have little in common besides their relative age and scrappiness (I’m sensing a theme here). I had my notebook ready to write down things Gallant said during her interviews, but I was so focused on listening and wrote nothing down. These photos I took will have to do!