Blogging | The Urban Info Girl

This morning, after I learned that my place of work was not, in fact, closed for a snow day, I made my usual bus trip to the university and let myself into the library. I am (almost) always the first one to arrive in the morning, and I have to say, as someone who never ever ever thought of herself as a morning person, I am kind of loving it.

My actual workday begins at 7:45am. We open the library at 8am and there are three of us who are “openers.” Of the three of us, I am the only one who uses transit, and because of my bus situation, I tend to arrive extra early – often 20 or 30 minutes early. So yes, this does put me at work at approximately 7:15am every so often which is ungodly I know. And yet I have grown to love and cherish this extra time.

I love the quiet, the absolute silence that greets me. I love the way the library looks before the lights come on. And I especially love heading to my desk, dropping my bag and pulling out my journal to get organized for the day.

My journal is a pretty constant companion and has been for a few years now, and I love being able to spend a few uninterrupted minutes with it before the day begins. Sometimes instead of journaling, I spend time in meditation using Headspace, and once in a while I simply go and get a damn coffee to start the day because did I mention my days start stupidly early?? But however I use that time, I adore it and find it somewhat sacred, if that’s not too dramatic? It probably is. Sorry.

Anyway.

Last summer when I was participating in #1000wordsofsummer, I would bring my laptop to work with me and try to get as many words in as possible before work, and it was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done for my writing life. I did the same thing during NaNoWriMo and I have honestly never been more productive. Me, the exact opposite of a morning person, being productive at balls a.m.? Go figure. But it worked.

And so, on November 15, exactly halfway through NaNoWriMo, I hit my word count and realized that I had written over 25,000 words – well over 25,000 words – and I was on track to reach the goal of 50,000 and then some. And, considering I already had nearly 20,000 words in this project before November even started I began to think of this “project” as an actual manuscript. That could, you know, maybe, become a book. Like, a novel. It blew my mind, but I was excited and ready to hit the ground running and typing for the last half of November. But on the 16th of the month, as you all probably know by now, our younger son was hospitalized after a brain hemorrhage and life as we knew it ended.

And so I didn’t write.

I wrote daily updates on social media for family and friends and followers, but that was it. Writing projects that I had on the go I abandoned. And even later, weeks later, when things started to settle down and get back to normal, I would think about the stories I’d abandoned and would say to myself you must get back to those, and I would say, also to myself, yes, of course, I will, eventually I will get back to them. And then more time would go by and I wouldn’t. But then today, I did.

Today I unlocked the library door and made my way to my office, turned on the light and dropped my bag on my desk as usual, and when I reached for my journal, even before I could start to create my list for the day there were some words that I needed to write down. And those words became a sentence and the sentence became a paragraph and the next time I looked up my colleagues were coming in to start the day and I had to abandon my story to turn on lights and computers and ready the library for the students. But I had written four pages and scribbled notes about how I want the story to progress and a few other things of note that I want to include. It was glorious.

Nearly every day since the end of December I have written “Write something” in my journal, and it’s a task I’ve not been able to check off. Until today.

I’m back, baby.

And just like that it’s over, we tend to our wounded we count our dead…

Wait, no that’s not gritLIT Festival. That’s Yorktown, from the Hamilton soundtrack.

For those of us on the committee, by Sunday night we sort of felt like walking wounded. It’s a lot of time to spend in the gallery, the hotel, running here and there, organizing, etc. But it was, as the kids say, WORTH IT.

gritLIT happens over four jam packed days in April, and while it goes by in an absolute flash, I’ve always found it takes me a few days of post-festival processing, reflecting, and regrouping, to put my thoughts down in blog post form. In fact, in looking through my drafts, I found my gritLIT wrap-up post from 2016. Partially completed, never posted. Whoops.

This year, thanks to a renewed passion for writing and blogging, I vowed I would rejuvenate this tired old girl (the blog, not me) and inject some life into it. There are multiple reasons for this, one of which involves gritLIT, and, as I said on Twitter, what better time to resurrect something than Easter weekend. This is also, in case you don’t already know, the time to watch Jesus Christ Superstar because of Jesus, obviously, but also because who doesn’t need a little funkiness during their holiday weekend? Also, last year I watched it and LiveTweeted it, and Ted Neely, who was Jesus in the film, retweeted me AND tweeted at me, so GOALS.

But back to gritLIT. This was my second year on the organizing committee and the first time I really felt fully invested and fully a part of the festival. Probably because I knew the ropes more or less, but mostly because I felt I had more of a role this year. The first year on any committee you join is kind of observational – at least for me it is – but this year I was ready to rock. And I did.

As always, the festival opened with an evening of poetry, and this might have been my favourite event of the entire festival. But wait, you say. How can the first event be your favourite, when everything else has yet to come? Well never fear, I would be heard to say after EVERY event “I think that was my favourite” so bear with me. We heard from Robin Richardson, two poets from Hamilton Youth Poets, and then from the incomparable Vivek Shraya. They were all so electric.

Another highlight from Thursday was the chance to hear Iain Reid read from I’m Thinking of Ending Things, which was a book I loved even though it confounded me – or maybe because it confounded me. Rebecca Rosenblum read from So Much Love, (now on my to-read list) and both authors joined us in the hospitality suite after their readings to chat about books and beer and all things Hamilton. It was lovely.

Friday was an action-packed evening, and I was able to join Ann Y.K. Choi, Diane Shoemperlen, Lesley Livingston, and Leslie Shimotakahara for dinner at Rapscallion prior to their readings. And honestly, what a treat to be surrounded by these fabulous authors, so generous with their time, so patient with their answers to questions they’d likely been asked a thousand times before. One of the things I love most about gritLIT and mingling with authors is the mutual respect, admiration, and engagement among them, and that was in full effect at our dinner, and then later on during the readings and the discussions that came after.

Saturday, when I try to recollect it, is a blur. There was an incredible and important conversation with Bev Sellars led by Annette Hamm – everyone needs to read Price Paid, this is not an exaggeration. Then we came to ANOTHER of my favourite sessions, a panel with author Kerry Clare, who read from Mitzi Bytes, and Merilyn Simonds, author of Gutenberg’s Fingerprint. And oh my goodness, the cartoon hearts were shooting from my eyes from the very beginning, and they just didn’t stop. I read and loved both books and adore both authors, but I think the greatest part of their panel was their chemistry, how well-aligned they were, how much they enjoyed the other’s company, how much they enjoyed the other’s writing. Truly lovely, and truly inspirational.

I also was lucky enough to host Kerry’s blogging workshop later that day which was great, and was also the kick in the ass I needed to find my blogging mojo, so I will be forever grateful to her for that.

This brings us to Saturday night, WHICH WAS MY FAVOURITE.

I have adored Denise Donlon since she first appeared on my television and in my living room hosting The New Music, and I have always been fascinated by her incredible career, so I was over the moon to learn that she would be coming to gritLIT. Her chat with Annette Hamm did NOT disappoint, and she was as charming, funny, and wonderful as I’d always known she’d be. Denise also joined us in the hospitality room Saturday night, so now I can say I’ve had drinks with her – bucket list, check. Denise came back on Sunday for a highly emotional panel that featured Chris Pannell (Love Despite the Ache) and Teva Harrison (In Between Days), and she wowed the audience – and me – yet again. I purchased Denise’s book and she signed it for me, and as she was leaving she hugged me and thanked me for bringing her to gritLIT. And then I pretty much floated down to Mills Hardware for our final gritLIT 2017 event.

There is so much more to say – about the festival, about the incredible authors who joined us, about the wonderful committee who put it all together – but I will stop here. If you were there, thank you for being part of the festival. If you weren’t, I hope we’ll see you next year.

We have our wrap-up meeting next week, then our first planning meeting for the 2018 festival in a month or so. But first? I am just going to nurse this love hangover for as long as it takes.

Category Archives: Blogging

Write something.

The sweetest hangover