Trillium Book Awards Author Reading 2015

THE WALLFLOWER CONFESSIONS

Submitted by bstone on July 8, 2008 - 6:45am
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5. Neurotic Writer Waits for Attention (or Look at me, I Wrote a Book)

Every Saturday I am not reviewed by an Esteemed Books Editor (“EBE”) in A Large National Paper’s First Fiction section. Every Saturday, I start the weekend by being almost pushed down the stairs by 3 ravenous, raccoon-sized cats, who shove me into the kitchen before I can make the turn to go to the front door. As I pour the kibble, I think, please EBE, please. He does not hear my silent praying. It never occurs to me to actually take this up with God, who has often hung me out to dry as an intervener in the past. Now I pray directly to the guy who can make things happen. Please EBE.

This is the time that you try to prepare yourself for mentally. Publishing a book does not change your life, you tell yourself. You do not become a celebrity, says the sensible part of your brain. People will not stare at you in restaurants. No movie rights are sold. Life continues as it did before. You write alone, at odd hours, thinking what am I writing and why. You buy groceries late at night at the 24-hour places because you have simultaneously run out of both cat kibble and muesli and know that, while you can live without your own breakfast, you will not be permitted to live if there is no cat breakfast.

At least while I am holding the kibble bag, I am the center of attention. However, EBE continues to avert his eyes.

The views expressed in the Writer-in-Residence blogs are those held by the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Open Book: Toronto.

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Tue July 22, 2008

THE WALLFLOWER CONFESSIONS

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Submitted by bstone on July 22, 2008 - 9:23pm

THE WALLFLOWER CONFESSIONS

13. Readings are Hard on Wallflowers, Part I

The reason that I am writing about bathroom renos here is that in the midst of preparing for my first reading some guys came over and tore out my bathroom. I was nervous about the reading. I was also covered in a fine layer of plaster dust.

A guy was sawing ceramic titles on my front porch. He stopped, looking at the pounds of snow falling straight down out of the sky. Then he lit a smoke. He had an eyebrow piercing. I imagined him dancing somewhere large and cavernous at 4 am.

He had been working on my bathroom for three days. Where it used to be was a hole, sans toilet, sink or bathtub. I was washing, ETC., at friends’ houses, which was sub-optimal, as the business types say.

Beverley Stone

Beverley Stone grew up in outport Newfoundland before moving to Toronto to attend Osgoode Hall Law School. Her first novel, No Beautiful Shore, is published by Cormorant Books (2008).

Go to Beverley Stone’s Author Page