VERY IMPORTANT THINGS

A lot of people, writers or not, tend to accept that writers need to be in the right mood (inspired), to write. Personally, when I was younger I just assumed this was the right way to do it. I couldn’t just sit down and write – that would just be typing. Writing had to be somehow “divinely inspired” to “count.”

I was really dismissing myself here. Of course the only way I could get good at writing was to actually sit down and write. Writing is a craft that takes time and practice to get good at, but nothing I wrote would never be worth working on if I didn’t think I, without some “divine word” speaking through me, was capable of producing work that was worth staying with, just me

Getting out of my own way, and being able to separate my emotions from my writing, requires my being highly emotional. It takes serious self awareness and a solid understanding of what I need to feel supported. Emotional intelligence is part of the work of being a writer, the way I see it.

Seth Godin would agree:

On Ep. 4 of the Beautiful Writer’s Podcast he says, “I’m trying to remember the last time I was in the mood to create. I don’t think that comes up very often for people who do it professionally… I think we make a mistake if we call ourselves a writer and then talk about we need to find the right ’emotional moment’ to do our writing. What we need to do is write and then write some more and if we’re any good at it we’ll edit later by throwing out the stuff that doesn’t sing … if this was easy, everyone would do it would do it well. The fact that it’s hard makes it worth doing.”

So: just do it, and keep doing it, and know it’s hard because it’s worth doing - and remind myself that I’m worthy of doing it - then I have a chance at improving. Practice doing things badly is such a good piece of advice.

What helps narrow my focus and keeps me in flow is having a solid, intuitive understanding of the audience I want to be writing for. They have to be chosen wisely (read: from my heart, because that’s just were the magic happens). When I start considering what “everyone” will think, I get distracted and lose momentum.

Seth says "it’s easy to stop yourself in your tracks and say I should smooth out this edge, I should explain this idea, I should do this because someone might not get the joke. You can do all those things but … we don’t need more average. We need more stuff on the edges.”

And there are a ton of people who won’t get it - when we write honestly, we run the risk of being wrong to someone. “One of the side effects of making something important is that some people aren’t going to get the joke,” Seth says. The clearer my idea of who I’m really writing to - who I know "will” get it, the less the others matter, and the more focused I am in our message.

I can’t remember where I read this, but Liz Gilbert shared a really helpful tip. Before writing anything - a book or article, anything at all, it was her responsibility as a writer to find the one person she was writing this for. Not the demographic or group of people - the one single person. I know I’m pretty focused when I’m writing emails or snail mail letters actually to one person.

Is it any good, any better, than when I’m trying to write for “everyone”? Maybe not, but it’s certainly easier to get my ideas down. The easier they get down, the quicker I can move onto throwing out the stuff that doesn’t sing.

A legit bath mat

Properly sized garbage receptacles for each room, including wastebaskets made of mesh (as if this is practical at all)

Appropriate footwear for each season A morning routine (that doesn't involve putting on makeup on the streetcar)

Oatmeal without hatching dinosaurs

Small talk know-how Placemats

A selection of condiments on your fridge door

An understanding of when enough coffee is enough

A magical ability to keep things folded in drawers

Drawers

Scented sachets for drawers

Self awareness

An ability to not get visibly excited about or even be interested in stickers 

File folders

A printer

Printer paper

A coffee maker

Coffee

Wine glasses

A selection of knives 

A short rant by Steph.

I don’t care about your beard.

Or it’s compatriots - the moustache, goatee, or soul patch, and I certainly don’t give a flying fuck about your chin strap - though you should know, it’s an abomination.

But most importantly, I don’t care about your beard.

I don’t care about your beard because I don’t know when men’s beards became a topic of interest.

Imagine what would be thought of a woman who commanded conversation by describing her eyebrow grooming regime for 15 minutes?

When women discuss their appearance, we are too often deemed superficial, insecure, self-obsessed.

When men indulge in vanity we are expected to be entertained.

To laugh and tag along on their man-scaped path to self awareness.

We are meant to talk about the length, the fullness, the patches, the curls, the growth, the products, the snippers, the clippers, the washing, the “snacks for later”, like we haven’t heard that before and like this is a subject of fascination and amusement for everyone.

I don’t care about your beard.

To be sure, men face pressures to affirm their masculinity with face fur.

So, set yourselves free (along with the party goers who have been listening to you wax on about your wax.)

You are not a lumberjack, a sea captain, or an old-timey bartender.

The dream of the 1890s is not alive in my heart.

I have a small black circle tattoo on my elbow that I got when I was 19. It’s supposed to symbolize holism. I had a basic understanding of the concept when I got it, and it really resonated at the time, but I never really came up with a solid “elevator explanation” to answer the question “what’s your tat mean?”

I always fumble through and my answer generally sucks, so I just started telling people it was a blank emotiji waiting for a face to be drawn in it. (Sometimes, this gets taken up with creative results.) 

It’s a big concept, small tat, and people don’t really want to hear my life story. But it’s important to me. Increasingly so. And I should own the story of it. So ... without further adieu it’s time for a definition check up. WTF is holism and what does this tattoo mean to me?

According to Wikipedia: Holism is the idea that systems (physical, biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic, etc.) and their properties should be viewed as wholes, not as collections of parts. 

Holism is about unity, to me. It's the idea that our human "systems" are more than sums of their parts, and they are effected by one another. (For example, a diet is more than the sum of it's nutrient parts, a relationship is more than the sum of it's interactions, a language is more than the sum of it's words, etc.) It’s a simple enough philosophy that sums up how I think about myself, and myself in the world.

In recent years when I started writing more about feminism and talking more about feminism, I discovered it there, too. The personal is political was the slogan that rallied second-wave feminists - this was about our private issues often times reflecting the political status quo. ("Women's discontent is not the neurotic lament of the maladjusted, but a response to a social structure in which women are systematically dominated, exploited, and oppressed.") 

In a holistic view of feminism, one person’s liberation benefits so much more than just one person or people. It’s about effecting a social structure. Anyway I had no real, fully formed idea about any of this when I inked it on my bod, though I do now. 

I look back on that time, when I was 19, an I’m pretty sure the only reference for the term I had was the holistic doctor I went to about chronic migraines, and I can see a hint that a lot of my beliefs have been shaped by my individual experiences with health. 

I don’t remember this holistic doctor relationship to be especially life-changing or anything, but she pointed me to the idea that my migraines, which I've had since I was a kid, were and are generally worsened by anxiety and depression. This was something I’d been struggling with but tried to hide. The cluster migraines it would manifest in over time made it hard to not notice. 

Understanding that these things (my mental health and my physical health) were linked was big for me because it forced me to shift how I was living at the time - I saw that I’d have to recognize what I needed, and I’d have to let the people around me know what I needed, too, if I wanted to do what I wanted to do (things! Work and write! Hang!) Getting this tat was my tiny reminder in a sense that my self care matters.

Recently I came across a Bitch Media podcast, Self Care as a Radical Act, in which writer Evette Dionne mentions that taking care of oneself should be a priority and this should be a no-brainer, but it's not. There's this idea that women are not "supposed" to put themselves first, but when we put ourselves last nothing works. We suffer and the people we care for suffer. 

Self-care is a radical act because it's about saying my body, my intuition, is telling me to do something and I'm going to do it. Evette says, "Standing and saying that I matter, I come first, that what I need and I want matters, is a radical act because it goes against everything we've been conditioned to believe." 

THAT. Is an empowering philosophy to me. If I want to be part of a social structure that treats all women like what they do, need, and want matters, I have to recognize what I do, need and want, matters, in my own life.

A while back I wrote about archetypes and how they can be a tool to "get to know” different parts of yourself / embody other voices in fiction writing. Two archetypes in particular I think about a lot when it comes to my creative process are the inner child and the hero. I think they can be useful in freeing up the imagination, and to mustering the confidence to share work - two things I think are key. 

For me the inner child, specifically "the magical child" archetype plays a big part in writing first drafts or coming up with ideas. Caroline Myss wrote about this specific archetype and described it as like an Anne Frank character in us, a child who writes alone in her bedroom and then comes down and interacts with her community. She's able to see the beauty in things and is interested in creation - that’s the process that she can be most free in, alone in her bedroom, taking her observations of the world and turning them into something totally new and totally her own in her journal. 

I think a lot of creative people will relate to that archetype. It's often a big driver of our desire to create at all, our inner child - our sense of being in wonder of the world and feeling small and believing things are possible and wanting to claim something in some way. 

I love the example of Anne Frank that Myss uses because I think a separate, isolated space is really what the magical child needs to thrive. A devoted space like a desk or office is a necessary thing for a lot of writers to work, I know, and it’s been said that rituals (or “creating borders” around certain activities) are key for creative people.  

I think it’s important to create separate spaces for the creative process because there, we need to step out of ourselves to believe that big things are possible, and that our work matters - we have to trick ourselves out of our adult, rational minds and go for the gold of whatever we want to realize. There’s no right way to do it;

William S. Boroughs said: "There is no such concept as “should” with regard to art.”

The magical child doesn’t even know the meaning of the word, so it’s helpful and most satisfying to let her take the wheel.

The inner child is helpful for freeing the mind up in creative space, but she doesn’t help when it comes to actually getting real, smart shit done and sharing work confidently. When it comes to getting work down, and getting it out into the world, switch gears and think like the hero archetype, I say. The hero (or “future self,” as I like to think about it to step into that archetype - my future self is a hero to my inner child, after all) helps me actually pull the potential out of my inner child and share it with the outside world. She can do it because she knows how. 

The hero has been through the “hero's journey” - she’s heeded the call to adventure, come up against a bunch of challenges, conquered them, and realized her potential. She knows how to help others do that now. Joseph Campbell, who came up with the hero’s journey, writes that the hero has arrived at a place of "mastery of two worlds and ultimately, freedom to live." She’s mastered the inner and outer world, and is completely comfortable in both. 

Having specific heroes in literature or in the outside world inspires and educates me, but it doesn’t help me to feel capable or empowered when I’m actually doing work. When my own future self is the hero I refer to in my mind when I’m writing, I keep the power. My future self can guide my inner child through the creative process.

These are just two aspects of my psyche I call on for support when I’m writing. Yeah, maybe this is totally weird ass magical thinking ... but that’s what creativity is. And furthermore, we embody archetypes without even trying to. We occupy different ones in daily life all the time - at the dentist, we “are” a patient. When we’re at work, we’re an employee. When we’re on a date, we’re a lover or potential lover. When we’re creating, we’re whatever we want. I want to be super supported in that, and finding a way to support myself is part of the work. 

By Steph

I have always admired and loved hilarious, unfuckwithable women, but over the past year I needed a relationship with them in a new way. 

Moving to a new city, doing graduate school, and starting a life from scratch is exciting but also, often, challenging and lonely. I had many days where the weight of studying and building new relationships and routines was more than I felt like carrying alone, and I needed things to lighten up. 

I began watching clips of The Tonight Show and The Graham Norton Show between readings or to wind down at the end of the day. My sometimes overly-serious and intense nature would be broken down by Jimmy and Justin two-stepping through the History of Rap or Reggie Watts rhapsodizing about sandwiches. A few minutes of giggling could cure almost any bout of sulking or withdrawal. But when I was in grad student turbo mode - a pair of glasses on top of a bulky sweater carrying a 30 pound backpack of books and Tupperware and no plans for the weekend, THANKS for asking - it was the women who came to my rescue.

By Steph

A few years ago, I made the first move for the first time and asked out a dude. Until that point, I had always been too shy and uncertain but something in my brain finally clicked (ahem, confidence). I also realized I would not face a teeming crowd of cackling hecklers if the guy said "no thanks". I would just continue living my life, with a wee ego bruise and a healing beer to get over it. 

What that experience continues to teach me is how important it is to consider where people come from when they finally get up the courage to make that move. We've all been on the battlefield awhile now, and we come to our next heart throb with different tales, victories, and wounds. When the courage is finally summoned to make feelings known, those recent and life-long love stories lie just below the skin - a string of bad dates, a high school sweetheart relationship, a crushing break up, a long unspoken crush.

For a lot of us, it is such a brave and delicate thing to finally muddle together the right words to tell some other fragile soul they are a total babe, worthy of a hot date. It's amazing we get to approach each other's hearts at all, given how reckless and confusing the first steps tend to be.

What I'm getting at is that the next time someone asks you on a date, before you blow off their awkward attempt or lame message, think about where they might be coming from: it could be their first date in three years, they could be getting over a looong breakup, or they haven't done this many times before. Let them be human, dammit! 

by Steph

Lewis Howe's The School Of Greatness wants to give readers "the formula" to "crack the code of greatness." I love Lewis' podcast - without which I might not have discovered Jonathan Fields, Laird Hamilton, and other interesting, even great, people. But when Lewis is the one sharing personal philosophies, he loses me. In this book at least.

Now, I'm no self-help newbie. This chick has been around the block when it comes to books of the genre both new and old, but as I get older I'm becoming much more discerning about the selection we've got to choose from on Chapter's bookshelves. And Lewis, as much as I'd like for you to join me on my journey to greatness I think this is where I leave you.

The reason why can be summed up by one anecdote in your book:

You start with Ch. 1, "Create a Vision." Coming in hot with the vision planning, I like it. You relay an anecdote at a dinner party where you talk to a guy named Steve, a physical therapist who wants to work for a pro sports team, but is ho-humming around it (he's obviously not at the place yet where he can admit that he just wants and needs to take the plunge and carpe diem). So you interrogate him. 

Your memory of the night: "I laugh every time I think back to this dinner conversation, because I feel so bad for Steve. When he ordered his meal, he had no idea it came with a side of interrogation, especially from someone who seemed to be getting frustrated with him. And believe me, I was frustrated."

Shit got personal!

First off Lewis, A) it's rude that you interrogated this poor party-goer during dinner when he was just trying to eat and have a nice time. And B), When you got frustrated with him you should have known it was time to take a step back in your mind and be like, OK I'm getting frustrated over someone I don't even know and I should CHILL. And C) your advice for Steve sucked.

OK well it didn't suck, but I thought you were off the mark. You bring up Danielle LaPorte's Desire Map, here - which states, (and this is essentially what you wanted to convince Steve of, as you say) "you need desire to be fully alive and you need vision to fulfill your desires." 

I'm glad you stuck in this plug - "The Desire Map is about helping as many people as possible get clear on their core desired feelings" because this is key. You and I and Danielle all agree on that. But the key word in that sentence is helping people to get clear, not interrogating them into doing it. Nowhere in The Desire Map does it tell you to go to a party and give a stranger an elevator pitch for their career and then await as they interrogate you.

But I like to think you did have good intentions. On the leveraging desire point you write: "That was exactly what I was trying to do with Steve: pushing him to get clear on how he felt about life so he could figure out what he truly wanted to do." 

So maybe you did just want to see Steve succeed, but I just don’t think you were doing it right. What if Steve was like, aching for internal permission but knew it wasn’t time to push, to rush things? What if he knew he still had lessons to learn, bills to pay off? I don’t claim to know much about greatness but I feel like real, big dreams and visions take time, self-awareness and emotional intelligence to take shape. And hard work, of course, but steady, careful work. Not just willpower and drive. 

Self-help books, I dig, but I like to read them for motivation. Not because I want to feel like the author is frustrated by how aimless I am and other people are. The people who have helped me most just gave me permission to do what I was doing. The only time I ever got confused or felt “off track” was when I tried to manipulate it all into some super-structured, self-created vision.

The title of this blog should reveal my bafflement with dating in this modern life. More and more, I feel like I understand less and less. Let's begin at the beginning.

Recently, I noticed a trend in the romantic arrangements among my friends and loved ones. Many of the lovely single dudes in my life are dating in multiples with like-minded, non-monogamous beings. Other friends, male and female, are in long-term, committed relationships. The righteous single women in my world are largely seeking to date one person and then determine if it’s worth giving a more serious shot. How does this add up? 

The last category of single hopefuls I mentioned seems to be the hardest one to position in the current dating climate where apps offer us a menu of potential luvuhs. Why date one person when you could try out your options? In an article with TIME magazine, Aziz Ansari, our romance guru of late, points out that our current generation of 20 and 30-somethings are researchers who like to make sure we can assess every option and make the best choice.  Ansari asks “If this mentality pervades our decision­ making in so many realms, is it also affecting how we choose a romantic partner?“

My brain is bursting with questions and speculation.

First and foremost, if you like to date one person at a time, how do you get in the ring when it seems so many have a “gotta catch ‘em all” mentality? What if you don’t want to be a participant in your dreamboat’s personal production of The Bachelor(ette)? This seems to be a matter of personal boundaries and knowing where you are comfortable compromising. Judgement runs both ways when it comes to preferences of monogamy or a bevvy of bodacious babes, so I reckon we all can let each other try things on and see what works. Patience.

Secondly, and perhaps this is my own lack of experience talking, but is dating in multiples, for some people, sometimes, a way of playing defense? Or is it a way to numb our fragile hearts? In several of her books, researcher and storytelling queen Brene Brown reminds us that North Americans are living in a time of numbing - through alcohol, TV, shopping, eating etc. Like Aziz’s earlier question, I wonder how these habits affect our romantic choices? Perhaps researching and doing fieldwork with a packed schedule of dates is, for some, a way to do the dating jive without really leaving it all on the dance floor. I am not referring to polyamory here, more the middle ground of indecision for those of us who believe we are indeed after one person in the long run. What does it look like to date more than one person and keep your heart open to them all?

Thirdly, I am curious what it would take - from the first swipe/profile visit/conversation - to decide that one person was worth your full dating-attention, beloved reader? Imagine committed space and time for trying how the two of you do or do not jive. Our main man Aziz puts it best:

 “When you hear a Flo Rida song at first you’re like, ‘What is this, Flo Rida? It’s the same thing you’ve always done. I’m not listening to this song.’ And then you keep hearing it and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, Flo Rida. You’ve done it again! This is a hit, baby!’ And that’s what people are like. People are like a Flo Rida song. You need to hear them a couple of times before you really get what they’re about.”

The more I ask, the less I know, but I feel fairly certain about one thing: we’re all just Flo Rida songs, looking for a chance to hit our groove.

Lately, I was thinking about Jungian archetypes and how they're such a massive part of storytelling. We rely on archetypes to interpret stories and understand and relate to the characters, which make up so much of the bulk of how we experience a story. 

From The Creative Penn: "Archetypal events include Birth, Death, Journey or Quest. Archetypal people include Wise Old Woman, Mother, Father, and can include Villain or evildoer. The whole of human existence is bound up in these archetypes and story-telling reuses the same themes."

I often think about archetypes and how we embody them in the flesh and which ones I relate to. I'm fascinated by the scribe, the artist, and the magical child, the trickster, the crone. I think there's some really powerful creative juice behind that fascination, for me, because how we relate to certain archetypes and how we embody them with our own personal flavour is very intimate. 

Here's an example from one of Kelly Ann Maddox’s Youtube vids. In her "Tea and Tarot" vids, she pulls some cards and talks about their meaning - tarot is a system based on archetypes. She was like, “I used to hate the 9 of pentacles I wanted to kill that bitch. But now, I totally understand. The reason I had an aversion to her was because I thought I could never be her. I couldn’t connect with her energy in me.”

How we feel about certain archetypes can really say a lot about our perspective and who we are. Getting really clear on that can help a bit with separating "our shit" from "their shit" and also, seeing fact vs. feeling clearer. 

SO. Journal prompt for psychology fans: Pick an archetype (or pull a tarot card if you've got a deck) and write about your feelings about the archetype you choose. 

Doing this, for me, makes me less afraid of the writer / poet archetype, and helps me bring it a little closer by getting to know it as it exists in me, and breaks down some barriers in my thinking. Which is a helpful and kind of empowering exercise.

Or, instead of writing a piece "about" an archetype, write a story as an archetype. From the perspective of the mother, the artist, etc. and see what happens. See what each of the archetypes "in you" has to say for itself. Instead of trying to write as some foreign voice of a character I don't know, (I wrestle with fiction but I want to write it) writing them as they exist in me seems like a solid path to follow. Easy as pie!

For a real comprehensive, down-and-dirty appendix of archetypes spanning from bully to fairy godmother, check out Carolyn Mysse's here. 

I bought Fever to Tell in a mall in Orillia when I was about 14. Around this time I was just becoming obsessed with The Strokes and The Hives, and really just getting into "hip" music - or rather, music that wasn't Top 40. Well, let's just say slightly-more-alternative than Top 40. I was starting to seek out music more independently.

I didn't buy Fever to Tell because I'd even heard of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's though, I just bought it because I was intrigued by the album art - collagey, somehow bloody, vibrant, and dark. My young self wanted to buy a CD on this particular mall trip, any CD, and this one was definitely going to be it.

That trip took place sometime in winter and we were on the road, driving to my aunt’s cottage, my mom, dad and my friend and I. We were just going up for the night, a weekend-winter-getaway kind of thing. We stopped at the Orillia mall and went to the HMV where I picked it out, examined it, loved it, and it was a done deal. My friend approved. 

I didn't know it when I artbitrarily bought this CD that it would pretty much change my musical taste forever. I thought it was poetic, punky, passionate and unihibited in a way I didn’t know was possible in music. Karen O became an ultimate girl crush for me. She was like, inhuman. Such a punk rocker. Such a badass. Such an ARTIST!!

That evening my friend and I loled around in the spare bedroom of the cottage, talking about Julian Casablancas (she’d recently gone to see The Strokes live much to my supreme envy), reading YM magazine and eating Doritos, and I actually remember listening to Backstreet boys. Did we? I don't know. I can't remember. 

The point is, we were really still on the cusp of teendom - just discovering boys (we were essentially obsessed with Julian Casablancas and were infinitely fascinated by his relationship with Courtney Love), and really, generally coming into our own taste-wise. 

I remember listening to Fever to Tell only on my discman that weekend, though. I remember it being a personal, intimate experience for me. My friend and I went for a walk in the forest during the day on either Saturday or Sunday, and we each had our discmans on, having our own personal music experience, which was all the more enveloping because we were 14 and broody. 

Our walk found both of us lying down in separate parts of the forest (as you do) - me, lying back on a log of some kind, my friend, somewhere else, us, just listening to our discmans. Pure, Yeah Yeah Yeah’s bliss. Brand new bliss, too. 

On the walk back to the cottage she was like, “what were you thinking about over there?” I remember her asking that, but honestly I couldn’t even say. I wasn’t even thinking about anything. I was just giving myself over fully to 14-year old, uninhibited swooning, I was just feeling so purely excited and awesome. It made me feel like, there was so much of my life to come and this weekend snapshot of my life was just the beginning.

Here’s what a year and a half in Vancouver has sounded like. Love you, miss you Toronto.

1. Y Control - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

2. Busy Earnin’ - Jungle

3. Fierce - Azealia Banks

4. Batches & Cookies - Lizzo Feat. Sophia 

5. I Remember - Bully

6. The Tigers Have Spoken - Neko Case

7. Lilac Wine-  Jeff Buckley

8. Pink Moon - Nick Drake

9. Hymn #101 - Joe Pug  

10. The Greatest Construction Crew - Shad

11. Pools - Glass Animals

12. Smoke Again (ft. Ab-soul) - Chance the Rapper

13. The Recipe (ft. Dr. Dre) - Kendrick Lamar

14. What’s Mine is Yours - Sleater-Kinney

15. Pissing in a River - Patti Smith

Andre Agassi said, “people chase money and forget that time is our most precious resource.”

I think most creative people will identify with this quote.

Or at least, with this image. 

Like Agassi circa 1990, I have excellent fashion sense, and I also think a lot about time passing.

Up until my late teens, I was truly loathe to devote time to anything that didn't get me some sort of instant result in the world. I always wanted to be a writer, but reading felt like a waste of time because it was something I could spend an entire afternoon doing and I'd have nothing to show for it. No one would ever know, no one in the world would benefit, nothing would change.

hoo hoo hoo. 

(Those are crying subtitles).

It took me a while to actually realize that I felt this way and it probably wasn't until much later than it should have been. You know, the hind sight thang. 

The mucho-talented and smart director of my writing program, Betsy Warland, said that efficiency is the enemy of creativity. Much to the chagrin of the antsy / emo teenager in me that desires instant gratification! and instant results! I completely agree with Betsy. I can’t really be concentrated, write creatively, passionately, honestly, if I’m not really giving the entire process enough time. That includes reading, of course. 

So, the process of becoming what you "want to be," takes time. And time is limited. 

Since I've been doing the 9 - 5 thing (which I'm lucky is something I do deeply dig and benefit from in many ways) I’ve become really aware that time is our most precious resource. We can’t trade, buy, or get it back.

This doesn't quite cause me as much anxiety as it did before though - ie - I have no problem with spending time reading because I now understand the value of it. 

lulz. But really. If you want to write mysteries, it's your responsibility to read mysteries. If you want to write nonfiction, you've got to read nonfiction. A lot of them. 

I just read a book by Rana Florida, the CEO of the Creative Class Group. She says there are really only 3 ways to spend your time:

Have fun

Be productive

Give back

The first is straightforward - think, travelling, hanging out with pals, watching movies, falling in love / lust, drinking fancy lattes. The second includes working / making money to live, school-ing, increasing your smarts and climbing up the corporate ladder, and the third includes things like volunteering and investing in your community. 

Anything that doesn't fit into those three buckets, she says, is clutter. “Not only is it a waste of time, but it interferes with the getting to the three buckets that matter.”

Things that do fall outside (like, oh, say, doing drugs, cutting your wrists, thinking about cutting your wrists, sitting around on your neighbors front porch asking each other “I dunno, whatdoyouwannado?”), should be eliminated from your life.

Simple as God damn that. 

If there's something in particular you have you sights set on being, there's no way around being focused - that means managing your time, and working, constantly, to create that balance. 

SO: If there's nothing else in you, or in your life, that gives you permission to be selfish about the way you conduct your ... self, let Frida Kahlo and Bette Midler and TLC, be your inspiration. They never wasted any time doing things just because the world at large told them they had to do it, and ... look how fucking awesome they are !!!!!!!!

Yes, I rule. 

Being true to yourself and being accountable requires that you manage your time. Not let others do it for you. This is part of the price we pay for being adults, but, (as one of my favourite local writers, Anne T Donahue says): also one of the best things.

Responsibility may be the price of greatness, but greatness comes to those who take responsibility for their own lives. 

Rana Florida warns that “those who succeed protect their time fiercely and selfishly.” And I think this is smart - I don't think it means being a dick. 

Because, doing anything else - anything that doesn't fit into a bucket, help you do good work, love your fantastic friends and lovers and straight up be the change you want to see in the world, is clutter. Is drama. 

A wise gal I know & love scrawled what became one of my favourite ever quotes on her bedroom wall - "live how you want." (I wish I could include a picture of it because it was truly a grand sight). 

But, it's this simple, I think - non? What other choice do we have?

Hope you have a bucket filled day of FUN.

(I say all this, but I pretty much only have one bucket - fun.)

If you've never been to a storytelling event in Toronto before, let me tell you - it's a lot like the image pictured above. There are dragons, club-wielding cave men, happy lions, trees with faces ... 

I'm lying, there aren't really any of those things. But there are many, even better things - like drug-induced tales of travel, awkward dates, four-way sexcapades, odes to mother's chocolate chip cookies ... you know, the usual things that happen in our hilarious lives.

Storytelling topics and forms run the gamut, just like our city's mixed bag of local writers. For this reason, they're my favourite thing ever to do (attend storytelling events ... and writers).

I've compiled this list because I go to these things like it's my part time job and I think you should join me. If you're a writer, a bookworm, or lover of off-the-beaten-track events, I promise you will enjoy yourself. 

See you soon!

Aug. 2 - Fan Fiction the Show: Dr. Who  (The Swan Tavern. 154 Danforth Ave., 8 PM, $10.00) 

Hear fan-generated material from authors all over the world, performed live by comedians. 

Aug. 3 - Brains Words + Voices (The Coffin Factory, 109 Niagara St., 6:30 PM, PWYC)

Pre-1975 poems get recited live from memory at this event, which akes place the first Sunday of every month. Ring buzzer 007 and follow the signs that say "tutorino". Clandestine, to be sure. 

Aug. 5 - Women In Leadership Talk, (Ballroom, Church Street Community Centre, 519 Church St., 6 - 8 PM, register to reserve your spot)

This is a brand new speaker series for women in the LGBTQ & Ally community who are in or pursuing professional careers. The first event of the year will feature Olivia Chow, sharing her experiences as woman in politics. 

Aug. 6 - Tell Me Something Good: A Sexy Storytelling Slam (Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen St. W, 8 PM, Free)

Balls-out tales of sexual glory, misfortune, and other forms of dirty talk.

Aug. 7 - Unintentionally Depressing Children’s Tales (Lower Ossington Theatre, 100 Ossington Ave., 8 PM, get tickets at summerworks.ca)

Our homie Erin Fleck presents shadow puppet, projection and stop motion storytelling from her unintentionally depressing canon.

  Aug. 7 - Steel Bananas Collective Publications Launch (3030, 3030 Dundas St. W, 8 PM, Free)

Steel Bananas is a not-for-profit artist collective and boutique press in Toronto / Vancouver. They're celebrating their 6th birthday at 3030 with readings and DJ sets.

Aug. 8 - Zine Dream Launch (Art Metropole, 1490 Dundas St. W, 7 PM)

General opening / launching / hanging out for the 7th annual Zine Dream Small Press Fair.

Aug. 9 - Writing Vs. Art - Where Do Comics Begin? (XSpace Cultural Centre, 303 Landsdowne Ave., 3 - 5 PM)

Part of Zine Dream, this panel will discuss the pieces of the puzzle necessary to complete a comic, and how their practices differ in shape, size, and intent.

Aug.13 - The Black Museum Presents: School of Shock: Pain and Pleasure in the Classroom Safety Film (The Royal Cinema, 608 College St., 9 PM, $15)

This lecture and screening by Kier-La Janisse from The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies will present some of the most notorious educational films, grisly PSA's and commercials that spawned many student's fascination with horror.

Aug. 15 - Aug 20 - This Art is Authentic (The Black Cat, 2186 Dundas St. W, 8:30 PM)

This art show comments on the idea of authenticity and how it is is defined in our present western world - in the context of technology, self-representation, story telling, or mass production. This show is brought to you by our talented and creative friends, Continuist alumni Tom Dunbar and Nick White.

Aug. 18 - Blue Coffee Reading Series, (Magpie, 831 Dundas St. W, 8 PM, free.)

Poetry and fiction readings.

Aug. 25 - Outrageous ix: autobiography of prince, (The Central, 603 Markham St., 8 PM)

The dynamic and multi-talented friend of VIT Elizabeth Burns hosts a reading series that showcases GTA talent that "doesn’t give a fuck about constraints and categories." Whatever the theme, it's a raucous good time.

By Kait

We know that being a feminist doesn’t mean you have to have a PhD. Beyoncé taught us that. We know that feminism doesn’t require a white history, or hairy legs. Bell Hooks and Gloria Steinem taught us that. Feminism is about being yourself, no matter who you are.

Course we know this.

... right?

When I watched The Punk Singer, I found me an icon who really proved it.  

Kathleen Hannah. The leading voice of the Riot Grrrl movement, with her valley-girl twang and bare-assed stage performance, proved it doesn't matter how articulate you are, action speaks louder than words when it comes to making a change.

Kathleen showed fans that they could "be" in the world however they wanted to be. What matters is being your damn self, whoever that may be, in every single changing, whim-bringing moment.

She puts it like this:

“You can just get up and do something and see where it takes you. I always tell girls who say they want to start a band but don't have any talent, well, neither do I. I mean, I can carry a tune, but anyone who picks up a bass can figure it out. You don't have to have magic unicorn powers.”

Neither by-the-book musically inclined nor particularly career-minded, what drove Hanna and her band to their enormo success was their uncompromising sense of mission. They wanted, passionately, to prove that you could be a woman and be a blazing inferno of a punk rock star - whether or not it fit the definition of rock star. 

Punk rock was and is a suitable medium for the message. The no-holds-barred self expression in Bikini Kill's music let Hannah demonstrate that she was a boss ass bitch and that her fans could be, too. She made being a boss ass bitch something as readily accessible as “picking up a bass and figuring it out.” 

Tubular.

She wanted girls to take initiative and make things happen for themselves. Even if factors beyond our control - the patriarchy, our pasts, whatevz - told them they couldn’t.

Hannah’s highest muse was the teenage girl in her purely uninhibited state. In an interview with TheHairpin she explains how a teenage girl's bedroom is often a place where a lot of creativity happens, free of judgement, free of influence, free of inhibitions.

With the Riot Grrrl movement, Hanna wanted to connect those powerful spaces and bring those lo-fi creative works girls were making by themselves into the public. Before, they were all just being thrown out. Kathleen said no wait - these shitty little things are actually the shit. Hence, the many ‘zines, pamphlets, bracelets and DIY masterpieces born of this era. It was all about just doing it yourself.

In jr. high my idea of an awesome time included of grabbing a fat stack of my sisters Seventeen magazines and ripping them apart to make collages anywhere and everywhere. On notebook covers, binders, Bristol board, my bedroom walls ... on one occasion, my entire surface area of dresser. 

If someone like Hannah had been around for me then (she was - I was just too involved with MuchMusic's countdown and Fashion TV. Sigh.) I'd probably have kept 'em. 

What I appreciate about this concept of the bedroom as a safe space to unleash your creative monster is that it disregards intellect as it's master. It's not a space for thought. It's a space for losing track of time, for being so involved in what you’re doing with your hands and shutting out everything else.Just making what you want to make, without even a thought about what anyone might say. There's a lot of power in that.

Kathleen gave no fucks about whether or not what she was putting into the world would be deemed smart. That's part of what made it so awesome. If a little unpredictable ... which was all part of it.  

She talks like a valley girl (she and her best friend bought a book on how to talk with a valley girl accent because they thought it sounded posh," and she married the man who wrote “girls, to do the dishes, girls, to do the laundry, girls to clean up my room."

She is a woman of many paradoxes. She doesn't care. She's just - herself, to the max.

I try to think of this boss when I think too much about my own paradoxes. As I get older, I realize more and more clearly that self acceptance is more important than anything else. Without it, I just wouldn't get anything done. 

Kathleen's statement may have been nothing like Gloria’s, Bell’s or Beyonce’s, but there's a definite similarity between them all. They all rose to the task of taking responsibility for their lives. They didn't wait for anyone to say go, they didn't play the victim, they just dedicated their lives to doing their thing, and encouraging others to do it too. So I guess they were all kind of punk rock like that.