It is with a sad heart that I have to tell you that my cat, Sylvester, died last night.

It happened so quickly that it hasn’t really had a chance to sink in yet. I knew that cat for fifteen years, which is longer than I’ve known most of my friends. I still expect to turn around and see him saunter into the doorway and scan the room in the way that always made me think of a shy partygoer scanning a busy room. Except Sylvester was anything but shy. He was always the host of the party, mingling with friends and family, shaking hands with his bear paws, and always with a word for everyone. Anyone who ever met him knew he was truly one of a kind. I’m going to miss him a lot.

   

A busy weekend of chores, hiking, and writing. Saturday morning, the gf and I traveled out to Heber Downs, a conservation area in Whitby that I used to go to a lot as a kid. I hadn’t been there in at least six or seven years, and although it was nice to see it again, the one trail I was really looking forward to walking was also the only one currently undergoing repairs. I was quite annoyed, and had actually started to move around the barrier and go ahead anyway, but the gf promptly hauled me back.

The place has a great sign on the way in that says no one is permitted in the area after sundown. That sign and the uninhibited nature (pun definitely intended) of Heber Downs combine to create a very Blair Witch-type vibe. I don’t like to think about what those paths would look like at around midnight of a moonless night. Imagine you’re on one of the wooden boardwalks that zig-zag through the trees and you hear something … the loud clomp of something heavy landing on one of the worn planks … or maybe the sound of children laughing … I don’t know about you, but hearing something like that in a place like that would scare me green. Makes you wonder if there isn’t another reason for that stay-out-after-sundown sign. Might be a story there.

Got some good pictures, regardless, which will be posted on the website soon. Probably not until after our trip north next weekend (so soon, so very soon). I’ll get them all developed and scan them at the same time. So you can expect a big photography update in about two weeks. Woohoo, I know.

The trip to Heber Downs was also beneficial to the mood I’m trying to create in "Cabin D," which will hopefully be finished within the next day or two. I had predicted that I would get it done in about a week, and it looks like it will actually happen. And no one’s more surprised than me, I can assure you.

A fairly productive day.

Received my first rejection for "The House on Ashley Avenue" and sent it right back out again, this time to Ellen Datlow at SciFi.com.

While I was sitting through a particularly boring meeting, I wrote some notes for a new short story, tentatively titled "Blackwood." Then, when I got home, I was suddenly struck with not just an idea but an entire outline for a new novel. Ideas of such size rarely hit me all at once, but there it was, completely formed in my mind. Like tripping over a perfectly intact dinosaur skeleton in your backyard. I’m reluctant to reveal any details, but suffice to say I think it will have to be written right after Heroine. Gotta strike while the iron is hot.

I also got some more work done on "Cabin D."

Bathe in the glow of my ever-growing word-meter. Baaaaathe!

"Cabin D"

3,672 / 5,000 (73.0%)

Boy. The start of yet another busy week. Yesterday morning I kicked things off by arriving at work at 8:30 a.m. for a finance meeting. You know, there are only a few things I can discuss lucidly at that hour, and finance isn’t one of them.

I know I should probably be more appreciative of the fact that I have a decent, well-paying career, while other struggling writers are stuck at various hell-jobs (many of them in the service industry), but it isn’t easy. Sometimes it feels like I’m leading two lives: one as mild-mannered business analyst Ian Rogers, and another as the nocturnal, story-scribbling Writer. I don’t have nearly enough time for my alter-ego, and that can be frustrating at times. Imagine if Bruce Wayne spotted the Bat-Signal while he was in the middle of a board meeting at Wayne Enterprises. Damn, Bruce thinks, I sure hope that’s not important, because I’m up to my ass in cost-benefit analyses.

Not good, folks. Not good at all. Because Bruce makes a much better Batman than he does a businessman. (Yeah, it’s not Zen philosophy, but it’s all I got, so bite me.)

I don’t complain, because it’s not in my nature to do so when things can be so much worse, but I don’t want to get too comfortable either. I don’t have a fire under my ass the way some would-be writers do — I can pay my bills, buy the things I want, and still have enough left over to put a down payment on a house next year. I am in a fortunate situation, and yet I am not quite where I want to be yet. It’s hard to resolve those feelings, so I just keep my head down and write … and write … and write.

My big trip up north to see (and photograph) the autumn foliage is a nice distraction. I’m counting the days until September ends and I can escape the city, even if just for a little while. My hibernation period hasn’t quite kicked in yet, but I’ll have plenty of nuts to hold me over when it does. After "Cabin D," I plan to work on Heroine and "Leaves Brown," and I hope to have them both finished before the end of October. Heroine might take a bit longer. I have a feeling it will end up ballooning into a sixty- to seventy-five-thousand-word monstrosity. Dr. Frankenstein would be proud, and I will be, too.

You see, folks, a monster that big is called a novel.

It’s been a busy weekend. On Friday night we went downtown to see friends who barely managed to escape New Orleans before Katrina came in and turned the city on its head. They showed us pictures, told us stories, and prepared us an incredible meal of Cajun honey chicken drumettes that words cannot adequately describe. And yes, I realize how lame that sounds coming from a writer.

On Saturday the gf’s parents, sister, and brother-in-law came into the city and we went to the Jays’ game at the Skydome (I just can’t call it the Rogers Centre). The Yankees won 1-0, but it was still fun to be there; I haven’t been to a game since the World Series back in the nineties. Baseball’s not really my game, anyway. Now if I had Leafs tickets …

On Sunday we took the gf’s sister and brother-in-law out to breakfast at a fifties diner that we frequent fairly regularly, and then we struggled to find a movie to see at the theatre. Suffice to say we stayed in and watched Stir of Echoes on DVD, instead. Just as they went home, my sister decided to drop in for a visit. She left a couple of hours ago and I was finally able to get in an hour or two of writing before the weekend was officially over.

Nothing wrong with having a busy weekend. More grist for the writing mill. Gotta have the experiences in the first place in order to spark the ol’ imagination. One can’t write good stories if one lives in a vacuum. That’s not wisdom, that’s just common sense. There is no co-op or on-the-job training to be a writer; it’s called living life and not nerding it up in your parent’s basement or festering away in front of the computer.

Besides, the weekend wasn’t a total loss. A friend of mine who has been politely pushing me to submit a story to an anthology he’s putting together wrote me again today, and lo and behold, I finally started work on a story for his forthcoming collection. It’s called "Cabin D," and if I can keep up the pace I got going, it should be done within the week.

"Cabin D"

1,469 / 5,000 (29.0%)

Received another rejection when I got home from work today, this one via e-mail. "Winter Hammock" was turned down by Ideomancer, but it was actually a very nice, very positive rejection, and those are always the best kind. He sounded very close to buying it, which in turn prompted me to immediately print off a new copy and send it to ON SPEC. This will mark the second story I’ve submitted this week to a magazine whose title is printed in caps (the other one was AGNI).

Sure, it’s not Richard Dreyfuss and the mashed potatoes in Close Encounters, but you never know – this might mean something!

Have a good weekend, folks.

"Intervention" was rejected by Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine yesterday, and today I sent it off to AGNI, the literary magazine of Boston U.

Behold! the magic that is the revolving door of short-story submission. Abracadabra! A la peanut butter sandwiches!

I also posted five new photos from my Labor Day weekend at Eels Lake.

It’s going to look even better in another month when the leaves change.