It confounds me to ponder how much harder it used to be to research hard facts let alone stray ones. Just as we’re supposed to pause and be grateful for good health when we have it, so we ought to pay regular tribute to search engines.  I Google, you Firefox, he/she Googles and thank the good Lordy for that. 

Sure I write fiction, but even as a novelist you want to avoid unsuspending anyone’s disbelief with info gone wrong that might as well be right. The last thing you want to do is induce a “Say what?” moment because you have a train route in error, or a cross street, or a veterinarian treatment.

As for the lowly freelance magazine writer toiling from home who needs to know when the first reality television show appeared, or the first Angelina bairn, or the first green-shifting by-law? Please, get me started. I cannot begin to imagine how a buck-a-word journalism would make time-is-money sense if I was heading off to the library to pour over periodical indexes and request back issues from the stacks. Furthermore, too much of what I want to know is too fluffy to reside in an institution of reference.

What are the lyrics to Chiquita? What are this season’s Hard Candy polishes called? How old is Gwyneth Paltrow?

What’s more, dare I say it, those whose curiosity inclines towards, well, me, can key word key word search ole Lou McC and find her in all her glory. Type my name and click search and you can pounce on my site, find my book for sale and see some snide blogger in Jersey diss my plot and characters.

My web site stats page deserves a whole thank you post of its own but let me just say how touched I am, how chuffed I am, how downright stirred, when I scroll down to see what people were looking for when they found me — even more fun than my unique hits tally. I love the dear hearts who were looking for louisa mccormack. They are happily in the majority. I love the sweet peeps who were looking for louisa mccormick just as much, bless ‘em. Those admirable folks who were looking for louisa mccormack the catch … my heart swells with gratitude and affection at their cross referencing.

One mystery I hardly dare solve, however, is how many people click on to this site who were searching for … should I risk writing it again? … consolidation. Simply that. I don’t even know when I mentioned consolidating, or why, but ever since about eight people a month click on louisamccormack dot com to see, I suspect, someone using consolidation in a sentence.

I’ve tried searching for myself and consolidation together but that “does not match any documents.” Looking for consolidation alone nets 90 million responses and I got as far as page 2 before running out of narcissism. I hope the consolidation searchers aren’t disappointed to find me whining on about how hard it is to be a novelist rather than how to compact one’s debt or concretize one’s ownership of various holdings.

One dangerous thing is the way that Google stores one’s search history. It’s a tad embarrassing. It’s kind of like sorting through one’s dirty darks and whites prior to a long-awaited laundering. You remember the day you wore the socks, you remember the night you wore the underwear, you recall the time you dribbled. Basically, you review your gluttony and peccadilloes. Similarly, when you scroll through your recent search topics (and if you’re me cringingly delete them) you remember the day you Google imaged your 1983 boyfriend (philosophy prof now, father of a toddler), or the time you sought a home remedy for jockette itch (salt water bath) or the time you blanked on the name of the subway stop between Rosedale and St.Clair (Summerhill of course) and trembled to think it was an f’ing, ugh, senior moment. (Make me oblivious one day, God, but not yet; I’m still just a fortysomething for crying out loud.)

In conclusion, thank you for searching for me if you did.  Trust me, if I knew who you were I would search for you, too. Well I might. A good, well-meant search is the very height of humane.  To search is to feel your soul straining.

Hmmm, who else has a novel coming out this month and what kind of press are they getting?  Search, search, search …

I never used to bother with RSVPs. Definitely not to general, amorphous events like book launches. I’d figure, “What does it matter, they’ve got a space booked with or without me, no matter what I can raid the grapes off the fruit tray, I’m going to buy the damn book, aren’t I?”

As regards non-RSVP’ing, I’m guilty as charged.

When it came to smaller, private happenings at friends’ homes that I had every intention of attending, I’d like to think I responded in haste but I’m not sure. Possibly, e-vites sat in my inbox for a few days before I troubled to click my way to a yay or nay. Speaking of not being sure, I’d rarely bother to RSVP ambiguously right away, I’d just let the invitation dangle until I had my schedule sorted out.

No longer. I am a reformed woman. I have learned by example. Last week, the e-vite to my Charlottetown book launch went out. Ten marvellous people — you know who you are, you paragons of grace and caring — RSVP’d tout de suite.  My how I love them.

The thing is, I can’t expect my publishers to fork out the dough to serve a cocktail and snack to a hundred people if only forty say they’re coming. Budgetarily, that would make no sense. Ergo, the number of people who accept my invitation in advance totally influences the scope of the event. Now I get it. 

Let me put it this way … If you were invited to the launch for The Catch in Charlottetown on September 18th … Répondez S’il Vous Plait Plait Plait Plait Plait.

As a social experiment, I asked my pal S to answer a question bluntly and to the point without any fear whatsoever for my feelings because all I wanted and needed was a straight answer. S agreed to this. I let it rip. “Why haven’t you RSVP’s to my book launch?” I asked in an even tone of voice.  Being S, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” she said. “No, really,” I insisted, “it’s fine. Just tell me why not.” S apparently didn’t notice the RSVP request at the bottom of the invite. But S never actually RSVP’s anyway. Now we are both reformed women. S is in fact bringing her parents and plans to RSVP for them, too.

Every couple of days I get the updated list of who’s coming from T at Key Porter, which is nice of her. In other words, I am so in the know. It’s kind of agonizing. T e-mails something to the effect of, “Here’s the revised list.” Let me tell you, that sucker of a list has got a ways to go before it ranks as a party, let alone a bash, let alone the social event of the season.

For the benefit of mankind, I should calculate the algorithms at work here — how many people will end up showing up at my launch compared to how many were invited cross referenced with how many accepted? Hopefully, the resulting calculation will be substantially more informative than one’s amazon ranking at any given moment.

I ran into K on the street yesterday. She mentioned the invite right off the bat, bless her, she’s a doll. “Gosh, do me a favour and RSVP,” I managed, feeling like a fusspot arse pain. “Oh, okay, I never RSVP,” K said. I hated to make her feel bad. I explained the logistics as best I could. More yes = more booze. I think K is now converted.

S says RSVP’ing is a “lost art.”

Well, I’ll tell you who’s fast off the mark. The Culture Minister of PEI, that’s who. Almost right away, she let us know she wasn’t coming. Rats. She’s very vibrant vibrationally; I was looking forward to meeting her. And now she’s earned my undying respect. It’s quite something to RSVP promptly. It’s a feat of mighty politesse indeed to RSVP promptly with a decline. Madame Minister has a fab social secretary.

But no one else better decline. I want you all there, even if I have to Blind Man’s Bluff my way to this thing, freakishly unaware of my final numbers until they pan out. We’ll have fun no matter what, right? No sense crowding the dance floor. But frankly I’ll enjoy this perilous process so much more if I can start looking forward to seeing you. It’s my fault; I didn’t have a party all summer waiting for this. I haven’t had a party for the last two years waiting for this. I’ve never had a PEI party waiting for this.

One thing’s for sure, you invite me to your bat mitzvah, your quilting bee, your roof tarring, I’ll RSVP pronto to let you know if I can make it.

Only respond.          

I could happily live anywhere in the world that has electricity and high speed internet. Home is my keyboard, basically.

Okay, I should probably live somewhere English speaking because the more I am immersed in the language in which I work the better. Neat turns of phrase going on all around me keep me vibrant, occupationally. (On so many levels, in so many ways, I am no Paris-based Mavis Gallant. I was, however, going to name a daughter Mavis if I was ever lucky enough to have one.)

I should probably elaborate. If I earned a living wage as a writer, and writer only, I could live anywhere in the world. I do need a rent-paying occupation as things stand. (I think I’m repeating myself here if I quote Will Self to the effect that the number of people in Britain who make a living solely off their writing could fit inside a mid sized cocktail party.)

[I’m getting a bit fretful that part-time employ is going to be killer to nab here in Charlottetown. So far my ESL certificate doesn’t seem to be paying off; I didn’t even get an interview to go on a list of potential ESL teachers, yikes. Substitute teaching is a tough one because I don’t have a car so I can’t register with the call centre — they contact people who can get to Montague or Souris on short notice. It’s not that I have a BEd but I do speak French — pity the poor immersion students. I’d love to teach Creative Writing at UPEI but there are long-term, popular sessionals in place who’ve got that covered. Possibly, when it comes to meaningful employ, I’m screwed. So it’s a good thing I’m a slacker — I have no problem doing something on a working-to live level of dignity … Which reminds me, I know this is supposed to be a gratitude post but man do I hate the way the demographers shifted the baby boom parameters some time when I was in my early 30’s. By then I was well used to the fact that the baby boom ended in ‘59 and I played no part in it. About 15 years ago they decided, “Wait a minute, the baby boom actually went to ‘64!” To which I say, ixnay, goofs, a baby boomer I am NOT. My claim to fame is that I am pals with Douglas Coupland and I know for a fact that Doug wrote Generation X about us, his cohort i.e. those born as early as ‘61, damn it.]

Anyway, here I am in PEI but if it wasn’t for my Atlantic ocean fetish I could just as easily be in Winnipeg. (Do all the cool people leave Winnipeg? Because every transient Winnipegger I meet is extremely cool.) Similarly, I could uproot to Happy Valley-Goose Bay if I had to. I could, under duress, shift to Saskatoon (I whine about cold a lot so that hardly seems fair to Saskatoon, but there you go. There I’d go if necessary.)

I’m romanticizing but loosely speaking I’ve got a point. Writers can go anywhere there are pads and pencils.  My friends with businesses and custody arrangements marvel at the tielessness that goes along with my industry. My agent, for instance, fell in love with a Dutch editor at the London Book Fair, wed him, and moved to Amsterdam. (Now that the federal government has decided to stop funding arts promotion abroad, Sam and I are pretty lucky; she can still afford to get to the Frankfurt Book Fair, hopefully. Especially considering how low the travel grants to authors and agents had already dwindled. Artists are just too thorny for conservatives to have at their sides, I guess. In my mind, Stephen (Chubby Cheeks) Harper loves to think he has a too-cool-for-school thing happening. Unfortunately for his nation, he’s too uncool for school. Him or the fathead to whom he delegates matters like Canadian artistic identity. Oh well, I guess Steve, as his frenemy George calls him, has a right to fret. We’re clinging to the G8 with our fiscal fingertips. If India and China expand matters to a G10, we’ll only be allowed to stay G for sentimental reasons. It seems other world leaders have a soft spot for tar sands.

Since this post is insufficiently narcissistic I’ll rattle on a bit more about what major events mean to me. The thing is, I’ve been hoping that The Catch will sex up PEI’s image somewhat. Notoriously, a few years back a local marketing board dubbed this place the, kak, Gentle Island. I felt under a personal obligation to help residents here live that one down. Gentle my ass. (Okay, it is kind of gentle here, but whatever.) My tale of a Toronto television producer sexually marauding her way around a fishing village was going to help dismantle the whole gentle thing small time, I dared pray. I’ll tell you who ain’t gentle. I’ll tell you who’s Powerhouse City. Jared Connaugton, that’s who. That lad has far outdone any frail attempts I might make to get this place resonating with brute force. PEI’s finest, Jared Connaughton, thank you – for your thighs, your grimace, your streamlined noggin, your bulging tattoo sleeve and your neck of might. Thank you for your iron gaze.  Thank you for thundering around the 200 metre track at the Beijing Olympic semi-finals.

So, right, mobility. Inspiration is certainly key for a writer but I found my inspiration more tightly linked to place in my youth. Nowadays I’m more capable of working in my own little world. I don’t need rub elbows with those who regularly make it to the Review and Style sections to feel like I’m getting anywhere myself. It’s been great living in PEI while I produced a book set here. Who knows what address I’ll sustain? The only address that really counts is my e-mail address.

ps I promise to start checking my louisa at louisa mail far more assiduously.  Thank you to everyone so far who’s clicked and found me there.

pps Is it just me or does louisa sound like someone calling a pig? looooooo-wheeeee-zaaaaaa … that’s a hog-calling finalist for sure.      

On August 12th, the first printing of my novel, the hardcover edition, is due to land at my publisher’s warehouse. Oh joy, oh joy. Because maybe now we can burn all the extant Advanced Reading Copies i.e. the heinous couple hundred ARCs that were produced last April. I’m talking about paperback copies of the second-to-last draft of The Catch that my publisher was obliged to produce on behalf of its sales team and long lead magazine editors. There’s no denying that lot what they require; they’re in professional need of a sneak peek.

Magazine issues are put together about three months before publication. For an editor to decide whether to feature a book in her October issue, she’s got to get her paws on it by early June at the latest, ideally. Any later than that and a publicity team risks being obnoxiously tardy. Either that or they’ve got a cover that would jump out at Diana Vreeland.

Similarly, those big stores that are becoming the predominant way to move books have executives in place who read what’s on offer season by season. They decide what’s going to make it to their shelves at least one season in advance, I’d guess. The same way fashion editors and department store buyers took in the Fall ‘08 fashion shows last spring. Which makes me wonder how many bows, hems and furbelows are chopped off between the catwalk and the Barneys racks. It ain’t edited ’til it’s edited.

The thing is, it’s the sign of a really immature performer to denigrate her performance prior to delivering it. I suspected I still had tightening to do as I signed off on the draft that was destined to be the ARC. Whoops, I was right. But I couldn’t whinge on about that to anyone without looking like I didn’t deserve to be publishing. ARCs are part of the process; hack it or shut it.

I’m probably far more sensitive to the improvements that I made than anyone else. No one else in Sam’s hell is going to fine tooth comb their way through my book like I did, not even an in-staff reviewer. I can bloody well calm down.

The thing is, between the ARC and the final draft I fixed up mostly the beginning. The f’ing first impression stuff. And I reduced the salt factor on some of the, eek, extra saltier passages by a tablespoon or two. I bet there aren’t a lot of other writers who need to change as much as I did. I bet there aren’t a lot of other writers who glance at their ARC and wince. It’s my fault, I know, I should have nailed what I needed to pre-copy edit. Trust me, at seventeen months working pretty well full time, this novel was within a hair’s breadth of being ru-u-u-ushed.

NB: if you ever come across an Uncorrected Proof, Not for Resale version of something you’ve had your eye on at your local secondhand bookstore, pity me and my type and toss it aside. When some of us say uncorrected, we mean it.  It’s just such a damn tricky thing to ask someone to take seriously, the I’m-not-quite-ready-but-you-can-take-a-quasi-official-look-at-this caveat.

Okay, I did whine to one very good editor friend. I thanked her for her excitement and begged her to wait for the hardcover was ready before tucking in. And I begged my publicist not to send the ARC to one prominent newpaper editor at all. I didn’t want him to see me that way — prone to stray adverbs and late date narrative meandering. Oh, the shame.

My BF’s been asking me about my process lately, which makes me screech at him in woe about how he’s afflicting me – a creature of utter instinct — with crippling self-consciousness because how anathema for me — who relies so much on subconscious strategizing — to be so murderously closely inspected, blah blah. 

Let me put it this way, if anyone ever says to me (so unlikely), “Wow, I saw your ARC and your final draft is way better,” I will not impugn them for scrutinizing my process. I’ll be, like, “Holy fuck, thank you soooooo much for noticing.”

In conclusion, if you ever see an ARC of The Catch around, the marshmallows are on me. Please build a fire immediately.

Let there be no doubt — I would probably love gossip if I was a chemical engineer. “You can’t tell anyone, but …” would likely get my heart racing if I was a United Church Minister, emergency room nurse or statistician. But the way I see it, I have a professional duty to gossip. As a novelist, I need to learn about all the twists, turns and dark alleys into which our fragile natures can drag us. I need to fully know the beast that is human. Consequently I need to know who’s shtupping who, who’s binging and purging and who does smack in their office.

Furthermore, I need to read high and low, whatever I can get my paws on. I need to read the classics (People, US, Paris Match). I need to read the greats (Hitchens, Wolcott, Leon Tally). I have every excuse I need to soak up whatever drops of Zeitgeist are flowing. Okay, I read thoroughly high brow, too. But you’d be amazed how gossipy the New Yorker can get, let alone the Economist, Austen and Dickens. 

I get to watch crap TV as well, because I never know when I’ll be called upon to do a magazine feature full of up-to-the-moment pop culture references. Edited to death as they may be, reality shows still reveal choice aspects of the human condition. Bring me your dirty and unwashed elimination dramas, Slice, TLC and ABC. In the name of duty, I can cope with the grime and pong. This couch potato sprouts ideas, damn it. All I ask is to go to seed.

There are further advantages to making a point of generalized scrutiny, besides the ways in which it informs my work. If I do say so myself, I’m a pretty good guesser. I’m not infallable, but if someone says “Guess what?!” I suspect I have a higher than average success rate in getting things bang on. I’m a one clue lady, tops. So it should be if I want to write about what it’s like to live, which is essentially what novelists do when they get to the bottom of themselves.

Another more important benefit to being a nosy, absorbent bitch is that I’m a popular amateur shrink. Thinking a lot about what makes people tick helps out my friends when they can’t figure out their guys/sisters/bosses/moms/friends.  By pondering human being whenever I get the chance, I’ve picked up on a lot of emotional likelihoods. Nothing gives me more pleasure than to deconstruct a tricky sitch with a friend in need.

I swear to God, if you gossip rampantly enough, you start to put a bigger picture in place.  I wish I’d minored in History actually, which now strikes me as officially sanctioned tattle.

A word to the wise … much as it must be fun to tell a writer your latest what with how savagely appreciative we are of your dirt and scuttlebutt, you better red flag that stuff as secret, big time. Discretion is far from the better part of our valor. We tell all, man, unless threatened with excommunication.

Hearing a juicy story, telling a juicy story … my how I love the irresistibility.   

Writers are notorious booze hounds, correct? At the very least, they get by on gallons of coffee and tobacco fields of butts. Everyone knows that authors pollute themselves as a matter of course in their urgent need to get their books done, no matter the despoliation factor. Forget nostalgie de la boue, it’s all boue, boue, boue with writers, right?

Alas, not me. I am a friggin’ health nut of the highest order.

It wasn’t always this prissy way. I used to binge drink with the best of them. Every couple of weeks I’d get so blotto at Teatro that I needed my pals to piece together my evening post 11pm. When I was working 12 hour TV days for a couple of years, it was almost a matter of sanity to take until 1pm Saturday to sleep it off what had happened on Friday night. (The advantage being that I’d had no such thing as Friday dinner since 1999.)

Ah, those were the nights.

Now it’s rare for me to drink anything harder than Sauvignon Blanc. What’s worse, I drink what I call “French kiddy wine,” like my parents used to serve on bank holidays when I was in upper elementary school. It’s what children in Bordeaux are brought up imbibing with their coq au vin, in other words one part wine to four or even five parts water.

I drank thus when I was staying with my cousin in Toronto a few months back, to my great disgrace, because she’s got a climate controlled wine cellar which should have been my first clue that I’d been poured a rare elixir. From the startled look in her eye when I stuck my balloon Reidel under the kitchen tap, I suspect that I merrily diluted something highfaluting to the point of sacred.

I can’t help it, I’m trapped in a relentless upward spiral of health. Nowadays, I could get hung-over from a bag of corn chips, my body is such a goddamn temple. One false move and I’m a basket case – if the basket contains panting wrecks of beings who need H2O on an iv drip to feel in any way normal.

In my youth, I moved to francophone cities numerous times, what with repeatedly heading to Montreal for the purposes of grad school and also returning to Paris when I nabbed a student visa. Every time I’d get somewhere French, I’d partake in the local habit of abundant coffee drinking with abandon. Three months later, I’d jitter. I’d jitter morning, noon and evening. I’d jitter until my teeth clacked. I’d jitter myself sick. I told my pal Josh this. He said, “The funny thing about coffee is that it’s really slow poison.” I heard him loud and nervously clear.

You think you get bitter when your grinds aren’t up to snuff? I’m bitter with the realization that when I agree to meet people for a coffee, what I’m really anticipating is another herbal fucking tea. It’s just not the same thing — something brewed from an African bush or squished out of citrus. I miss caffeine murk.

I can’t even do decaf any more. I just couldn’t stand hearing myself ask the barista to rinse out the cappuccino thingy “really carefully.” I couldn’t take the residual 5% of caffeination. Either that or the bleach they use to dismantle a bag of Earl Grey. I’m not just a teetotler, I’m a teatotler.

As for cigarettes, I gave them up with my nightly dose of the Cocteau Twins, the two things having gone really well together from ‘84 to ‘96. But I hated smelling like an ashtray after five minutes of Boot Camp class almost as much as I hated the cold sores and lung bubble.

I’ve stubbed out, I’ve dumped, I’ve corked. I’m a writer crossed with a bloody naturopath. Frankly, I disgrace my sordid brotherhood. The only thing I can do at this point is promise to get debauched bi-annually. You have my word on that … and I’ll try to do so when the social stakes are at a maximum. Bi-annually I will be shitfaced.

Um, does bi-annual mean once every two years? Or twice a year? Because I don’t think I can swing that …

This must also be cross-referenced with my spinster benefits but the fact is that writing allows me a hell of a lot of time to work-out. Most writers produce gobbledy-gook by hour five, which makes for a shortish working day. (Not really if you account for the fact that we have no water cooler near our desk, or demarcated lunch break, or interns sending us all staff e-mails, so if you de-condense our working days they almost add up to office hours.) Anyhow, my working day of eight or so hours makes room for two or so of those hours fairly legitimately spent at the gym. (Or in Martin Amis’s case, an afternoon of tennis.)

Profligate, I know. I should be reading more, or volunteering more, or freelancing for the love of God. But I can’t help but think that physical fitness is part of my responsibility as an écrivaine.

Someone’s got to write about sex. To be blunt, I find it way easier to do so with a jogger’s body.  Not that I’ve got a body beautiful, oh no … I’ve got sad little A cups, truly gross arm veins and super bony feet, not to mention an extremely meager upper lip and hair so wispy I’ve got to do the Jean Seberg thing so no one has to look at it. We chicks know how to look in a mirror and see flaws. Do I have hips? Possibly, if you look past the tree trunk torso. Hips yes, waist no.

But I’m always surprising people who need an armchair moved, or a fridge shifted, or a suitcase fetched, with my superior feats of strength. Without muscle power I’d lack creative power. Aspirationally, I’m the contemporary mainstream Canadian canon’s gym bunny.

It’s important to my soul that I write like a bundle of enery, not like a luxuriantly buttery croissant, not like a dollop of cream on a crumble, not like a well-stuffed Miss Muffet tuffet.

Not everyone gets to make the kind of jog time, Pilates time and rowing machine time for themselves that I do. My conditioned heart goes out to you if not. Everyone deserves to exercise, it’s a human right. Parents, especially, get the shaft. From my old maid’s perspective I want to scream about how unjust it is that just because you’re a mom you don’t get in three spin classes a weak. It’s not fair!!!

I’m cash poor, that’s the rub, but I’m a time millionaire. So let me take this opportunity not to stage a whine, rather to revel in a boon. (Funny how much more polite it is nowadays to moan about one’s disadvantages than trumpet one’s blessings; company loves misery for the most part.) For me the gym is far from meaningless, the gym is nicely loaded with importance. Honestly, if I wasn’t in good shape I’d never be able to sit still for four hours straight bringing people to life. I have no retirement fund so I’m going to have to recumbent bike my way through my eighties, presumably. I’ve got to keep it all up.

Of course, another beauty to being a writer is what experts we are at rationalizing whatever crap it is we want to get up to. But I’ll leave the gratitude at that for a while.

Novels, the stair machine, short stories, funkercise … just do it.       

Remember when you were a little kid, how fun it was to use exclamation marks? “I hate math!” in your diary. Or “Stuart stinks!!!” in a passed note in class. Or, “This is the tastiest pie I have ever eaten!” Lenore exclaimed,” in a grade four composition. Then you get older and wiser and realize that not only should a character reveal spirit in context and never require more than a “he said” or “she said” but that no one, no matter how fraught the drama, should utter a line that needs to be punctuated with an exclamation mark to convey its excitement.

I mourned the loss of my exclamation marks about twenty years ago once I wised-up to the their callow aspect. I wrote short stories set in Spain and Africa without them. I wrote a story about a chick who finds a dead animal floating in her backyard pond without them. I wrote letters home from Paris without them. I realized I could manage quite fine, in fact better, without exclamation marks in my world. Much like quote fingers, I wanted them out of my life forever. I disdained their use in others.

They’re back!

Now I feel downright mean composing a text or e-mail to a friend without an exclamation mark or two. I need them to convey empathy: “That SUCKS!!” I need them to convey a compliment: “You looked damn cute last night!” I need them to convey that I’m juuuuust kidding: “Cheese and peanut sauce go great together, I love your pasta surprise!”

This week, I reached an exclamation point zenith, or perhaps nadir. I put an exclamation mark in a covering letter: “Obviously, I am extremely keen to join your team!” Then I took it out, in shame. Then I examined the sentence again carefully for tonal quality and thought, no, man, I better do this thing. I put the exclamation mark back in. The application isn’t due until July 25th so I can sit on it for a while. That “!” is  bold move — but one that might separate me from the crowd. Exclamation marks are insincere sincerity markers. Any jackass can say they want to join a team; it takes a notable enthusiast to exclaim it.

On the other hand, I’m at the tail end of my mid forties now. Surely I’m too elderly for exclamation marks no matter the revival factor? Unless my abundant use of exclamation marks indicates my fast track to old-lady-spry? Well, yesterday at a family party I described my menses in enormous detail to my doctor cousin and from the sounds of things she doesn’t think I’m anywhere near change-of-life time. So there!

If I hadn’t reserved this blog for matters pertaining to writing I would post something grateful about having doctor dear ones. As I said to my cousin, the only people who seem to get themselves a second opinion are American magazine journalists writing high profile first person pieces. And people with doctor cousins.

Anyhow! I’m bitter because exclamation marks make me feel stupid but I’m powerless to forgo them all over again. Call it a punctuation addiction. I can use as many swanky semicolons as I want but they’ll never make up for all my goofball exclamations. I’m bitter, but surely the people who never ever use any exclamation marks are the ones who are bitter to the core. Who knows?!

Omigawd, don’t get me started on the exclamation mark-question mark combo.       

The other day a sweet friend shot me a line saying he’d be at my book launch “no matter what!” I replied something to the effect of, “Um, make that Charlottetown, baby!” His answer, “I mean it, I’ll be there.” This is a busy entrepreneur we’re talking about. BLESS HIM.

I begged my publisher to let me have my launch in PEI. I figured a party was the least I owed this province, which I adore fairly unconditionally. The narrator of The Catch loves it here, too. However she can wax caustic now and then. Throwing a bash is the most expedient way I know to explain to the locals that if Minnie is my fault I hope they’ll forgive me for her, the darn hussy.

Publishing houses are no Fort Knoxes; it’s a rare book launch that’s lavish. Definitely, there will be a theme drink and a theme snack on offer. I’ll certainly address the crowd with some prepared remarks. If at all possible, there will be a disco ball. And if there’s a drop of blood left in my veins there will be some sort of frisson in the air, damn it, as I stand by my new book

The wonderful thing is how enthusiastic people get about one’s launch and how much they let you know how much they want to be there. “You have to come to my book launch!” has got to be one of the slam dunk most fun things I have ever had the opportunity to say. Just writing it has me in a delirium. “I’m coming for sure!” gives me delight to hear.

Tomorrow I have a conference call with the VP of marketing, marketing associate and head of publicity to hammer out some date and budget details. Begging to have the launch here meant volunteering to do a lot of the leg work. When the calls and errands all revolve around me, I’m totally up for the tasks at hand. I chomp through them like a wolverine. I wonder, though, will I be at liberty to slap Event Planning on the ole resume as a skill set? I could damn well do with an upgrade in the case of Plan B: no further writing grants.

Incidentally, when I was working at The Chatroom we had a stress expert come onto the show. All of us, the entire Talk TV team from execs to techies, had to fill out a How-Type-A-Are-You? quiz beforehand. Guess who scored top points? I had to sit in a next door room listening to a relaxation tape while the segment rolled, a camera cutting to me now and then as I sulked instead of meditating. Firstly, I wear contact lenses so don’t order me to shut my eyes–my optometrist is against it. Secondly, I hate being told how to breathe, especially if it involves the word nostril, a word I loathe, in fact I can barely believe I wrote it. Thirdly, we taped our show at the Masonic Temple and someone had had the bright idea to place my chair directly on top of a creepy big crest embedded in the floor. You should have seen the red room on the top floor: entirely encircled in red upholstered thrones, with a trap door on the stage for reasons it spooked all of us to contemplate. Mick and Keith apparently loved it up there when they rented the temple for their tour rehearsals. Anyhow, Mr. Stress Expert nearly blew a gasket when I failed to melt to a pudding state, instead returned to the set rigid. What can I say? I’m Type AAA.]

May I just mention, thank God I have purchased the text in question at pretty well every book launch I’ve attended, unless I was flat busted broke or unable to shell out for a hardcover: cringe factor hovering near zero. It was pure luck at first, before I grasped the fact that you’ve got to shell out or skulk out.

Let this be my public service announcement for 2008: it’s probably better not go to a book launch unless it’s your plan to pony up for an inscribed copy. It’s kind of de rigueur. Last time, I sold 76 books at my book launch, which made up for the fact that someone made off with all the leftover SmartFood pop corn (theme snack #1). The Pages people were pleased. Me, too.

But! I don’t presume to sell any books this time! Everyone invited to my launch is welcome regardless of intention to purchase! It’s about opening my mind to the local populace at large in the hope that they’ll be open-minded in return. And cope with the iPod playlist I’m putting together. For the first time, Hot Chip, Deerhoof and Xiu Xiu will be heard publicly within these shores. That’s got to count for something? (I’m not college radio hip, I just download a lot of the free stuff.)

By the way, this book’s snack of choice? French fries with perhaps a chipotle aioli. This book’s of choice? Legal shine and Anne of Green Gable cordial. E-mail if you’ll be in these parts come early September and want an invitation to the, let’s hope, festivity.

Now if I can just get the entire UPEI English faculty to show … Creative Writing sessional gig or bust, man.

My gal friend S and I have a male movie buddy called D.  The three of us were headed to Get Smart the other day when I mentioned that the new Angelina Jolie flick had also opened. For a very cool guy, D doesn’t get out much. We ladies can be merciless in our chick predilictions; we owed D some bullets and gore. Thus S and I plumped for Wanted instead, and much bang bang ensued.  One thing I liked about the movie, besides fearsome Angie, was the mundane depiction of cubicle working life. There’s an accountant in the movie and the way the art director set up his cramped warren of an office, you can really believe in it. (Mystical looms which spell out the names of social miscreants in woof and warp, maybe not so much so).

What I can never believe in, however, are movie writers. They’re even more preposterously successful, satisfactorily employed and comfortably ensconced than movie architects.

 [As a side note, patient D took S and I to Old Navy on Saturday before the movie because I’d heard there was a sale. You know how gigantic children have become lately? Well, I urge you, check out the Old Navy kids jeans. I found a dark indigo pair of the Darling in a Skinny, size 12 with, praise be, a secretly elasticized waistband. They fit like a dream and the elastic + interior button system obviates the need for a belt without doing that poignant dweeby thing whatsoever. One pair for $25.50 or two for $35 … Broke as I am I hunted for a second pair, which is the kind of thing a style.com editor would do. No dice. Oh well. I took my one pair to the cash. THEY WERE $9.99!!!! Unbelievably, these are my launch jeans just as envisioned. My last book launch, I got a pair of Earnest Sewn Harlans for something like $280 plus tax. To my joy, Mary Kate Olson was shortly cited in Us Weekly as sporting the same ones. That may seem pricy but I’ll remind everyone my book launches are the personal equivalent of a wedding. Furthermore, if any daring gent pops the question at this late date I’ll dash right out to hunt for wedding jeans – white in a boot cut I suspect.]

Back to writers in the movies. It’s not that they always wear tweed, it’s that they wouldn’t be able to afford Brooks Brothers Harris tweed without a full professorship on the side. Last year the author Will Self was quoted in the Guardian as saying that the number of writers in the UK who live strictly off the proceeds of their books would “fill a small cocktail party.” That’s Britain — home of the English language.

You don’t see writers in the movies gnashing their teeth because their column is a shrivelsome freelance gig rather than a staff job. No. You don’t see writers in the movies asking their agency for an advance on their delivery-of-manuscript cheque. You see writers in the movies living middle class lives as if books paid as much as insurance brokering. You see writers in the movies behaving like they have a goddamn salary.

In short, Noah Baumbach, sir, you lie. The Squid and the Whale and the Pipe Dream! Margot at the Wedding After the Dud Book Signing! Woody Allen, you do to novelists what you do to New York real estate and cashmere sweaters–make the extraordinary look like a given. French movies? Ne me laissez pas commencer. As for Sideways, okay, Sideways faced things dead on. Maybe too dead on.

Admittedly, things have changed so swiftly for writers over the last decade that I shouldn’t expect pop culture to have caught up. New computerized point-of-sale measurement systems (aka BookScan) have caused a lot of axes to fall on a lot of necks, now that editors can’t fudge numbers. The exploding blogosphere has induced a lot of people to click like demons rather than read like fiends. The taste for reality has spilled over from television to publishing–memoir or bust. None of this is news except to screenwriters, the only kind of writers who pull in serious dosh, non-coincidentally.

I wouldn’t mind writers in the movies living gainfully (if mopily) so much if it wasn’t that authors seem singled out for dire glorification. Hmmm, that’s surely narcissism on my part. I bet fashion designers, restaurant owners and even family physicians want to screech with the same kind of cosmic AS IF when they see themselves Hollywooded. I mean, every American suburban family lives in a white, six bedroom colonial with shutters and flourishing shrubbery, right?

I give up. Romanticize the writing life away, everyone.  Truth be told, I like to dream on myself. Even I’m quite into writers in the movies and their F’ing unheard of, repetitive, six figure advances that only factory-output genre writers and retired White House press secretaries really get. In the parallel universe, I’m simply writing my gainful way through a 120 minute feature. Dig my charmingly messy study and Shetland sweater collection.