Umbrella graveyard

Photo: corpse of dead umbrella abandoned near Broadway and Clark

Where do umbrellas go to die? Like elephants, do they have their own secret graveyards?

This one collapsed on the street, defeated perhaps when the wind rose and turned it inside out.

How sad that after giving faithful service it was left on the street for strangers to step around.

Southbank info session for Surrey writers Dec 8

Mark your calendars for Saturday if you are interested in the info session for Southbank Writers' Program at SFU. At its name suggests, this summer program for writers is held on the south side of the river. Our location is the new Surrey City Centre Library, a lovely facility located conveniently close to Surrey Central Station.

And there's plenty of parking available for those do live on this side of the river. So if you're tired of crossing bridges to attend writing events and programs, you just might want to check this out.

Time: 10:30 am
Place: Room 405 City Centre Library, Surrey

 Photo: City of Surrey

Wintry whitecaps at White Rock

The Pacific is less calm than usual, but sunlight gleams through heavy cloud to light the water as a brisk wind drives white caps toward the beach.

Prairie Giant Tommy Douglas

Photo: Canadian Health Coalition

Prairie Giant is a dramatization of the life story of Tommy Douglas. It was published after Canadians voted in a CBC poll (2006) that Tommy Douglas was the greatest Canadian.

His courage was unwavering, and his achievements were legendary. The list of firsts among his policies at the end of the film is an eye-opener, even for those, like myself, who thought they knew quite a lot about Tommy Douglas.

His political life began in the Dirty Thirties in the town of Weyburn. He died in Ottawa aged 81, after 5 consecutive mandates as CCF, Cooperative Commonwealth Federation Premier of Saskatchewan and 17 years as federal leader of the NDP, a party formed when the CCF joined with labour unions.

In many ways, the apparently insignificant province of Saskatchewan is Canada. So many of the ideas we have come to associate with our historic liberal democratic and egalitarian ideals came from there: universal medicare, old age pensions, co-ops, government auto insurance, government support for the arts, and much more.

As for the policies that expressed these ideas, most were envisioned first by the remarkable politician Tommy Douglas. A Baptist minister, he was galvanized into running for office by his times: the terrible hardships suffered by farmers during the dirty thirties, and then being a helpless witness to the brutal violence practiced on coal miners in Estevan when in 1931 they went on strike to demand a living wage.

When Douglas saw how the RCMP stood by and watched the strikers beaten or worse, he took up an invitation to run for the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, the CCF. With the vigorous support of his wife Irma, he succeeded against astonishing odds, not only to get elected, but to carry out the revolutionary policies he had promised to the people of Saskatchewan.

To do so, he had to do battle with Boston bankers, federal and provincial Liberals, and even the doctors of Saskatchewan, who went on strike when Medicare was passed, and did their best to turn the tide of public opinion against the CCF and their "communist" policies.

For anyone who is interested in how Canada has evolved into the country we know today, this is a film well worth watching: for the excitement and drama, as well as the education in our history.

Both in his life and following his death in 1986, Tommy Douglas was heaped with honours. IIn his original home riding of Weyburn, a statue was unveiled in 2010. Schools, stamps, and art centres are among the places named after him. In our region, the public library in Burnaby bears his name. His legacy continues to be discussed among Canadians.

Shelly Fralic celebrates The Vancouver Sun

The face of Shelley Fralic is of course familiar to me, since I see it every morning in the paper. But I was surprised when she said I looked familiar.

"Where do I know you from?"

I was mystified. Told her the closest I had been to her was when she gave an address to the Editors' Association of Canada, and I was in the audience.

At Black Bond Books in Surrey, she was signing copies of her book, Making Headlines, I00 Years of The Vancouver Sun (2012), when I approached the counter.

There was a lull in the lineup so we chatted briefly about her recent Christmas Stocking story. I asked her to inscribe and sign my book, and took a card out of my pocket to show her the spelling.

"Oh, you're a writer."

"Well, I'm definitely allowed to call myself a writer now," I said, surprised that I felt no inner qualm or cringe as the words left my mouth. "I just finished a draft of my novel."

To my delight, Shelley looked pleased. "Have you got a publisher yet?"

"Not yet."

"What's it about?" she asked, and I began to talk about my theme, family secrets against a background of national secrets. Just then, her mobile rang, and she excused herself to answer. Some uncertainty about whether what she had written in someone's book had been what they wanted inscribed.

"Well, let me know when it's published," she said.

How very kind, I thought as I walked away. And remembered, we never did figure where we'd met before.

Boar's Head Madrigal Dinner in Surrey

Photo: Page with candle guides diners to feasting room.

The host bids the diners enter the banqueting hall, and the Lyric Singers greet their arrival with a rousing rendition of The Gloucestershire Wassail. At the door, each guest is given a cup of wassail, warmed apple cider with cinnamon, and servers come round to refill the cups.

Once the guests are settled, a ceremonial lighting of the Christ Candle follows. Then two bearers parade the boar's head round the room for all to see.

Beneath the medieval wall banner, the Lyric Singers raise their voices in song, along with featured guests, both men and children.

Dinner is served in courses, with songs between. The menu begins with soup and bread, then salad is served. The main course is roast pork with gravy and traditional winter vegetables.

The audience is asked to join in the singing of familiar carols. Before dessert is brought out, an attendant in medieval garb parades the flaming pudding through the banqueting hall.

Below: Servers rest after their labours.

The feast winds down as young pages come round to collect donations for the food bank, and feasters remember others who may be hungry and in need.

The sated revellers sing along to Hark the Herald Angels Sing, the choir sings We Wish You a Merry Christmas and banqueters are trumpeted from the hall.

This event, "The Boar's Head Dinner, A Medieval Madrigal Feast of  Food and Song," was presented by Bethany-Newton United Church and Lyric Singers. Those who attended hope the tradition will continue.

Boar's head dinners date back to the middle ages and possibly earlier, to pagan times. Or the tradition of the Boar's Head dinner originated at Queen's College Oxford, says an apocryphal story of a student who encountered a wild boar while reading Aristotle in the forest.

When the boar attacked, the quick-thinking reader defended himself by thrusting the volume into the mouth of the charging animal, who promptly choked on it. More likely a clever Oxonian joke than a real event, this tale has nevertheless survived to be told at the annual Boar's Head dinner at Queen's College.

After Nanowrimo, a rest before editing

For me the issue wasn't generating the 50,000 words. I had those, in half a dozen half-drafts and numerous folders, each containing a mishmash of scenes. The task I set myself to do under the discipline of Nanowrimo, the annual National Novel Writing Month, was to herd those words into a coherent whole.

I had to look at my separate story threads and weave them together in a way that would generate interest and make sense for the reader. With a month of steady work behind me, I verified my count late yesterday evening: one coherent draft of 62,318 words. Yay!!!

As I saved copies of that draft, I told myself I'd take a week off writing. But I woke up this morning with more scenes. Yesterday I knew that certain scenes were insufficiently woven into the plot, and this morning I woke up with ideas for scenes that would fix that.

Last night, I went to bed thinking I wouldn't have to work on the novel for a week, and could relax into other writing projects. But I woke with a few heretofore missing plot elements that motivate Rose, as they combine to test her to the limit of her resiliency.

It seems my draft is unfinished after all. Now I must write those scenes and figure out where they fit in. This step at least is certain, for which I am thankful. The challenge of writing a novel is that there is no map. Many experienced writers have said it: for each new work, that map must be created from scratch.

After incorporating these new scenes, I will put the draft away for awhile. A little bit of distance will allow me to return to it fresh. I'll try to imagine that someone else has written it, that I am reading with an eye to editing.

The first stage of revision will mean looking at the story scene by scene, and moving scenes around to make sure they are presented in the best possible order. The goal here is to create and maintain reader interest.

Once this is done, I will read the whole draft aloud to myself to make sure it sounds right. Anything that jars the ear will have to be examined and altered as I attend to the music and rhythm of my words and sentences.

When I come to the final edit, I will look at the whole story sentence by sentence. Every word and every punctuation mark must earn its place. Anything that is not essential will be cut. After this, the novel will be ready to offer to a trusted first reader for feedback.

Nanowrimo is fantastic, because writers need deadlines. Getting my first complete rough draft together this past month has emboldened me to hope I can have a final draft done before the Surrey Writers' International Conference in October 2013.

There is a profound symmetry about the timing. Though I finished The Writer"s Studio at SFU a year ago, Wednesday evening is the formal grad ceremony for our cohort. I have a novel drafted; I am truly a writer now.