Blog Archives
The Darker Months
I love Halloween. It’s one of those holidays that I like even more as an adult. Sure, trick-or-treating is fun, but I’ve grown to appreciate the lengthening shadows and chill in the air even more.
For me, this time of year is all about the rattle in the leaves, the orange streetlights pooling on the evening pavement. It’s the wind stripping the branches bare; the shadow that wasn’t there a moment ago; the frost coating roofs slick in the morning; the soil slowing and gathering itself for a long slumber until spring rolls around again. It’s the seductiveness of twilight and shadows; the half-understood shiver that comes with incense and decaying leaves and words like All Hallows, and Wheel of the Year, and the dark months.
Halloween, of course, shares its roots between the Feast of All Hallows and Samhain: the Celtic (and modern pagan) New Year. I think the closing of autumn is as good a New Year as any. As discussed before, the shape of my year divides neatly into two halves: season and off-season; museum time and writing time; the warm, secure months and the colder, leaner ones. Halloween is the beginning of the end; the harbinger; the already, but not yet.
At the museum, you see, Christmas starts in mid-November: only two weeks away. Once Christmas starts, it’s a quick, short slide to the end and the off-season. Halloween isn’t the beginning of the dark months; it’s the herald of it, much the way that Easter usually isn’t springtime itself, but the promise that warmth and sunlight are returning.
So because we haven’t actually gotten into the off-season yet, for me, it’s a time of potential. You can taste winter on the wind—but it isn’t here yet. And it’s oddly appropriate to have potential beginning in the dark, isn’t it? I think of the harvest gathered in, the seeds dormant in the ground—waiting. For me, Halloween is a time of baited breath. I’m planning my off-season writing. I’m gathering myself for one last push before the season ends. I’m sensing the winds grow colder; the last leaves falling; the knowledge that the warmth is well and truly gone, now.
And if that’s all sounding a little Victorian—the winter is coming on fast—then yes, I suppose it is, a little. Now, don’t get me wrong: I cherish and value and treasure my four months of full-time writing so very much. I’m very lucky to have the set-up that I do.
But in some ways, the winter is harder. While I’m very pleased with how my writing’s supported me thus far, it’s never a sure thing. Toronto gets cold: the whole city feels too hard, like you could bruise yourself on it. Without a daily commute, a Metropass becomes too expensive to justify, which means that I spend four months walking everywhere.
None of that is here yet. But it’s coming. And Halloween is the first sign—the first shiver and held breath and remembrance of everything else that might be out there. (All those ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beasties…)
No matter what you call today, or how you celebrate, all my best to you as we enter into the year’s dark half. The winter gets cold, but the most exciting things usually start in the shadows. 😉
-KT
What I’m Listening to this Week
Well, it couldn’t be anything else, could it?
Obligatory New Year Post: 2015 Edition
I seem to recall saying that 2013 was a lost year, and 2014 would be a year to build. By and large, that’s pretty much what happened. I started my MFA. I learned an immense amount through a writer’s internship. I wrote lots—no novels, but more short stories and scripts than I’ve ever done before.
One of those short stories was my goodbye to my friend and colleague P.G. Holyfield. It still doesn’t seem entirely real—dude, I just saw him at Balticon. In fact, I was recently collating lists of voice actors and podcasters I know, and I got halfway through typing his name before realizing what I was doing. So I was very grateful to editors Tee Morris and Val Griswold-Ford for giving me the chance to have one last Tuaca with him. Just a reminder: all funds from the anthology go towards P.G.’s kids. If you haven’t already done so, please consider starting 2015 with fiction honouring our friend.
This is usually the part of the blog post where I’d talk about upcoming projects in 2015.
Um. See, well, I can’t actually really talk about most of 2015 yet.
Let’s go through the year. In a week, I’m jetting off to Maine for my third Stonecoast residency. As a third semester student, I’m expected to complete a major project over the course of the semester. I’m doing something vague and boring. A paper. Yeah.
However, my colleague, Katherine Sinclair, a bright young thing who may as well be my alter ego, is putting together a serialized podcast/transmedia project. She’s very excited. Not only is Katherine looking forward to podcasting again regularly, but she’s planning on using blogging and Facebook as part of the project. Katherine is also looking for voice talent: interested parties may enquire at coxwoodhistoryfunpark@gmail.com.
She’s pretty cool, you guys.
After returning from Stonecoast, I fight off polar bears here in the Great White North for a few weeks, and then I’m fleeing south again, this time to Virginia to spend some time with Pip, Tee, Boom, and kittehs. That trip is getting piggybacked onto a writer’s retreat. I’ve never been on one, but the idea of spending a week with friends and colleagues, working very intensively, is thrilling.
I’m devoting that week to a project that I’ve been noodling around for a while. It’s different. That’s all I can say right now.
Then I come home again. And then, a few weeks after that—
Well, I’m publishing the Dark Victorian Fantasy.
Heartstealer, as it’s actually called, drops on March 12th. I have a gorgeous ebook and print layout courtesy of Imagine That! studios, and a cover from Starla Hutchton that makes me swoon every time I see it. I’m sitting on details for a bit longer, but that’s coming. Because of course I would release a novel whilst in the middle of my third semester project and getting ready for my dayjob…
So those are three big things right in the beginning of the year. The second half of 2015 is my thesis semester. This time next year, I’ll be getting ready to graduate.
Madness.
So there’s all that to look forward to. 2014 was indeed a year of building, laying foundations, and preparing. I can’t wait to see what 2015 brings.
-KT
All right, all right, here is another new thing I would like to do. See, whenever people talk about popular music, I feel completely lost, because my tastes are…eccentric. I love music, I’m realizing more and more just how much I need it. So I want to try and explain what I love, since I can’t usually join in on conversations.
Thus…
What I’m Listening to this Week
What I’ve been listening to for the last month. Bogoroditse Devo is a stunning piece by Rachmaninoff (1873-1943). This is a Russian setting of the Ave Maria. The beauty of this piece is all in the dynamics. We start super soft and gentle, the runs of notes falling over each other like streams. About a minute in, the altos start driving, the tenors and sopranos fading in and out…except when they’re in, they’re getting louder, almost imperceptibly, until….
OMG fortissimo out of nowhere, on everyone, and the basses come back and the tenors and sopranos are blasting away on a high G (which is really fun, FYI), and the heart just soars with them…
And then we come back down.
Gentle, soft, so very delicate..
It makes my heart catch, every time.
Balticon 2014 Schedule
Balticon approaches!
Just like the unfurling leaves and May 2-4 Weekend, Balticon is a sure sign that summer is coming. This is my favourite con: relatively accessible from Toronto, just the right size, heaps of wonderful people, and great programming. Between bringing the nice young man, some really cool panels, and the chance to see some dear friends, I’m SO EXCITED for this year.
Of course, because it’s a con, I totally haven’t packed yet and I’m awaiting the appearance of my usual outbreak of convention hives. Plus, I feel barely organized enough to get the nice young man and I safely on the plane, but hey—it always works out in the end.
Want to find me during the con?
Friday
Beyond Medieval History (panelist), 4:00 pm – 4:50 pm, Chase
Reading (with Veronica Giguere and Val Griswold-Ford SQUEE), 9:00 pm – 10:00 pm, Pimlico
Sunday
The Fantasy Author’s Guide to Beer (presenting), 5:00 pm – 5:50 pm, Derby
Writing Real Children (panelist), 7:00 pm – 7:50 pm, Salon B
Monday
Skool Daze: Pursuing a Writing Career While Still in School (panelist), 11:00 am – 11:50 am. Parlour 1041
How Hard Can It Be? Jumping out of Genre (moderator), 1:00 pm -1:50 pm (Chase)
When I’m not doing panels, I’ll be roaming. You can probably find me hanging around the New Media/Literary side of things, or drooling over steampunk things in the dealers’ room (I’ve somehow acquired a tendency to accumulate stuff for the dayjob…). Come say hi, if you’re around—I wear a pounamu necklace and I am bespectacled.
I am so looking forward to this. Can’t wait to see everyone!
-KT
Cool Thing of the Week
Um. Balticon. ‘Nuff said.