Last week, I turned on the TV to find nothing of note on but a PBS presentation of what I thought to be a fairly bizarre musical version of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. It wasn't a musical like Oliver! but more a filming of a staged version of an English-language opera. I found it awful yet strangely compelling.

It also convinced me that I should go back and read the original novel, which I had not read since my undergraduate days in Hamilton. Figuring that Patti and I own about five million books (the residue of five university degrees in English literature and one in law), I was pretty confident we'd have a copy of A Tale of Two Cities somewhere in the house.

Sure enough, with a little bit of looking, I located one. A very small one. Our Macmillan's Pocket Classics edition of Dickens' classic (published in 1921) measures four and a half inches wide by five and three quarters inches high. In modern terms, it's about the size of an iPhone.

And the printing? Well, let me see. It's this big! For 402 tiny pages!

A challenge to read, if I do say so myself. I can't say I'm gobbling it up the way I do a Harry Potter book or a Dick Francis mystery but I'm really enjoying it. Dickens wrote in an era where time was taken to describe the scene and the people in it fully, to make broad philosophical points and to ponder the great mysteries of life. Dickens, in other words, got paid by the word.

So that's where I am right now. Reading Dickens and enjoying the rambling prose. And not doing any writing of my own.

Tags: Charles Dickens

I found a brief period one evening last week to sit down and do some writing on The Silent Goodbye. It felt good, sure, but it made me realise just how long it had been since I had worked on the novel. It's kind of frightening, really.

The story took on a life of its own as I was writing and I ended up with a very interesting confrontation between Gold and his nemesis, Pim. It was at that point, of course, that I came to the realisation that I don't write fight scenes very well. Never having been much of a fighter myself (I once got jumped from behind by a kid from my school and, instead of trying to fight him, I just carried him on my back for a block or two until he gave up and ran away), I don't have a good grasp of the physical movements that make up a fight, nor how to describe them.

I told myself to be satisfied just to get the basics down and then schedule some time to work it through, step by step, movement by movement. I think it's a good scene and it adds some physical oomph to a part of the novel that has been getting caught up in all the talking at the criminal trial. It also allows me to put Gold and Pim face to face for a moment, to make that threat real again both for the reader and for Gold.

I'm pleased to report that Gold holds his own in the battle, though, of course, he enjoys the advantage of surprise and the battle is brief. Still, good on you, Phil!

Work and life are so busy right now that I may not get back to it for a little while. I still hope to take a couple of weeks off leading up to Christmas to be a homebody and rest so maybe I'll be able to focus on it then.

In the meantime, now that I've finished all the Peanuts books I have (including the two new volumes Patti gave me as an early Christmas present), I've moved on to reading Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and Winston Churchill's series of books on the Second World War. Light reading, to be sure!

Tags: Phillip Gold

So there we are out on our favourite peninsula of land, just across from the Mactaquac Marina, playing ball with Marlee Marie, the Punkin of the Century, when all of a sudden the flock of geese bobbing on the water start squawking.

"I wonder what's up with them?" Patti says, tossing a ball for our panting pup.

I look around and see it, massive, dark and majestic. A bald eagle in all his glory, swooping down to the surface of the lake to look for fish.

Stunned, we stopped everything to watch. Marlee didn't like that. She wanted more balls to chase but we weren't going to miss a good three or four minutes of watching this amazing bird of prey at work. Swoop, glide, flap and rise. Swoop, glide, flap and rise. Beautiful.

It would have been nice if he had caught a fish but no such luck (for him or for us). When he finally decided to rest in a tree across the lake from us, another male eagle settled in near him in the same tree.

By that time, of course, Marlee had had enough waiting so we went back to our ball throwing. But not before we said a note of thanks for being so privileged as to having seen the eagle out fishing and a curse for not having our camera with us.

Tags: Bald Eagle, Mactaquac

One of the fantastic things about living in a city like Fredericton (which is quite small yet the provincial capital) is that you get a nice combination of high quality attractions with small-town convenience. We got a taste of this Saturday night when we went to see the play Marion Bridge at the local University's theatre.

We got a full serving this past Wednesday night when, at the last minute, we picked up tickets to see Canadian songstress Chantal Kreviazuk at the city's 800-seat gem, The Playhouse. Now, Kreviazuk has been a big fave of mine since I saw the video for "Wayne", her first big single, and then bought that first album, under these rocks and stones, in 1996. This was my first chance to see her live and Patti and I were delighted at our good fortune to find two seats still available in row E, at the right-centre aisle.

The drive from our house to the Playhouse is maybe two minutes and, with only 800 seats and lots of street parking around the venue, we had no problems finding a spot. Talk about a great way to spend an evening out.

Perhaps surprisingly, though we went specifically to see Kreviazuk and thoroughly enjoyed her two-hour plus set, it's the music of her opening act, Meaghan Smith from London, Ontario, that we walked away with in our heads. Of course, we also picked up a copy of Smith's exceptional debut CD so that's helped with our ability to recall her tunes.

Smith is a revelation. She and her husband, to whom she refers as simply "my band" or "Mingo" (his last name), walk on stage and, after a quick hello, launch into it a 30-minute set of her own original songs, an interesting mix of '40s-style swing, old-time country and Feist-esque pop. Interspersed among the songs, Smith tells brief, funny stories about the background to each tune while Mingo shuffles various instruments in and out of her reach.

She's a talented song writer but what marks Smith as special is her voice. Wow. We could have listened to her rich, velvety voice all night: in fact, we practically listened to it all day today by playing and replaying the CD. We're fans of Canadian female performers like Feist, Melissa Stylianou and Holly Cole and I'd put Meaghan Smith along side any of them in their early careers.

After a much too long intermission (probably extended to allow the appreciative crowd time to swarm Smith's table and buy up her CDs, t-shirts and paintings), Kreviazuk then hit the stage. Accompanied by three musicians (one a percussionist, the second primarily on the violin along with guitar and piano and the third on the cello and guitar), the now-veteran (and it makes me feel old to write that) vocalist proved up to the standard Smith had set in the opening set and then some.

I have to admit, I'm not big on Kreviazuk's often long and self-indulgent monologues between songs and her tendency toward crudeness, but I have no argument with her voice, her piano playing or her songs. She's a special talent.

The show really hit its stride when drummer took a break, allowing Kreviazuk and her piano to stand out on their own. Kreviazuk is a passionate singer and her voice is what we came to hear. Her renditions of "Surrounded" (a personal favourite of mine from that first album), "Jet Plane" and the title song of her latest album (Plain Jane) were particularly fantastic.

As much as I struggled with the monologues, they did produce some interesting moments. When Kreviazuk brought a cell phone on-stage to telephone her three young sons in British Columbia as part of her introduction to one song, the audience practically curled up in her lap to enjoy the moment. Later, as Kreviazuk launched into the wonderful new song "Plain Jane", someone in the audience rattled some kind of pill or candy container. The sudden noise in the quiet room startled the performer, so much so that she stopped playing. She was clearly thrown off and seemed to have trouble getting past it, quizzing the audience about the incident. Though an awkward moment, it also showed to all of us just how invested Kreviazuk is in her live performances, how much of her soul she pours into the show.

It was also a nice touch that Kreviazuk made sure the other musicians got the chance to show off as well. Not only did she invite Smith on stage to perform background vocals for "God Made Me", she also allowed each of her accompanying musicians an opportunity either to feature prominently in one of her tunes (the drummer) or to perform one of their own. The violinist did a nice little folk number while the cello player wowed the crowd with an exceptional version of Joni Mitchell's "I Wish I had a River" (or whatever it's called).

The current tour continues in Ontario and the prairies into December, then does some makeup dates in Southwestern Ontario in February as well. If you can, catch the show, as much for the new talents you'll discover as for Chantal Kreviazuk, a true Canadian gem.

Tags: Meaghan Smith, Chantal Kreviazuk, Playhouse Theatre

After more than a week of sunshine, New Brunswick is getting pounded with rain this morning. Rainfall warnings and everything: 50 to 60 mm expected; 75 mm or more possible. Sounds to me like a day to stay inside and write. Of course, I'll probably watch or listen to football instead.

My Hamilton Tiger Cats play their first playoff game in years this afternoon, taking on the BC Lions in the Eastern Conference Semi-Final. I know: how does a team from Vancouver get into the "Eastern" conference semi-final? Don't ask. We don't get the TV network that's showing the game so I may have to listen to the radio broadcast from Hamilton on the internet. Gotta love the internet!

Last night, instead of writing, I went with Patti and some friends to see a play at the local University. The play, Marion Bridge, was written by maritime playwright Daniel MacIvor and performed by something called the "Nasty Shadows Theatre Company". Having never heard of MacIvor, the Nasty Shadows group nor any of the actors, I didn't go in with high expectations.

I was pleasantly surprised.

The story of three very different sisters coming together as their mother sinks slowly into death, Marion Bridge inspires both laughter and tears. Two of the sisters, Agnes and Theresa, have responded to their family-of-origin issues by swinging their personal pendulums as far apart as they can. It is through the process of their mother's passing that the pendulums start to come together again and they discover, or re-discover, that which connects them as family.

Director Scott Shannon (who also voices soap opera character Justin, filtering into the action from off stage) does an excellent job of keeping up a brisk pace while providing visual interest by moving his actors deftly around the very simple, single set.

Julie MacDonald plays Agnes, a demoralised actor who returns to Cape Breton in an alcohol-induced daze, filled with anger and resentment toward a mother who forced her to give up a baby early in her life. MacDonald handles the part well, taking great care to let her character's deep-seated issues ooze slowly out while providing the interpersonal fireworks that drive much of the first act of the play.

Elizabeth Goodyear is terrific as "Sister" Theresa, the self-sacrificing middle sister who chose to become a Nun as her way of dealing with the family-of-origin stuff. Tightly wound and usually self-contained, Theresa breaks down in an extended diatribe aimed at Agnes in the second act. It's a difficult scene for any actor, with MacIvor's dialogue spiralling towards over-wrought emotion and silly melodrama, but Goodyear manages to maintain a perfect balance to her delivery, filling the words with emotion while avoiding going too far.

Rebekah Chasse plays Louise, the youngest sister, who apparently never left home. In perhaps the most difficult part in the play, Chasse must convey a wide range of the character's personal issues (her loneliness, her resentment at being treated as "different", her uncertain sexuality, her simple but complicated relationships with her mother and her two elder sisters), all the while constrained by the character's limited mental capacity. Chasse is not perfect in the role (struggling from time to time with her lines, failing to sell her character's emotional reactions to her childhood, her mother and her mother's death as effectively as her co-stars) but her performance is strong enough to contribute to the overall effectiveness of the play.

The only real negative on the night was the behaviour of several members of the audience. At various points throughout this poignant and emotional experience, the following took place among the spectators: two audience members in the front row got into some sort of whispered discussion that lasted for at least 45 seconds; one spectator allowed his cell phone to go off, very loudly, and ring four times, then instead of turning it off entirely he set it to vibrate so that those sitting anywhere near him could still hear the buzz of the vibrating phone; and another audience member first dropped a full can of pop heavily to the floor and, in trying to pick it up, rolled it noisily back and forth under his seat and then, during a particularly quiet scene, decided to crack the can open and take a swig. It's a credit to the actors on stage that they managed to ignore this rude behaviour and keep the play moving; it's a credit to the other people in the audience that they didn't turn on these inconsiderate cretins and forcibly remove them from the theatre.

All of that aside, it was an enjoyable theatre experience. Playwright Daniel MacIvor is new to me but, on the basis of this complex and interesting work, I will look out for more from him. And from Nasty Shadows.

Tags: Daniel MacIvor, Marion Bridge, Phillip Gold, Nasty Shadows, Scott Shannon, Julie MacDonald, Elizabeth Goodyear, Rebekah Chasse

My writing slump has gotten so bad people are now calling me on the telephone to see if I'm okay. "You haven't blogged in days," they say. "We thought something was wrong!"

Well, many things are wrong but none of them terminal. I haven't been able to sit myself down at the computer and write. That's the long and short of it. I actually built a fire the other night, got it going good and strong, then promptly fell asleep on the floor in front of the fireplace.

My mind is working on the next scene (a conversation between Gold and Stacey McLean) but I just haven't started writing it yet. It's getting quite frustrating. And the fact that my Rapidweaver program has now decided it doesn't want to insert Em Dashes any more I'm really upset.

So instead I've been spending my time reading The Complete Peanuts, watching movies (Lions for Lambs, starring Meryl Streep, Robert Redford and Tom Cruise, for example) and taking advantage of the surprisingly warm New Brunswick November to go golfing rather than working on the novel. My end-of-December deadline for a finished draft is still in play but I think it's getting more challenging with each passing day.

Meanwhile, Star Trek (2009) has finally come out on DVD. Of course, they have to make it complicated by releasing both a single disc version (which I take it just has the movie and not many special features) at about $20 and the two-disc steel box set that costs around $10 more. I have to admit, I'm less excited about this DVD release than I was about the last Harry Potter but I think, if I'm going to break down and buy it, I'll have to get the two-disc set, at least to see what kind of extras they include.

Lions for Lambs, by the way, was surprisingly good for a film that Rotten Tomatoes rated at about 18%. Structured more like a stage play than a major movie, it was a lot of talk but interesting talk and we thought the scenes involving Streep, as a cynical reporter, dueling with Cruise, a powerful Senator, were exceptionally good. Redford does a better job of directing this one than he does acting in it: I find the older he gets, the flatter his performances. The film's worth seeing, however. At least we think so.

Tags: Phillip Gold, Star Trek, Peanuts, Streep, Redford, Cruise

Still writing in fits and starts. Today, I had to force myself to sit down at the computer and work. Instead of writing anything new, however, I performed the very necessary task of conducting a hard, thorough edit of the entire third section (the Trial) of the novel. It's a worthwhile endeavour for two reasons: first, it gives me a chance to focus on shoring up the tone of the book and, second, it allows me to make progress on the novel even though I'm not ready to write new material.

I like the trial scene. I think it flows well, has decent levels of tension and drama, and feels right. That's all good.

Now comes the challenge of writing the turn: when Gold makes a key discovery and uses it to turn the case around. I'm not sure it will be easy to write. I'll try to take a crack at it this weekend.

Not helping me is the fact that I have started rewriting Gold's entire personal history in the back of my mind. It wasn't a conscious decision on my part; it just started happening out of the blue the other day. And now I think there might be a new novel in the revised backstory, an interesting tale featuring a eight-year-old Phillip Gold as the protagonist. Its development, however, means I will have to go back through all the Gold stories I've written so far and adjust them to match the character's new personal history. Ugh.

Not fun. But necessary. And a lot more work for me.

Tags: Phillip Gold

November 3, 2009 would have been my Mom's 74th birthday. I miss her.

Tags: Janny Walma

A weekend of work around the house and catching the odd play, sports-wise, left room at the end for some writing. So Sunday night I sat down at the old computer (as opposed to this new one) and started to re-work the scene on the courthouse steps.

I'm writing in third-person limited point of view, which places my narrator outside my main character but "on his shoulder" so to speak. I usually write my Phillip Gold stories in the first person: Gold himself tells you the story as it plays itself out. Many of my favourite mystery writers use this point of view to tell their stories because it creates an immediacy to the action and ensures that the reader pieces together the puzzle at the same time the detective does. I find it also helps the reader to identify with the main character, since we are part of his or her thoughts.

That being said, the first-person approach does not allow the author to create dramatic irony, where the reader knows something the character does not. It also requires that the reader will know the resolution to the mystery as soon as the character works it out, meaning it can be difficult to build as much tension at the climax of the story. Once the mystery is worked out, the source of tension often becomes the question of whether or not the main character will be able to catch the evil-doer, not who the evil-doer is.

Unless of course the author resorts to a one of several hackneyed tricks to hide information from the reader. But I hate that approach.

Third-person limited allows a certain distance between the narrative voice and the main character, so that the narrator can comment on the action or on other characters without implicating the main character in those opinions. It also allows the narrator to criticise the main character, to see or notice things the character fails to see, and to provide a broader view of the action than the character might have.

The style is "limited" because the narrator stays close to the main character, knows and understands the thoughts of the main character and of no other character. As a result, if the narrator is describing a conversation between the main character and his client, the narrator would be able to tell you what the character is thinking but would not be able to "go into the mind" of the client to know what she is thinking.

An omniscient narrator could do just that. Such a narrator can enter the mind of any character in the book to see her thoughts, understand her behaviour. In some books, the narrator moves from character to character within a single scene.

Okay, it's early morning and I'm running off at the fingers.

All of that is to say that I am finding it a challenge to write the bigger scenes from the third-person limited point of view. With so much going on around Phillip Gold, I often find myself either being too focused on him or allowing my narrator to see and know too much.

It's hard to get the balance right.

But, as always, I enjoy the challenge.

Next up in The Silent Goodbye: the great discovery that turns the trial around for Gold and his client. So exciting!

Tags: Phillip Gold