On the road…

…right now, currently rocketing through the wilds of Ontario on the back of a snorting steam engine, belching brimstone and sorcery. [And THAT, Via Rail, is a far, far better description than you deserve, I must say…]

But while I am away, I beg — nay, I PLEAD — that you turn your attention to an amazing blog I have been enjoying recently. It’s called Letters of Note, and I have had endless hours of pleasure reading the contents. How about an employment plea from Leonardo, for beginners? Or a cranky note to a misspelling student-admirer from James Thurber? Or the little story that would go on to become Peter Rabbit, as written to the child of a friend by Beatrix Potter?

Just a lovely, lovely site. You will SO thank me. Enjoy.

 

More soon…

 

~kc

Earth Hour Fallout

Hope your Earth Hour was well-enjoyed last night, and your day today was less a celebration of Fools than a joyful return to April [at LAST]!

I spent Earth Hour last night in a warm bath with the denizens of The Guild for company via laptop battery. Today I did a quick tweet-around to see how some of the other folks in my life spent the time, just for fun.

Turns out I wasn’t the only one using battery power. One group formed a collective of writers, working on battery-powered laptops stories. Another Skyped his girlfriend, both sitting in the dark — until she was forced out of her building by a fire alarm. [False, thankfully]. Another writer also found himself in the bathtub where, lights and keyboard illumination off, he edited by the light of his Cuban cigar!

Some friends were out for dinner, others sat in the dark — one group with candle-lit board games. And my sister? She did the sensible thing and went to sleep early.

By all accounts, Earth Hour was a pretty successful event this year. Power consumption generally down, and people’s awareness ignited, at least a little.

What do you think? Is it enough to make a gesture like this once a year? If you had an opportunity, what could you do to make a legitimate change in your power consumption?

All ideas welcome…please share!

 

More soon…

 

~kc

SiWC 2012 Writing Contest Opens Sunday, April 1st

No foolin’!

First time ever, an opening date for the contest. It’s going to be a real winner this year — people are clamouring at the gates already. You can find a bit more chit-chat about it HERE at the SiWC blog, but for full details go HERE. More than $4600 in prizes [not to mention all that GLORY] is up for grabs, so be sure to send your best work.

And speaking of best work, I’m scampering away now to get tonight’s Bedtime Story ready. It’ll be posted late tonight, as I’m going to go check out the Hunger Games movie this evening, but watch for it right around the witching hour.

More soon…

 

~kc

Bedtime Story: ANNIE GETS HER GUN

My suggestion — if you plan on listening to tonight’s bedtime story — is to go ahead and listen to it, and THEN come back and read this, as this post is somewhat spoiler-filled.

So.

Done?

Alrighty, then.

As noted yesterday, this is a story I wrote, inspired by what turned out to be a pretty entirely inaccurate tale about a woman named Cougar Annie. She lived up here in this neck of the woods for many, many decades, having moved here from somewhere in the southern states early in the 20th century. She was famous for her garden, for her fearlessness around the wildlife [she shot dozens of cougars over the years, a thing less frowned upon in Annie’s time] and for acquiring four husbands in her lifetime.

 

 

Her story is quite amazing.

However, she probably did not actually shoot any of her husbands. She did run at least one of them off with her shotgun, after he beat her and turned out to be pretty much a good-for-nothing sort of guy.

I kinda liked the idea that not only did she know how to look after herself, but that she had a real sense of justice. You pull your weight, you get to stay. If not — well, you can just fend for yourself with the rest of the wildlife.

And that’s what I ran with in this story.

Hope you enjoy.

 

 

 

More soon…

 

~kc

Clayoquot Sound and Cougar Annie

Hey.

I’m still here. Still hiding and writing.

However, I took a bit of time off today, and went to look for whales in Clayoquot Sound, north of Tofino.

Clayoquot Sound is a pretty famous place in Canada. The site of one of the hardest fought, most bitter battles to save Canadian wilderness ever.

And a pretty successful battle, in the end.

It is the second largest temperate rainforest on the planet. Home to astonishing trees, bears, whales, salmon, otters, sea lions, sharks — a gorgeous, frightening wilderness that is, in this incarnation anyway, at least 5000 years old.

I had an amazing time today. Got up close and personal with a bunch of grey whales, who tend to be flirtatious coquettes. They meander up the coast — there’s about 20, 000 of them, all told, from Mexico to Alaska each year. They move at the stately pace of 3-5 km/hour. They are very aware of the pesky humans, and will come up for a peek now and then, but they are not jumpers like the humpbacks and they don’t have a big dorsal like the Orcas, so they are hard to spot and almost impossible to photograph.

Also saw a big collection of sea otters afloat at least a couple of kilometres off short. These guys were BIG — up to about 80 pounds. [That’s the same size as my Silas dog…]

And speaking of big, the lazy Stellar Sea Lions were draped all over each other, enjoying the first sun beams we’ve had around this part of the world for days. There were seals, too, and a couple of the black California sea lions, but the Stellar’s were the glamour boys. They were all boys, too, blonde and beautiful — and rejected; relegated to ‘Loser’s Rock’, where they hung out with the other rejected bachelors, harem-less, and having to wait to try their luck again next year. 

As we drove back to the beach, the captain was chatting with a couple of the still-standing passengers [they dropped like flies on this trip — seasickness was apparently catching in at least one family…] about Cougar Annie. Apparently this is a pretty famous denizen of this neck of the woods, and I quite enjoyed his stories of her exploits. I plan to get her book — sounds like a great read.

But in the meantime, it gave me an idea for a story. So…if you are interested, it’ll be up on my podcast tomorrow night. kc dyer’s Friday Night Bedtime Stories — now going into [I think] the 12th week.

If you haven’t heard them by now, I invite you to listen! They are all 10 minutes or less, just the way to wrap up your week as you cuddle under the covers. You can find them all here, by scrolling back in the blog, or you can find them all collected here, at Podomatic: http://kcdyer.podomatic.com/

Anyway, tomorrow night — look for the kc dyer version of ANNIE GETS HER GUN.

More soon…

 

~kc

Edited to add: Whoah! I just looked up Cougar Annie. Her story was _maybe_ a little less wild than I heard today, but she lived to be 97…and what a life! Definitely worth looking up. And I’ll bring you my little story tomorrow.

Running Away…

Yeah, I did it.

My house is in the final throes of the reno that began as a result of the ceiling falling down last October. [There’s more stuff to happen outside, but not until things warm up — so, maybe never at this rate?]

Taking advantage of the spring-break related dearth of school gigs, I have bolted to a remote and beautiful part of a nearby island. Getting here meant ferries, rain, snow, sleet, hail, snowbanks higher than my car and breathtaking views. Being here means terrible internet [not in the village, but in the place I am staying], bizarre, erratic weather…and breathtaking views.

Totally worth it.

Wolves in the woods and deer on the lawns. And lots of words going down on paper. I’m not leaving here until this edit is done, and a new project is underway, so w-i-t-c-h-a-a-h-h…[uh — that was the sound of a whip cracking…].

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful.

 

More soon…

 

~kc

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