Uprooted Plant: End of an Era
July 29, 2010 Writing, Ze Other Stuff
So this will be my last entry from Sudbury. I’ve lived in this city for two full years now. I’ve let myself grow some roots, digging down into the core of the city and suckled the toxic earth beneath our feet. I’ve felt the artistic undercurrents, tried to nurture them, fought to try to grow in my career, and found myself grappling to the side of a brick wall as I climbed higher and higher. Sure, there were some mis-steps. A brick fell loose when I stepped down from being a manager at the retail outlet that I worked at and I had to climb my way back up. A rabid monkey decided he was going to claw at my writing branch and I had to redirect it. But still, I’ve made great progress.
Ok, enough with this extended allegory… Or simile… Or whatever it is. I never let myself grow roots in North Bay or Timmins. Both locations were just temporary stops for me, and I had that in mind when I first moved there. But Sudbury… I hate to say it, but when I first moved here I was resigning myself to living here a long time. A lot of things change when you make the effort to become a part of the community. You meet people, befriend them, get active in other aspects of the community, and try to help push things along. You work hard to make sure that you’re making a positive mark on the landscape. I did that with Sudbury, and I hope to do that with Ottawa.
Everything is packed away in boxes now. I’ve a couple small items left to pack up, and then it’ll be all done. My bearded dragon is going to be right ticked off at me when I lock her in the small travel container, but she doesn’t have a choice. It feels like I’m tearing a part of myself out of the ground as I pack everything up. That’s probably why I took my time at it. My fiancee said if she were packing, she’d just be shoving everything into boxes, to hell with what they are. Me, I savoured every minute of it. Most items that I packed have some meaning to me, even if it’s something as mundane as the frying pan that I use to lazily cook bacon and eggs every Sunday morning for Sabrina and I. Of course, I also don’t want anything to break en-route, and with my brother driving, that means a lot of excess packaging materials, especially around picture frames and statuettes. 
So what fantastic things have I done while in Sudbury? I can make a pretty good list of some of the highlights:
- Managed a retail electronics store
- Payed down two of my credit cards from Max to $0, and then cancelled them
- Established National Novel Writing Month as a proper, running event
- Established Script Frenzy as a proper, running event
- Met, dated and proposed to my fiancee
- Helped form the Sudbury Hypergraphic Society, which now runs small, local events
- Attended my first writing-related convention
- Met Robert Sawyer and discussed writing with him
- Ran a writing-related booth at the Northern Lights Festival Boreal
- Helped form the Underground Writers, which is a close-knit writing & critique group
- Helped form the Monday Night Writing Pack (twice), which is a loose writing group
- Written countless short stories and several first drafts of novels
- Received my first rejection letters for stories I felt were actually worth submitting
- Taken care of a 15-year old girl in troubled circumstances for several months
- Made some awesome friends that I’m going to miss horribly
- Began writing reviews on novels and movies as I read/watch them
That’s a lot of stuff, and I feel privaleged to have had these experiences over the past couple of years. I can only hope to contribute similarly as a new era opens before me in Ottawa. This upcoming year I will have the opportunity to cultivate new ideas, have new experiences, and grow in even more ways than I’ve had the chance in the past. I’m leaving Sudbury in a much better head space than the one I arrived in, and for that I’m happy. Even though I’m pulling up my roots from Sudbury, I hope to keep a tendril or two connected because as dirty, devious, destructive, dangerous, and morally bankrupt as this city may be, there’s some things that are good about it too. You just have to know where to look, and how to connect. Using a bit of bleach to clean off the dirt helps a lot too. Who knows, you may even make a shiny spot that others will want to emulate. I like to think I managed that in my corner of the city.
I had a lot more to pack up this past week than I anticipated. As a result, I was unable to complete all the tasks that I set for myself. The deadline for moving is rigid, the one for reading Randy’s novel is a little more flexible. The one for getting my outlining, setting cards, and research cards done, also more flexible. The critique that needed to be done for today, also rigid. I’ve got all the rigid deadlines handled. I should be able to finish the outlining later on today. With everything else packed up, it’s not like I have to ability to do much else. As for Randy’s novel, I have to figure out where I put that thumb drive before I can get on that. Turns out I had only copied “shortcuts” onto my phone and not the novel itself. I know I kept that thumb drive out, but where exactly it ended up may take a bit of detective work.
As I am moving this weekend, and will be spending most of next week setting up and getting organized, I’m not going to go crazy with this weeks goals. I’m going to err on the side of caution, and set myself only one goal to be accomplished between Friday and next Thursday: set up my writing (& event organization) work area in the new apartment & take photos of it. That’s it. That’s all I need to accomplish. That may sound easy, but getting a writing area set up just right can be a challenge. I’ve never had the opportunity to really set one up, so this’ll be a new experience for me.
My writing / event organizing station will require:
- Desk
- Computer
- Chair
- 4 black board pieces & chalk
- 4 cork board pieces & pins
- A folder area for WIPs
- A motivation center / idea center
- Room for scribbles
- Maybe an easel and draft paper
- A track chart
- ???
I’ve had the chance to check out a couple of different writing spaces in person, and noticed that both are huge on shelving (for books) and cork/white boards (for notes). Surprisingly, I won’t have much shelving. Heck, I won’t have much shelving in the whole apartment, let alone in my writing area. There will be a shelf nearby, but only one section will contain books (the rest will be DVDs or Video Games). I plan to have a bookshelf in a corner of the room, right next to a reading lamp and a big comfy chair. The problem that I’ll run into is that my workspace is also going to be a part of my livingroom. The apartment is only a 1 bedroom, and I like to keep my work out of the bedroom. That leaves either the kitchen (where I’ll be constantly snacking) or the livingroom. I think, so long as I use my writing chair for work, my couch for entertainment, and my comfy chair for leisurely reading, the theory of having a dedicated space will still work.
I admit, this move has me very excited. It’s only a couple of days away. I lose my internet tomorrow. Not quite sure when I’ll be back online exactly. With some luck, there will be photos of the new apartment, maybe even a video tour. I’m hoping I’ll be able to snag someone’s open wifi until I get my own installed, but I’m not worrying too much about it at this point. If I don’t have wifi on my main machine at home, that just might work out better for getting some serious work done. I know a starbucks is only 20 minutes from home (and there’s probably one closer) where I can grab wifi to post updates and check emails.
So there it is everyone. Farewell Sudbury, and hello Ottawa!
Comments (1)
Shawn, you left this city better than you found it (at least culturally) and we thank you for it. You will be missed but not forgotten.
Good luck in Ottawa. Let me know if you need me to hook you up with some writers and company when you get there. Can’t promise you’ll click with any of them, but at least I can try.