The HEA Cafe

(My apologies - I tried to embed these videos, but couldn’t figure out how to do it) 

This morning I was driving into the city and had my Christmas music cranked as loud as I could because, really, how can you listen to the Ave Maria or O Holy Night quietly?  You just can’t.

And then, tucked in between Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree and a Kenny & Dolly number was this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jEnTSQStGE

It was 1984 when Bob Geldoff convinced everyone to donate their time and talents to make this record (that’s back when it really was a record).  I believe they did a remake of it in 2004 to celebrate the 20th anniversary, but there’s nothing like the original.  And at this time of year, I think it’s appropriate that we all listen one more time and then reconsider what we can do to help, too.

Of course, shortly afterward, the rest of the world jumped on the idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jcrwu6WGoMs

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-KC9BxSibg

We can each only do what we can do, but if we all do a little bit, for whoever we can - whether for a stranger overseas or our next door neighbour - surely we can help make this holiday season a little brighter for everyone.

Cheers everyone!

Laura

Casting Director

I don’t plot, I don’t plan, and just thinking the word “synopsis” is enough to give me hives.  But one thing I do need to know before I start writing is what my characters look like.  So with my Casting Director’s hat securely in place, I start thumbing through my resources.

Glossy entertainment magazines are a bounty for writers, like me, who need visuals.   The articles in these publications are useless to me because, frankly, I couldn’t care less where Angelina Jolie sends her kid to school, nor do I care what Spice Girl Beckham is wearing today.  Good Lord, I can barely keep up with things in my own life, never mind the lives of perfect strangers.  Anyway, I buy these publications because I want the pictures.  Big, glossy, beautiful pictures.

Page by page, I go through them, and cut out as many faces as I can.  Most of the time, they’re faces of beautiful people (both male and female), but I’m also looking for interesting faces, homely faces, and those faces that show specific expressions or personalities.  While I can’t deny I often want my heroes and heroines to be attractive, it’s more than that.  It’s a “look”; a frown, a smirk, or any one of a million other expressions that helps define who my characters are.  If that look happens to be attached to Johnny Depp’s face, more the better.  J

I keep all the faces pinned to a huge bulletin board in my “office”.   When I start a new book, I study that board to see if the perfect face or look is there.  It’s not just the main characters I’m looking for, but secondary characters, too.  If there are animals in the story - I find those, too.  If I’m lucky enough to find the perfect look, I pull it down and pin it to my work space.  If it’s not there, I drop another small fortune on glossies and keep hunting until I find the perfect face.  Sometimes it’s easy.  Sometimes. . . .OY!!

Simple or not, when I find the perfect look to go with my character, it’s like I can make anything work.  Of course, I’d still like all those looks to be attached to Johnny Depp’s face, but I can’t have everything, can I?

It’s our Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend, so that gives me plenty to blog about. My side of the family is getting together tomorrow for turkey dinner. 25 people in all, 15 of which are kids ranging in ages from 2 - 19, and of those 15, 11 are boys. God help us all! LOL It’s becoming increasingly difficult to get everyone together now, so it’s always a huge treat when the planets align and the gods smile down on long enough for the whole crew to share a meal. Oh, don’t get me wrong - it’s not all sunshine and roses. Sure enough, there might be a tiff or two, but isn’t that what family’s all about? We fight, we make up, we eat. It’s all good!

This past week I’ve also been enormously thankful for my editor at Dorchester. Leah Hultenschmidt is an absolute angel and has helped me work small miracles on my upcoming book, The Devil’s Daughter. It will be a much better book thanks to her insight and eagle eye.

And even though Game 1 was a freakin’ nightmare, I’m very thankful the Yankees made the playoffs again. Nothing better than a couple hours in front of the tube with my kids (who really do try to enjoy the game) and Joe Torre’s boys. Go Yankees!

So whatever you’re doing this weekend, whether you celebrate Thanksgiving now or next month, I hope you have plenty to be thankful for.

My son has decided he wants to play hockey.  Now, any good Canadian mother would have had him in skates before his first pair of shoes, but I’ve never claimed to be a good mother.    He’s taken a few skating lessons over the years, but nothing serious, and has never shown any interest in hockey until this past spring.

Suddenly, he’s Ron MacLean and Don Cherry rolled into one.  He knows all the teams, and all the players’ stats, and, at the ripe old age of 9, has decided he’s going to play in the NHL.  Not only that, but he’s going to play with Jason Spezza on the Ottawa Sentators.  (I’m trying to convince him that the Canucks would be a better choice, but he won’t be swayed.)

Let me back up a second so you get the full picture.  This particular son isn’t exactly the most patient person in the world (a fault I must take full blame for).  If he’s going to do something, he wants to be the best at it right now.  It takes about 2.1 seconds for him to get frustrated and angry with himself if things don’t go just how he wants them to, and when that happens, there’s anger, tears, etc.  He’s played other sports before, but has never ever shown as much interest in anything as he has these past months in hockey.

Are you beginning to feel my angst?

So, wanting to encourage that interest, we registered him in hockey (ka-ching!), suited him up in all the gear (KA-CHING!) and then decided he really should go to hockey school over the summer because every other kid on his team will have had a couple years of hockey under his belt by the time the season starts.  So we signed him up for hockey school (KA-KA-CHING!!).  I assure him that he can’t possibly be the only kid in hockey school who’s never played before.  I explain, over and over, that it’s going to be hard, that he’s going to be frustrated, and that he needs to understand it will take time, patience and practice for him to learn to play and skate.  He’s good with that, while I’m still a little hesitant, but off we go to the first day of hockey school.

There had to be about 40 other kids on the ice with him, and he was the only one who’d never played before.  He was the only one who couldn’t skate.  He’d fall down and get back up.  He’d skate the wrong way.  He couldn’t stop, no matter how hard he tried to learn, so instead, he turned in circles.  Wi–i-i-de circles.  He chased that puck up and down the ice for hours every day, while I held my breath, waiting for him to have the melt-down I knew was coming.  I waited and waited and waited. 

Nothing.

He kept going. 

The other kids were literally skating rings around him, and he kept going.

And there I sat, up in the stands, crying my eyes out. 

I wanted to pull him off the ice and tell him to pick something else; something that wasn’t so hard, something that wouldn’t frustrate him so much or cause him such self-doubt.  As a writer, I know what it means to want something that much.  I know how frustrating it is to work so hard, yet still feel as though I’m not getting anywhere, and that I’ll never be as good as the others.  Rejection is not something anyone wants to see their child go through, and it was a physical pain I could feel in every cell of my body.

But, as my DH likes to remind me on occasion, it’s not always about me.  This was about my son, who, somehow, has found something he wants more than anything else.  The boy who would rather give up than be ‘bad’ at it, has decided to get past that and do whatever it takes to become a hockey player. 

As his mother, I ache with wanting to protect him from anything that will hurt him or break his heart, and from anything that is so hard.

As a writer, however, I know that pain, heart break and hard work will all pay off in the end.  Will he make it to the NHL?  Who knows?  He believes he will and that’s all that matters.   The mother in me has decided to work with the writer in me and encourage him to keep going, to keep pushing, and to fight through the times when he’ll want to quit.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to watch from the stands, fighting back tears, and hugging his guts out after every practice. 

Parenting and writing - neither ‘job’ is for the weak of heart.