An Early Thaw

A couple of days ago it was my birthday. Having a birthday in February is a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, it's a nice break in what is arguably the most depressing month of the year.  On the other hand, if birthdays depress you then you feel just that bit deeper in the hole.  It is not that getting a year older depresses me, but around this time I'm not at my best.  I feel I'm in some kind of creative, emotional and even spiritual deep-freeze, a period of stasis where my life has come to a standstill. The new year never really starts for me until March or April.

This year, I'm happy to say, has been an exception for the most part. Preparations for my upcoming book are keeping me busy and I've been trying to come up with creative ideas for promoting it.  Also, I'm working on revising a novel, so there has been a lot to occupy my thoughts with little time to feel sorry for myself.

The icing on the birthday cake, so to speak, came actually the day before the big event when I received a phone call saying I had won the One-Page Screenplay Contest  I had entered in 2008.  The contest is a continuing one put on by WILDsound  in Toronto.  The winner gets their screenplay made into a short film that is posted on the WILDsound web site and shown at some film festivals.  I was also interviewed for the WILDsound podcast.

I am also trying to book live readings to promote Fatted Calf Blues.  I will be having a book launch in Charlottetown on April 23 and so far have two readings in Montreal in May and two in Hamilton in June. The details for these readings are posted on the home page of this web site and on my FCB Facebook group page.  

Things seem to be happening fast and I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a tad overwhelmed at times, but I look out my window and see the frozen white expanse of Foxley River and think that in a few months I'll hear that tell-tale crack when the ice starts to break.  In the meantime, an early thaw seems to be taking place even closer to home.