Positive Changes in the Personal Sphere #MondayBlogs #Mindfulness #Meditation

 It's four in the morning and I can't sleep, so I'm reflecting on some of the positive things I've accomplished over the past year.  I'm weaning myself off my habit of ruminating on everything I'm not satisfied with, in my life.  There's a positive, right there.

I wrote some books.  That's something.  It's something I don't customarily acknowledge as an accomplishment, now that I've been writing books for 15 years. I need to work at celebrating each new book I write.  I'm a work in progress, in that regard.

For well over a year now, I've been posting daily to my music blog. That's something I'm proud of.  Doing anything daily is hard work, and there have been many times I've considered throwing in the towel. I kept at it, though, and I'm pleased to share music and memories with the reading public every day of the year.

The things I'm most proud of are personal.

But not too personal that I won't share them with you.

Since the start of this pandemic, I've enrolled in three free online courses that focused on personal growth. I completed the ones on happiness and relationships, and I'm currently working on a course in mindfulness.

One thing that came out of the happiness course was a commitment to meditation practice. I try to do this daily, but it doesn't always happen. Every time I meditate, I feel like I've done it wrong. I don't think I'm getting results or seeing effects.  But I keep hearing about all these studies showing the positives that come out of meditation, so I keep at it, and I see those positives manifest in my life. 

Even if I don't feel like I'm doing meditation right, I'm still seeing benefits.

The most significant course I took this year was a course of therapy.  This is something I've needed for decades, but I've never had the resources. The pandemic changed that, for me, because the province I live in made free therapy available to everyone.  

I went through an extremely intensive twelve weeks of CBT combined with the support of an excellent therapist, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that it changed my life.

Honestly, the reason I sought out therapy was that I looked at my behaviour, my mood swings, my midlife crisis, my perimenopausal rage, and I saw that I was being very unfair to my partner. Unpredictable. Irrational.  Out of control.  I was so afraid of losing him. Our time together has been the best time of my life.

I wish I could have sought out therapy for ME instead of doing it for my partner, but I guess I never valued myself highly enough. I never thought I was worth it. 

Looking back, I realize therapy would have been worth any money--even money I didn't have. But I can't change the past, so I won't bother saying I wish I'd done this decades ago. Because I did give therapy a shot decades ago, the last time I had access to free therapy sessions. Unfortunately, there therapist I was paired with wasn't a good fit for me.  The three sessions I had were not terrible helpful.  Certainly not life changing. 

These ones were.  

The work we did led me to insights about my personality that were truly mind-blowing. And they were the kinds of things where you're like... how did I never notice that about myself? Why did I never connect those dots? They're the sorts of things you see in someone else and go, "Oh, well, she behaves this way because of that thing that happened to her." 

Easy to see in someone else, much more difficult to see in oneself.

When I did that happiness course, I found out that my overriding positive personality trait is gratitude. 

But I could have told you that.  

I am deeply grateful for this career I get to keep because of readers like you. I'm grateful that book sales provide a roof over my head and put food on the table. I am grateful to have a loving and supportive partner who welcomes personal growth rather than being intimidated by it. And I'm grateful for all the resources I've been able to access that cost only my time and effort.

The other day, I said to my partner, "This time last year, I thought I was going to lose you. With all my hormonal changes and mood swings, I didn't think you'd stay with me--and I couldn't have blamed you, if you'd left. But with all the therapy and meditation, I feel so much calmer. Is it just me, or have I changed?"

He assured me that the change has been tremendous. I guess I didn't need him to tell me that, but it's always nice to get positive feedback from someone you hold in high esteem.

Now I just need to work on being one of those people I hold in high esteem.

The work is never done. 

#BookBreak is the new #CoffeeBreak

I listened to a whole bunch of podcasts this weekend, including a number of episodes of Under the Influence. Not technically a podcast, okay.  Under the Influence is a CBC Radio program that looks inside the world of marketing.

One of the many things I learned from binge-listening is that many of the habits we take for granted actually started life as marketing campaigns. The coffee break, for instance. That was a made-up thing.

So it got me thinking... why can't I make something up? What's a book-related habit? Reading. I do it every day. How about if I piggyback on the already-established coffee break to establish the BOOK BREAK. Oh my gosh, I'm a genius!

Well, turns out so are a bunch of other people. When I searched the hashtag #bookbreak I saw that not only is there a vlog called Book Break, but lots of people tweet about what they're reading, even pairing a pic of their beautiful coffee with their beautiful book.

This is not a new idea, but I'm adopting it for the month of May. And I hope you will too, whether you're a reader or a writer. Tweet what you're reading every afternoon with the hashtag #bookbreak. It'll be fun.

Okay, but this whole line of thought started out in the marketing realm, so my brain is still going, "How can I make this about me?" haha.  I laugh, but I'm serious. How can I encourage people to read my books?

By giving them away. Of course.

So that's what I'll do this May.  I'll give books away every day on Twitter--every workday, that is.  Since most officey people work Monday through Friday, I'll do this Monday through Friday.

Here's what I'm thinking: I'll provide a different free ebook every day, probably from All Romance Ebooks since it's easy to change prices quickly at that site (so get an account if you don't have one).  My initial thought was to provide Smashwords coupons which you could redeem for a free book, but... is that too complicated?

Anyway, the key is that it's a different free book every day. I have a big back list. I can do these things.

Today's inaugural free book will be Giselle's Best Fetish Erotica, which I released last week for free. So far I've given away more than a thousand copies!  THANK YOU for picking one up.  How depressing would it be if I gave away a brand new book for free and nobody downloaded it?

OMG why did I even think that?

Giselle's Best Fetish Erotica will be going up in price to a whopping $0.99 starting today, but you can still get it absolutely FREE at All Romance Ebooks: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-giselle039sbestfetisherotica14kinkysexstories-2029278-354.html

And I hope you will!

Remember to tweet your #bookbreak read every afternoon!  I'm looking forward to lots of engagement, and that means from authors too. Don't be afraid to jump in and show us what you've got!

At the end of the day (or mid-afternoon), we're all readers.

P.S. Every time I type #bookbreak I think of Body Break:


Strengthen those wrists!

NOT your MOTHER'S Grapefruit

I guess it's trendy, these days, to marginalize our mothers' experiences and citrus fruits and what have you.

I don't know what this means!

I spent the weekend cleaning my apartment, but I couldn't throw this out without sharing. It's the label thingy from a bag of grapefruit--NOT your MOTHER'S Grapefruit, as it clearly specifies.  My mother isn't a housewife from the 50s (or a cartoon character, unfortunately--would have been fun, growing up with a cartoon mom) so not sure I would have made that assumption.

Oh, and in case you can't see the little letters above "Florida Ruby," they spell out: The Health and Beauty of the Modern Grapefruit.

et puis en français

Flash in the Pen Cover Reveal

Coming soon to an online bookseller near you...

Flash in the Pen: 24 Extremely Short Erotic Stories

 Got a minute? Read a quickie!

Flash in the Pen features two dozen tantalizing tales—one for every hour of the day, if you can wait that long to read them. Once you start, you might never want to stop! This book is erotic tapas. You get a delicious taste of everything from tantric energy exchanges to sudden stranger sex, from BDSM to butt plugs.

Girls acting like kitties and pretending to be puppies.

Fisting. First times. Fantasies.

Sexy surprises.

There’s a little something for everyone in this collection, so get ready for a frenzy of flashers!

Coming out March 15 2015 from eXcessica Publishing

I'm a sucker for a good font...

That's why it took me over a month to complete the cover for my upcoming anthology of literary erotica featuring characters who are trans, genderqueer or gender non-normative in one way or another.

It's called Everybody Knows.

I found the perfect image pretty easily. It's a simple design--something artistic rather than sexy bodies screaming SEX! Sure these stories involve sexuality, but not in a smutty way. Some are so challenging they made me uncomfortable as I proofread the book. I didn't want readers who've enjoyed my MASTERWORKS OF SMUT (like Nanny State and the Adam and Sheree books) expecting this to be that. This and that are different animals. I wanted to communicate that fact with the cover.

The other day, my sister was asking me what readers of literary erotica wanted. I told her we want to think. We want to be challenged. We want content that's not only explicit, but also difficult--intellectually, emotionally, in a variety of ways. We seek the thrill of a twist as well as the recognition sparked by the mundane. And we value diversity.

That's Everybody Knows.

Sorry. Tangent. Back to Fonts.

Like I said, I found the right image pretty easily. As you'll see in a moment, it's a watercolour splotch that transitions from one colour to another. That worked for me on so many levels. As for fonts, none of the usual suspects did.

During the same conversation I mentioned above, my sister asked how long it takes me to create a book cover. Time spent varies drastically, but I can easily spend three hours choosing the perfect font. In that time, I don't move from the computer. I can't. I'm stuck. Sometimes I get up to look at my screen in the mirror and check out my work-in-progress from different angles, but I can't even leave the room to pee until it's perfect.

The cover for Everybody Knows was on my mind constantly. I hated that it wasn't finished. I kept going back to it, trying the same-old-same-old fonts again and again. A lot of them could have worked, but I'd have been settling.

That's when Akula walked into my life.

Akula is a dry brush font that's a little edgy, a little messy, but in the best way possible. I tried it out. It was perfect. It IS perfect:

Everybody Knows is scheduled to hit the market this Thursday--that's February 26th 2015.  It'll be available as an ebook and in print.

And if you love Akula as much as I do, you can buy it at Creative Market: https://creativemarket.com/IvanirAnna/132051-Akula-Dry-Brush-Font. I'm not a member of their Partner Program, so nobody's paying me to send you their way. I just really love this font and I want the whole world to know.

3 Cover Reveals in 1 Convenient Post!

What can you expect form Giselle Renarde Erotica in the near future?  Well, I'm posting this mostly so I'll force myself to stick to the release schedule I wrote on the back of a cereal box (don't ask...) but here are my "Coming Soon" titles for the rest of August:

Friday August 15th: Giselle's Big Box of BDSM

12 Erotic BDSM Shorts! Psst... the print version is already available...

Friday August 22nd : Thieving Fairies

A second edition, but if you've never read it, it's new to you!

Friday August 29th: What Do Lesbians Do In Bed?

Gotta say, I'm pretty proud of this cover... and the title!

Stay tuned to Donuts and Desires and follow me on Twitter @GiselleRenarde to keep up to date with this month's new releases!
Hugs,
Giselle

Pre-Order Now! Like It's 1999: Diary of a Teenager in Love with a Teacher

When I first mentioned I would be releasing the diary I wrote in my final year in high school as a book, many of you expressed a voyeuristic attraction to my young adult life.  First off, thanks!  I was relieved to receive so much encouragement.  I'm never sure if I'm heading in the right direction, not only when it comes to my writing life, but in every aspect of my existence.

I think I might have mentioned this before, but I only came across my diary from 1999 (the only year I kept a diary) a couple months ago.  I'd forgotten it existed.  When I sat down to read it as a thirty-something, I wasn't exactly pleased.  It didn't read the way I wanted it to. I wanted it to be... different.  I think I wanted ME to be different.

When I tell myself the story of that time, I always seem to cast myself as the villain.  In my mind, 1999 is the story of a young seductress discovering her sexuality to wield power over the teacher she's got a crush on.

But when you read the diary you'll see, as I did, that the story I tell myself doesn't reflect the truth.  I was much more vulnerable and naive than I was ever willing to admit.  Maybe that's why I felt such a strong compulsion to make this diary public: I can't change the past--I can only change my perception of it. 

I've seen myself as the villain of my life story for 15 years.  Strangely, it's hard to come to terms with the possibility that perhaps I was just another teenaged girl navigating young adulthood.

But sharing the diary with you when it's released on March 14, 2014 is part of that process.

I should probably "warn" you this isn't a sex diary. There's really no adult content... well, not compared to the stuff I usually write.

LIKE IT'S 1999: Diary of a Teenager in love with at Teacher is now available for pre-order from Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/like-its-1999-giselle-renarde/1118723655

LIKE IT'S 1999: Diary of a Teenager in love with at Teacher


True confessions of a real-life high school student on the cusp of a new millennium.

On the eve of the year 2000, high school student Giselle struggles with spirituality, ambiguous friendships, a family dealing with the aftermath of substance abuse, and deepening feelings of attraction toward her English teacher, a married man more than twice her age. Over the course of one school year, she shifts from seeing Lawrence as a father figure to falling obsessively in love. Is Giselle making a total fool of herself, or will her teacher return her affection? Having an affair with a student would easily cost Lawrence his career, his wife, and his kids, not to mention his sanity. Will a by-the-books teacher sacrifice everything to indulge Giselle’s teenage crush?

LIKE IT’S 1999 is the actual, unabridged, honest-to-god diary of a teenager in love with her teacher.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/like-its-1999-giselle-renarde/1118723655

Obligatory Family Day Post (or "Watching Downton Abbey With My Mother")

Today is a holiday in Ontario.  It's "Family Day." Usually I blog about that as a concept, but after spending yesterday with my mom and a couple of my siblings, I'm just going to post this conversation that happened during Downton Abbey (it was LAST week's episode, which I'd missed):

Mom: I've never seen this show before.

Me: It's a soap opera.

Mom: Who is that?

Me: Anna. She's a maid.

Mom: Oooh... what happened?

Me: She was raped.

Mom: By him?

Me: No. That's the Earl. He owns the house.

Mom: Is that girl a maid too?

Me: (laughing) No, that's Lady Mary.  She's one of the Earl's daughters. She sort of runs the house. Kind of.

Mom: Is that the Head Servant?

Me: The butler, yes.

Mom: Is that the girl who was attacked?

Me: No, that's Lady Edith. Her fiancee is missing.

Mom: I wonder how they get their hair like that.  Do you think they... (Sorry, guys, my mom talked about hair over an entire scene and I don't remember a word she said, until:) ...and then they'd put pins in it, like bobby pins, to keep the curls in place.

Me: Okay.

Mom: Oh... HER!

Me: Maggie Smith.

Mom: She's in this?

Me: Yes.

Mom: Is that the girl who was attacked?

Me: No, that's Lady Edith again.

Mom: Do they always talk about pigs this much?

Me: Yes, Downton Abbey is 50% pigs.

(my sister walks into the room)

Sister: This episode was on last week.

Me: I know. I missed it.

Mom: I've never seen this show before.

Sister: What? We watched it together last week.

Mom: Hmmm... I thought I'd never seen it before.

Sister: We watched this EXACT episode last week!

Mom: I must have fallen asleep.

Sister: No, you didn't. You asked me questions through the entire thing.

Mom: Do you know how they get their hair like that?

Sister: THAT'S WHAT YOU ASKED ME LAST WEEK!

(aaaaand scene)

Happy Family Day.
Giselle

That Little Perv Is At It Again: My Sexy Teacher, My First Time

Remember Lexi Wood? Sure you do. She's the sock puppet who's got her own section on my blog. She drives me nuts, but I just can't say no.

I thought she'd given up on smut after her first novella (Dance for Daddy, Salome) was banned by Amazon.  It might be back now (as something like Dance for ME, Salome, since you can't say "Daddy" at Amazon) but what the hell do I know?  That's Lexi's problem.

Anyway, she's got another ebook on the market now. It's a barely-legal first-time student/teacher piece of crap called My Sexy Teacher, My First Time.  I don't even know why I'm telling you about it.  I do way too much for this chick.

But just in case erotica set in a 1970s high school appeals to you, here's the blurb and whatever:

Lots of girls have crushes on sexy high school teachers.  When eighteen-year-old April Andrews’ biology teacher tells her they can’t be together, will she take his rejection lying down?  Or will she try even harder to make him her first? 

Excerpt:

When the bell sounded, I was surprised to hear him say, “Miss Andrews, would you stay a moment after class, please?”

Some of the girls made an “Ooooh” sound as they walked by me, and I realized for the first time how transparent I’d been, and how I’d put Mr. Lindbeck in danger of losing his job.  If the principle thought there was anything going on between my teacher and I, Mr. Lindbeck would be fired for sure.  It didn’t matter that I’d already turned eighteen and was officially an adult—I was a student and any relationship that blossomed between us would be utterly unacceptable.

Why had it taken me so long to realize that?

I approached the long podium from which Mr. Lindbeck taught, and even before the class had cleared out I apologized for what I’d said the week before.

“Never mind,” he replied, in a way that made me think perhaps he wasn’t angry anymore.  “You missed half a week’s work, Miss Andrews.  There’s plenty of catching up to do if you don’t want your grades to slip.”

“Thank you,” I said.  I still couldn’t bear to look him in the eye.  “I’m sorry.  I mean it, sir.  I’m terribly, terribly sorry for saying… what I said.”

He chuckled as the last students filtered out of the classroom, and he closed the door after them.

And locked it.

***

If you actually want to buy Lexi's stupid story, it's available from Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/375134

You might even find it at Amazon and Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/my-sexy-teacher-my-first-time-lexi-wood/1117444202?ean=2940045422826

Sock Puppet Author Lexi Wood

LEXI WOOD is a sock puppet who came to life one night while her keeper was out picking up Chinese food.  When nobody’s around, she bashes her face against a typewriter until stories come out. And those stories are shocking.

Lexi’s exterior is 53% acrylic, 37% nylon, and 10% recycled tinsel.  On the inside, she’s full of bloodlust, wanderlust, lust-lust, bathtub gin, and pills she found on the floor.  She also got into those tranquilizers you give your cat to get it in the travel carrier.  You shouldn’t leave those things lying around.

Handmade in Vulgaria.

When she’s feeling dirty, Lexi likes to be held in soapy water and rubbed vigorously.  In her spare time, she sits on the shelf, waiting for someone to shove a fist in her hole. 

Who would? Lexi Wood!

 

Did You Know About This?

It's something like this, except different.

Hey, so... did you know I had a website?


Correction: I HAVE a website.  Actually, I HAD one too.  The past tense site was a Webs site, which was shut down by the powers that be because I had the audacity to link to eeevil erotica. For shaaame!


But let's forget about those douchebuckets for a second and talk about my current site.  It's a Wix site.  Shut up--it is so cool.  Yes it is.  Oh, whatever.  You don't know what you're talking about.

Anyway, I've had this site for a while, but it's on my mind today because I finally updated it.  Finally.  After going almost TWO YEARS without setting a grubby little finger on it.

Am I stupid or just a terrible business owner?  Well, both, actually.

Everybody knows that you have to maintain a strong web presence if you want to keep your product/brand visible and accessible and whatever.  I'm on Twitter every day and I'm here at the blog most days too, but letting my website go back to nature was just... stupid.  Really stupid.

So I updated it today.

Here it is:

gisellerenarde.wix.com/erotica/

And I promise to try to be less stupid in the future.

We'll see about that.

Giselle

Well, Blow Me Down!

I never expected this to happen.  Never in a million years.

Last week, when I clicked the Amazon link to my trans lesbian romance "Friday Night Lipstick," I got quite a shock.  It was charting: #77 in Lesbian Romance.

Wow!

I'm the first to acknowledge that my transgender romance stories are niche products.  I write them because they deserve to be written.  I write them because they reflect my relationship with my girlfriend, who is trans.  I write them because she told me long ago that she found erotica involving transgender characters very frustrating--fetishistic in a way she found toxic and insulting.  I wanted to write fiction with trans characters and include erotic content she could relate to.

Essentially, I write trans fiction for trans people.  The market isn't huge.  I know that.  And that's why I was so blown away to see this little book in the top 100 lesbian romances on Amazon.

The other reason I was so shocked to see Friday Night Lipstick charting is that my leading ladies are both over fifty.  I didn't think a romance involving women in the 50+ age group would have much appeal, but I couldn't make them younger.  My characters tell me their stories.  You can't make this stuff up.  And when they tell you how old they are, you can't say, "No you're not."

I'm blown away and elated that my little trans book has been so successful... and it's all thanks to you!

Much love to everyone who has purchased a copy of Friday Night Lipstick.

If you'd like to read the first chapter, it's available to read for free right now at D. Renee Bagby Presents First Chapters:  http://drb1stchp.com/2013/08/friday-night-lipstick-by-giselle-renarde/

Get it charting again at Amazon, right here:
http://www.amazon.com/Lipstick-Transgender-Lesbian-Romance-ebook/dp/B00EH4BBGW/ref=dondes-20

Guest Post: "Exposing Myself" by David Sullivan

I read the following post on the blog of my fellow loveyoudivine author David Sullivan, and asked him if I could scoop it up and bring it to you.  He's such a doll.  Here he is, exposing himself:

I love to write and create stories from life. Well, don’t all authors do that? I add my sometimes silly sense of humor, the art of inventing words, and a significant dose of wise-ass to my stories so that I enjoy them, and to be honest yet humble, many others also find an interest and lust in them and that warms me.

I primarily write bi-sexual stories because I am bisexual, closeted for most of my life, out for 3 years, because I live in a safe part of the US (and the world) that doesn’t kill or drag non-straights behind cars.

If you’re interested in erotic (Yes, I mean horny, sexual) stories with a developed plot, please check out my new book, Hearts United. It’s a compendium of 8 short stories that is a coming of age for a young, American-born Italian lad who learns gay and bisexual conduct is thousands of years old, and that modern society sadly has reverted to a Dark Ages of sort by trying to make all of mankind gay or straight. Young Joshua DeAngelo is blessed with a loving, understanding father, and a dictatorial mother who lacks love and nurturing qualities.

Josh comes out to his best friend, Rachel, who lusts for his love. Josh does a men’s room hookup and falls for the guy, sexy Cole. In the end there’s an awesome 3-way that seals their love and friendships. Along the way Josh is ‘used’ by three college girls roleplaying as pirates, and Josh is seduced by a cougar (Stephanie) who teaches him new tricks, including orchestrating a 4-way with Cole, Stephanie and her client Torin.
The purpose of my life is to serve, and I hope I’ve served readers with this creation. I loved writing it and proudly, yet humbly offer it to the world for hot, steamy sexual entertainment. Why deny yourself anymore?

Check it out :
http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=26&products_id=1089

From Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Hearts-United-ebook/dp/B00B8XXUH8/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1360612615&sr=8-4

Sincerely,
David Sullivan
Proud author of a phenomenal publishing house, Love You Divine!
And remember, regardless of your sexual identity, we all came from the factory as we are!

Thanks for letting me steal your post, David! 

Hugs, 

Giselle

The Lesser Blessed and Me Without My Camera

I've lived in Toronto for more than 30 years and never attended the film festival until yesterday.  It's a big thing, the Toronto International Film Festival.  Glitzy, glam-y, red carpet-y, celebrity stuff.  Not really what I'm into, myself.  I wouldn't recognize most Hollywood personalities if I tripped over them.

But this year I had a reason.  There's this author, Richard Van Camp, who lives in the Northwest Territories.  (For my international readers, Canada is comprised of 10 provinces and 3 territories.  The territories are on top.)  I first encountered Richard Van Camp's writing in an anthology called The Exile Book of Native Canadian Fiction and Drama.  When I started a tweet about how much I enjoyed his story, I stopped for a sec and thought, "Hey, maybe he's on twitter."  Sure enough, he was, and we became fast twitter-friends.

Social networking's pretty kick-ass, right?

Anyhoo, when Mister VC tweeted that the film adaptation of his book The Lesser Blessed was coming to TIFF, I knew I had to see it.  The first screening took place Sunday September 9th at Isabel Bader Theatre, where I happened to have attended classes back when I was a student at Victoria College.  The world gets smaller by the day, I tell you.  

I guess I didn't realize what a REALLY BIG THING this was.  For some reason, I thought The Lesser Blessed had premiered already, somewhere else.  Okay, I was wrong.  This screening was the world premiere.  When I got to the theatre and saw people in tuxedos and shiny gowns, I kind of went... damn... I should have dressed up a little more.  I DIDN'T wear my usual dirty cargo pants and ripped hoodie, but even so, I felt notably underdressed.

I also didn't expect to see STARS!  I'm talking MY kind of stars, the kind I WOULD realize if I tripped over them, actors like Tamara Podemski (and am I crazy or were there other Podemskis on site? Maybe I was seeing double, I don't know.)  It kind of made my knees wobbly, seeing filmmaker Anita Doron on the red carpet in her lovely blue gown (that I don't have a picture of because I didn't bring my damn camera!)  Everything felt dreamy, like stuff you see on TV but never experience in real life.

So, the next question I've almost forgotten to answer is: "How was the film?"  Well, it was amazing and it made me cry more than once.  Thank goodness I found some tissues stashed in my pocket, or I would have been wiping my nose on my shirtsleeves.  I'd love to give a more in-depth film analysis, but unfortunately I spent the entire course I took with Professor Bart Testa mooning over the silver sexiness of Professor Bart Testa, so I didn't absorb all that much.

The Lesser Blessed is the type of movie that gets called "gritty" because it's such an authentic portrayal of the human experience and human emotion.  It is exactly the kind of film I love: engaging, raw, suspenseful, and beautifully acted by a cast that stretched from Benjamin Bratt and Kiowa Gordon to newcomer Joel Nathan Evans, whose performance was stunning.

During the Q&A after the film, the director told the story of casting Joel in the leading role.  They wanted to find a teenaged actor from the Northwest Territories for the lead role of Larry, so they set off on a little road trip and had open auditions in high schools across the territory.

In Richard's hometown of Fort Smith (if I'm not mistaken), the place upon which the fictionalized setting of the film is based,  they held their audition and nope, no luck.  As director Anita Doron walked through the halls of this high school, she passed by a tall, lanky boy who was making everybody laugh, and she knew she'd found her Larry.  "He didn't come to the audition," the director told the audience.  "He had a math test.  He didn't care."

My highest accolades go out to this production and everyone who worked on it, cast, crew, and creatives.  If you're in or around Toronto, there's another screening tomorrow, Tuesday Sept 11 2012: http://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiff/2012/lesserblessed  Check it.

I also want to say that TIFF volunteers are super-awesome and treat patrons like royalty.  Thanks for your devotion and time, volunteers!

Big hugs,
Giselle

The City Sucked My Soul (and authors gave it back)

I've written on many occasions about how becoming an author made me a better person.  To recap, once upon a time I worked in business.  I had an office job.  I was promoted too fast for my own good (or anybody else's, for that matter) and by my late twenties had far more responsibility than I wanted or deserved.

It was a weird time.  I wasn't happy and I wasn't nice.  Those who have known me all my life would  tell you I've always had a brusque personality (can you believe it?), but working downtown and dealing with asshole clients brought out the worst in me.

Thankfully, my company's Toronto office was closed down by our American Overlords (all hail!) and I was out of a job.  That was another weird time, because my bosses wanted to "sell" me (in a political sense) to colleagues or competitors at other organizations.  "Just MEET with him, meet with her, see what they've got to offer."

But nobody in business could buy me back that slice of soul I'd abandoned to the city. Only the writing community could do that.

Just yesterday, I realized how huge a role "the city" played in my soul-sucking.  I'd blamed business, work, clients, but they were only a piece of the puzzle.  The city is the landscape of soul-sucking.

I walk a lot, largely because I don't have a car and public transit brings out my ragefulness if I'm not having a particularly zen day.  So I walk, far and wide.  But I usually avoid Yonge Street.

Yonge is a main street here in Toronto that runs North/South, pretty much dividing the city in two.  It spans the entire length of Toronto and then some.  It's a really long road, and it's many things to many people.  Mid-town it's swanky, uptown it's "Young and Eligible" (a play on the intersection Yonge and Eglinton, where the single yuppies live), but right downtown it's scuzz.

Yes, it's tourist central--this is where the Eaton's Centre is located--but that doesn't reduce the Jerry Springerness of the area.  Actually, I don't want to get snarky because I'm talking about serious issues here.  During my walk to BuskerFest (North America's largest festival of busking), I encountered so much homelessness and mental illness on the city streets that I wondered how I used to navigate these paths every day without my heart tearing in half.

Because it's always been like this.  Whether homelessness stats are up in the city, I'm really not sure.  But I remember a time when I blocked it out.  I remember a time when a guy screaming, "Give me a fucking quarter you fucking bitch!" was just something you walked by without FEELING it.

When I began writing professionally, everybody in the industry was so NICE to me.  I couldn't believe it.  Other authors were helpful, and their pleasant encouragement touched me, right to my very heart.  They made me want to be kind to other people, not just authors, but real people I see every day.  I started looking homeless people in the eye instead ignoring them, acknowledging their personhood and existence.  It started hurting my heart when I saw other people doing what I used to do, just walking by, tuning it out.

Yesterday, there was a momentary shift in me.  Yonge Street did the trick.  The poverty and illness (and fervent religiosity) overwhelmed me to the point where I slipped back into that zone other urbanites have no doubt lived in: you stop seeing people, stop hearing their pleas.  They stop existing.  It's a protective place.

I'd like to think our hearts can only handle so much sorrow, but it has to do with noise as well.  At Yonge and College, I had 3 dudes with leaflets telling me I was going to hell while and elderly woman asked me for change.  All at the same time.  When 4 different people are all at you for something, it's hard not to shut down, especially when you know you're going to take 2 steps forward and the same thing's going to happen all over again.

I shut down yesterday.  I stopped seeing human suffering, stopped acknowledging human beings.  I think it was only a temporary measure on the part of my psyche, but I understand now how I managed to shut down (emotionally) so completely when I worked in that environment every day.

I don't know how many of you are country mice and how many are city mice, but I'd love to hear your perspectives.  I'd especially love to hear comments from people who grew up in smaller communities, about their experiences with large urban centres.

Thanks for being my stand-in therapists, everybody.
Have a great Monday.
Hugs,
Giselle