By the way, I now have Twitter! You can see all of my recent tweets to the right. It's so much easier to update than a blog.

Not that I won't be blogging. But the prompt "What are you doing?" is very helpful.

So I've been basically living in the TV room. It's hard to remember to eat when you're drowning in deadlines. Under constant pressure to be chasing a story. I feel like all of my creativity is being sucked dry. Maybe that's why I've been reporting on artsy stories.

Anyway, the first show of The 'fax is up. It's what my TV workshop produces every week. This week is a special internet-only preview. Next week we'll start airing on Eastlink, at 7:30 Atlantic time.

You should watch! My story is about Nocturne, the festival of art at night. It's a bit dark, for obvious reasons, but I shot, wrote and edited it myself! Hurray!

PS, the intro is AWESOME. I'm the one who spins and puts on a hat :)

...is René Auberjonois.

He plays Odo in DS9 and...he plays the chef in the Little Mermaid. And the soundtrack for that movie has been stuck in my head for like all week. He sings a song about killing fish and eating them.

"I love les poissions, HEHEHE HON HON HON."

Also, I can just hear Ursula singing, "And she who holds her tongue gets the man." Ben loled at that part.

I'm SUCH a keener.

I'm half way done my first news story for the TV workshop. Real TV. Well, okay, the first episode is going up on Youtube, but still.

I covered Nocturne, an art festival held at night in Halifax. It was really cool to see. When it's up on the web, I'll post a link here.

And so far, I got some really awesome visuals. People in costumes wandering around, people displaying handmade clothes in windows, and story telling with pictures. It was pretty cool. It proposed an extra challenge because

1) It was at night. So I had to white-balance the hell out of the camera, and have the grain set to high. Those zebra lines were scary. But fortunately, they don't ACTUALLY show up on your tape. Just on your view screen.

2) I was by myself. I was expecting some help but everyone else at my class went to the Joseph Howe Symposium. Which I was supposed to be at, the young "keen" potential journalist that I am, but instead I was leading thirsty Keith's beer drinkers back in time.

I was really nervous this morning because I didn't know if the video would turn out because it was so dark. But it actually turned out really good. Except that I kinda cut off the top of one of my interviewees heads. Oopsies. Well, not bad for being my own camera person.

On the to-do list for tomorrow: dump my tapes into the mac to edit. My favourite part! Except that I hate macs. Grr. And I'm writing this on a Mac. Okay, I don't hate Macs, I'm just not used to them. Like, this Safari window won't let me use tabs. And I live for tabbed browsing. Twenty windows at once is a norm for me.

I've been in this room for like six hours straight. I need a beer.

Import my hotmail accounts onto my gmail. Now I don't have to worry about checking (or...not checking) my hotmail accounts. Everything goes to the same place. YAY.

So, if you've sent me an email to my hotmail account, I might just get it.

I've just started my TV workshop so I'm getting super-duper organized with everything. The TV workshop consists of our class writing, shooting, and producing a half-hour news show called The Fax that will air on Eastlink at 7pm on Thursdays.***

The first show will be...the last Thursday of the month, I do believe.

There will be a run through show that will be posted to the internets, so that we can get a feel for what it's like.

Apparently, we have it easy. We're expected to write, shoot and edit one piece in about 36 hours. Most news rooms are lucky to have six. So, yay us.

I don't think I would ever work in a real TV news place. I like the pace of a weekly. So far. Then again, it's only the second day and I'm just chasing stories.

Excuse me while I put on my hunting gear.

***Website not really up yet. It's just a template that the proff put up. But you're welcome to search Youtube for past episodes.***

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY ALL DONNNNNEEE!

I am now 25% done my last year of university. It was a pretty anti-climatic day, actually. I just went and passed it in. Oh well. It's done.

Hurray! Now, our friend Adam is coming over for Thanksgiving pizza and pumpkin beer.

And maybe Candy Apples? :)

So, my honours project is due tomorrow. Here is a list of things I've been doing that aren't my honours project.


1) Playing the Sims 2. And really, not just playing the Sims 2, but like, making up stories for all of my families. They are people too!

2) Researching book publishing and marketing. You wouldn't think it, but it's very addicting. I have over 100 links to different articles and services all over the web that would help me sell my books. And I know there's over a hundred, because I organized them this morning.

3) Watching Star Trek DS9. You know, for a while I resisted this show, but when I finished TNG and Voyager, I needed a new Star Trek to fix my cravings. And this does fine. It's really funny.

4) Worrying about my honours project. Even writing this post is making me anxious. Must...go...work...

5) Working at the Brewery. But actually, not very much, so I can't use that as an excuse.

6) Um...can't really say blogging...but...I guess I'm blogging now...sooooo....blogging?

7) Reading! I'm almost done Dreamquake. Yay. Only a million other books to go....

8) Watching Alias! We've just started Season 4 after taking a really long break. Hurray!!!

9) This is a filler spot because I want to reach 10.

10) And the last reason I procrastinate working on my project is because of THE LOUD SCREAMING GIRLS NEXT DOOR. If you are one of them, please cease and decist. Like, really, techno raves every night? Is that even necessary? How fortunate that it's only our bathroom that connects to your apartment. Peeing is now like using the bathroom at Reflections. Loud. Except your voice carries through ALL of the walls, so I guess it doesn't really matter where you are.

Anyway. Enough of that. Time to work.

So, a bit late to post this, but better late than never.

For those of you who haven't heard of Word on the Street, it's a yearly celebration of the book industry, held in Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax. This year it was on September 27th.

For the past few years, I've been going, and doing the Pitch the Publisher event. It's where you pitch your book to a panel of three publishers based in Atlantic Canada, and they give feedback. Sometimes, if your proposal is good enough, they ask to read some sample chapters.

Talk about fast tracking.

So this year, I did it. And I pitched The Grandfather Clock, my children's chapter book that I wrote last October and have been continuously nursing. It's the first thing I've ever written to be based in Canada, and have anything to do with Canada really.

(Except that cloning story I wrote in grade 8. But that was set in the future, so I guess that doesn't count, really).

I went first. I was kinda nervous to stand there, in front of a mike and other authors and spectators and talk about my book, but after doing a million brewery tours and handling drunk people while being in character, this really paled in comparison.

And guess what? I won Best Pitch in my category! Two of the publishers expressed interest and so I gave them a package.

Now, people came up to me later who weren't there and asked me, "So, what does this mean? Are you getting published?"

No, it doesn't. It just means that they thought my pitch was the best in comparison with the other pitches they heard that day. It probably means they would read it. But it doesn't mean that it's under consideration for publication.

And there were some great ideas this year, in comparison with last year at least. Surprisingly, a lot of journalist-turned-fiction writers. Hurray!

So, I'm taking this as a good sign that this book is perhaps publishable. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Soon, soon.