I’m a big fan of Silly. Big fan. I wasn’t always. I think I was a wee bit too serious minded when I was younger. When I was in my 20’s I had no time for Silly, it was foolish and a waste of time. After all I had things to accomplish. Even as a young child I can remember being told off by my. parents.
“Don’t be silly Tony”
I post to this blog each Friday and I have one ready that I have been looking forward to publishing but I have decided to wait a week before I do. It is fun and lighthearted and silly but I don’t think it is appropriate to post just right now.
This is an excerpt from ‘Bubna’ a novel that I am writing, an historical fiction about one of the most remarkable woman ever to emigrate to Canada. The Countess Bubna – Litic was single, political, eccentric and vastly wealthy and she achieved whatever she put her mind to leaving in her wake the story of a life well lived and a legacy that flourishes to this day. This chapter begins on opening day of the Hotel Eldorado in Kelowna BC.
It was 1926.
Fumiko had listened to Mr. Tanaka’s stories for as long as she could remember. He never said they were true, he would just encourage Fumiko to close her eyes, listen to his voice and imagine and let the story transport her.
And as if on cue Bobby B. walked into the room, fresh back from a trip to his barber (yes, that does carbon date him). He had a drill sergeant brush cut with the immediate gravitas ‘don’t mess with me’ look I expect he was going for. And eyebrows you could land a small aircraft on.
My dog Edith doesn’t think much about things. About anything actually. She’s not a thinker, she’s instinctual. Risk? Bark. Hungry? Growl. Happy? Nothing.
Now humans, we think.
Good Lord laughter is such good medicine. I take a daily dose and not just a spoonful of ‘ha-ha’ laughter either. I’m talking about deep, stomach tightening, oxygen using laughter.
I think there’s a trick to this whole thing: Let go of what you were good at, I mean really let it go and replace it by doing something good.
Writing for profit is a fool’s game. I don’t, I write for myself. Some of my writing is profound, some is important, but most of it is neither of those two things. I am at my best as an observational humourist, filtering the mundane through the ‘amusing’ lens and writing.
David Sedaris is a great American observational humourist and he has unknowingly guided me as I spelunked my way through many a dark, confusing writing tunnel. He taught me to stop worrying about inspiration. He says that human beings are very funny, hilarious at times. The knack he says is to get better at seeing it. He is right, if I have grown as a writer it is because I am better now at ‘seeing’ us as we are, simple and complex, shallow and profound, tragic and hilarious. We are endlessly fascinating, a never ending source of writing inspiration.
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