How to: How to write a book?

Well, I told Ellen, about a week ago, that I had every intention of writing a book, and that I'd start during the so-called 'Reading Week'. Surprisingly, I've remained committed to the idea long enough to actually start; however, I've put myself in a very serious predicament: I either have to succeed, fail in a convincingly heart-wrenching way, or be forever dishonoured. You could say that 'fail in a convincing, heart-wrenching way' is my Plan B.

I'm not going to say what I want to write about. That may be due, in part, to the fact that I feel really foolish about this whole thing. Writing a book is something people always talk about doing: it's not a petty goal, it's just one that's hopelessly idealistic and rarely followed through to completion. It may also be that, at this stage, I have no real idea of what I want to write about. I have a vague idea, sure, but how long 'til the mask slips? Worst comes to worst, we can always talk about it on the phone: conversation better lends itself to concealing conceptual deficiency than does writing. If one wishes to be respected at all, that is.

My knowledge of books is more biased towards reading than writing them, and most of my writing, however prolific it may be, is confined to punditry on specific, discrete topics. Certainly I haven't had much to do with the challenges of thinking up something interesting to write about, considering its many implications, and branching that original acorn into an optimally foliated forest giant. That generally requires the abstraction of separate thema to build chapters, sub-thema and observations which may be developed into paragraphs. Which reminds me of criticism's primary advantage: the scope has already been determined by someone else. All that remains is to tear up his life's work in a callous display of wit, irreverence or incontrovertible logic. It's reactive: it's easy.

So the real challenge hasn't been so much 'what do I write about', but 'what do I write about'? We all have ideas that interest us, and that we probably have a credible insight into. The dividing line is between those who can expand upon that central theme until they can fill a large volume, and those who can't. I want to be in the 'can' camp. I guess I'll need more than one insight! [either that, or I'll load pages with cited passages and footnotes]

Stephen Harper's Hockey Pool

I was watching the Sens-Bruins game Saturday January 27^th on the Hockey Night in Canada daytime broadcast part of a tripleheader that also featured the Leafs vs. the Canadiens and an Oil game in the late slot. I expect Ottawa was screwed into the afternoon time because "Leafs Nation" owns Saturday evening on the CBC. Too bad for the rest of Canada.

Speaking of Canada, I saw a familiar sight there: our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, in the stands with all the regular folks. I've been noticing it a fair bit, actually, as the guys controlling the camera cutting never begrudge him his due in broadcast time. Kind of creepy how cameramen can do that at sports events, actually! You never know if they're zoomed in right on you. Mr. Harper has to assume it and comport himself accordingly of course. He got his air time during the singing of our national anthem and, like any good Canadian, gamely mouthed the words along with the singer. That really gets to me: though I sing astonishingly badly for whatever reason, I do do my utmost to sing (at least volumewise!) the anthem at public events rather than this new fad of kind of silently half forming the syllable shapes or phonemes or whatever they call them just because you're not totally comfortable with doing nothing at all. You'd think our elected Number One Guy would show some more pride.

Despite his shortcomings, I do like Stephen. He's an improvement over his predecessors and would-be successors of the moment. We all know he's an avid hockey fan -- even writing a book on the subject. Very careful not to root for any particular franchise, his crafty advisers seem to see the hockey lovers of the populace as a crowd of morons who'd vote their team logo into office if given the chance, a precaution which might not be wholly without merit. So with the help of a taxpayer-subsidized television station taping in a taxpayer-subsidized stadium he's steadily at work convincing beer-drinking jersey-wearing goalie-jeering taxpayers that, far from being a Scary Conservative with a Hidden Agenda, he's a nice fellow just like them.

Some people get groups of hockey nuts together and make bets about which team will win the Stanley Cup. Stephen Harper bets that if he's seen with enough hockey nuts his team will win the next election. I'm sure he enjoyed the game, too. 3-1 Sens!