Kathleen Molloy

Let me tell you about Lippy Zundar. I don’t know if I love her or hate her. How am I supposed to write a story about a protagonist that I am not sure if I love or hate? On the one hand, I love her vulnerability. I love her maternal instinct. I love that she kicks butt. On the other hand, she’s quick to jump to conclusions, she’s bitter, she dances between shades of grey in what is right and what is wrong. And now she is full of self doubt. I don’t like that.

How can she possibly do her job well if she’s always worried that the school is going to call because her kid popped another kid in the nose when the other kid said Daddy’s new wife had nicer boobs? Life distracts her from work and those distractions are deadly. Lippy Zundar is a paid assassin for Canada’s Department of Homeland Insecurity. And she’s worrying about baloney sandwiches, indoor sneakers with non-streak treads, and passing grades, when she should be focusing on her next mark.

And I have to get Lippy out of my head and into my computer. But some days I don’t want to let her out. I don’t like her. She’s mean.

At what point does a writer stop waiting for readers to point out that they are a fraud?

 Do we ever get over the niggling doubt that someone will find out that we don’t know what we’re doing? Lately, I’ve been a bit antsy about a piece of work that I have to face. I know I can do it. I’m sure I can do it. I think I can do it. Can I do it? It haunts me in my sleep. 

Last night I had a dream that I was in an elevator with 1 man and two women. As they were talking about mattes of extreme importance… I was daydreaming. The man turned to me to confirm “Kathleen, are you going to be able to pull it off?” 

My answer was perfect. I looked him dead on and promised “If I keep my stick on the ice and stay out of the corners, I’ll be okay.” 

Waking up this morning I applauded myself for convincing him. It was a great line, after all, but it was a line. A bluff. And isn’t that what writer’s do  – bluff and try to convince readers that they aren’t frauds?? I understood that by staying out of the corners I won’t get beaten up … but what was the stick on the ice business all about?

The line bugged me until lunch time when I finally called my dad to ask him what the h “keep your stick on the ice means”. Days earlier, at age 69 my dad scored 2 goals during a game of pick up; I knew he’d be my best shot for deciphering the code “keep your stick on the ice”. Dad provided “Stay focused, keep your stick on the ice, and get ready for the assist.” 

My beau disagreed. He said it meant “keep your cool, don’t whack anybody.” 

Have you ever given yourself advice by way of a dream? I figure, if I keep my writing focused and don’t whack anybody, nobody will know that I’m bluffing.  

Leafing through this month’s Chatelaine, I stumbled upon an article on Slash Fiction. I expected to read about the newly popular Flash Fiction where writers cram an entire story into less than 1000 words.  

Boy was I wrong!  

Chatelaine introduced me to an entirely new form of fan fiction called Slash Fiction.  Lets step back a bit and start with fan fiction. Fan fiction, is a story written by a fan of a fictional piece, be it a book, a tv show, a cmic book, a mythology etc. With fan fiction, writers tend to stay close to the script  – using established plots and characters. The writing is posted on fan fiction blogs and shared freely, sometimes added to by other fans.  

Slash Fiction messes with this premis. It takes two wildly loved characters and puts them in bed. In the original work these characters would never have fallen in love but in Slash Fiction they are naked. And they are gay. Think Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. 

Readers of Fan Fiction will be able to identify a newly told gay coupling of traditionally straight male characters by the / in the title: Kirk/Spock. The slash is supposed to represent their fictional liaison.

Think Ernie/Bert.  

My first question is “Who wants to imagine Kirk on Spock????” 

According to Chatelaine, it turns out PLENTY of straight women do. In fact, straight Canadian women are not only reading Slash Fiction but writing it! The article featured an eighteen-year-old blogger from Quebec who is making a name for herself in Slash Fiction circles. Charlotte Rainville is one of many young Canadian writers that are encouraging straight male characters to experiment with their gayness through Slash Fiction. 

Let me see… if I were to try my hand at fan fiction, under the Slash Fiction genre, and apply it to CanLit …  I would start with Mordecai Richler’s Duddy Kravitz. We know that Duddy idoilized tough-guy Jerry Dingleman — was it a crush? Kravitz/Dingleman.

But what if a Slash Fiction character could jump from one man in one book to another man in a different book? What if Kravitz could leap over to MacLennan’s Two Solitudes and stick it to Paul Tallard? Tallard is an honourable fuddy duddy while Duddy is, well Duddy is Duddy. Kravitz/Tallard

Olga of Toronto got me thinking about writing about writing.  I’ve spent the last year blogging about what I am reading but little about what I am writing, or how I write it, or when or why.

She has inspired me to start a feature on this blog On Writing.

To start, I’ll answer a question that many new parents post to me: When do you have TIME to write??

I don’t.

I steal a few hours between when the kids go to bed and I drop my head on my pillow. This could mean 2 hours per night for three nights a week. But that doesn’t mean that I am writing that whole time. I freely admit to goofing off, surfing the net, doing banking, even shopping on line.  I might get a blog blurb in and about a good 40 minutes of actually writing or editing if I am at my desk in my office.

If I’m writing in the armchair in the living room, lulled by the glow of the pellet stove, and the dogs are not underfoot, and there are no newspapers lounging around waiting to be read or burnt, then I can usually write steady for about two hours. Hiding out in a corner in the living room puts me closer to the pantry and the snack shelf. So make that: 2 hours minus 1 trip for a snack and 1 trip for a glass of port.

However, if I am writing in my bed in my pjs and the house is quiet and I have no magazine’s piled beside my table lamp and the cat is curled on my feet …. I will easily exhaust 5 hours minus refill s of roobios tea and short hops to the toilet.

I’m good in bed. I mean, I’m prolific when I write in bed, but my beau detests it when I work there. He’s old school; he thinks beds are for sleeping and making love. So if he hops into bed while I am finishing off a bit of work, he will launch into a discussion about the family budget. Or he will call his distributor to leave voice-mail purchase orders. Or he will read aloud the bank statements for his company.  That’s my cue to log off to nod off.

To answer plainly, I write in stolen moments.