Blurred Line

Big news of the day - Goodbye, Darwin is now available at Amazon. What's more, it's already got a sales ranking, so thanks to whoever picked up a copy.

Also, I'm done midterms for the next two weeks, meaning I should be able to move on to the next project Apodis has in its pipeline and, with some luck, I'll be able to work on some of my own writing as well. Keep an eye on Mass Romantic's progress meter. If it doesn't go somewhere this month, it probably never will.

For the moment, I'm off to watch horror movies with friends. Enjoy your Hallowe'en.

I was going to write something fiercely intelligent today, but I just finished writing an essay and I'm feeling a little burnt out.

So, here's the next best thing: A picture of me eating a burger (and apparently staring at something above me). Oh, and in case you're wondering, those dark circles under my eyes are there because it was 3 AM and I'd been up for a really, really long time.

Still no Amazon.com or Chapters.ca, which are usually the best for me, but there are a whole schwack of others. Hopefully your favourite bookstore is among them: Books A Million, Barnes & Noble, Powell's, Amazon UK, Amazon France, and Amazon Germany.

Just an FYI - Goodbye, Darwin has popped up on its first online bookstore today. It's now available for pre-order at Amazon.ca. Nothing on any of Amazon's other sites, but I'll let everyone know as soon as I see it.

So, if any fellow Canadians out there feel like pre-ordering, well, have at it.

I've been asked a few times about what kind of impact studying for an English Lit degree has on my writing. The answer's kind of complicated. Sometimes there's a significant impact, but mostly not so much.

Here in Year 5 (yes, I'm doing a victory lap), I'm already starting to assume a post-academic mindset. Or, to put it more simply, I don't really care that much about school anymore. "D is for diploma" is my mantra. The reason for this is that, essentially, once you've taken one series of English Lit lectures, you've pretty much taken them all. After so many years at school, you develop the skills to critique the literature you read without the help of the prof and the point of attending class is just to gather the prof's thoughts so that you can regurgitate them on the final exam. Doesn't paint a terribly pretty picture, does it? I'll be honest, when I'm not terribly interested in the material in a given class, I don't go all that often. I'll do enough to pass, but the unfortunate fact of the matter, is that I'm probably not losing all that much, intellectually speaking, by staying at home.

So, it was a nice change to have a couple of seminar classes on my schedule this year. Now this is how university should be. If you're not familiar with the setup of a seminar, the prof simply acts as a guide to discussion, while the students (usually 12-15) sit around a table and talk about the book. As you might imagine, I've never missed a seminar class. It's a fabulous environment, though it's a little sobering to see just how intelligent everyone else is.

Anyhow, back to the question at the heart. How has university impacted my writing? Well, it's exposed me to a lot of great literature. Honestly, that's about all that can be said for my years of taking lecture classes. I mean, sure, you learn how to recognize symbolism and metaphor and all that kind of stuff but, as a writer, chances are you might have been doing a lot of that kind of stuff unconsciously anyway. As for the seminars, it's too early to tell if these'll help me develop, but seeing people's differing reactions to certain aspects of novels is definitely a fascinating experience for a writer. I'm sure you get this to some extent if you've ever been part of a book club or some similar type of group.

Then again, I'm the boy who comes home from class and writes genre fiction, which is almost universally sneered at in academic circles. So maybe I just haven't been paying enough attention.

Seriously. If this were a Shakespearean play, there'd be a bunch of stage directions and bit part players called "Heralds" running around, announcing stuff. Alas, it's just a blog, so when I tell you my return is triumphant, you're just going to have to accept it. Anyhow, I'm returning from my self-imposed exile (caused largely by Thomas Hardy, Rogers Video Direct, and various mixed drinks - but more on those another day) with some exciting news.

Goodbye, Darwin has officially completed production. For the uninitiated, that means I actually held a finished copy of the book in my hand yesterday. It was snazzy. As for a release date, we're looking at late November, so keep an eye out. I'll keep you posted. Promise. No, really, I'm not going to up and leave again.

Any other writing news from me is, well, pretty much non-existent. Of course, every writer's favourite month of the year is nearly upon us once again. That's right, National Novel Writing Month is kicking off in a couple of weeks. I won't be participating this year, per se, though I do plan to write like crazy over the month. I would join, but I'll be breaking all sorts of sacred NaNoWriMo rules, most notably that I'm going to make an attempt to finish a WIP. The bulk of Mass Romantic was actually written way back in NaNoWriMo 2005, so I'm hoping that there'll be enough of that good November karma floating around again to help me finally finish off the second half of the story. We'll see. Keep your fingers crossed.


Profile Editor. Writer. 9-5er. Lord of the Dance. Blurredline.com Apodis Publishing Fusion Fragment cterrill(at)blurredline.com Buy Goodbye, Darwin Amazon.com Amazon.ca Chapters.ca Barnes&Noble.com Read it free in PDF Format Buy Blurred Line Amazon.com Amazon.ca Chapters.ca Barnes&Noble.com Read it free in PDF Format The Short Stuff "Learning Magic From Mint" - published May 2007 in Atomjack "Between Eternities" - published October 2005 at Speculative.ca "Smoke and Mirrors" - published June 2005 in Byzarium Submissions Log Total Subs: 25 Acceptances: 3 Rejections: 17 Withdrawals: 3 Subs Out: 2 Quality Blogs Scalzi's Whatever Dave's Blogography Bookslut The Struggling Writer SF Signal the0phrastus Paperback Writer Scribe's Writing Desk Nathan Bransford Lyons Literary LLC The World in the Satin Bag Book In The Oven The Word Perhaps We Learned Something... Words, etc. Archives March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 Et Cetera Cavan @ Last.fm Cavan @ LibraryThing Feeds Atom Feed RSS Feed	Tuesday, October 31, 2006 - Darwin on Amazon Big news of the day - Goodbye, Darwin is now available at Amazon. What's more, it's already got a sales ranking, so thanks to whoever picked up a copy. Also, I'm done midterms for the next two weeks, meaning I should be able to move on to the next project Apodis has in its pipeline and, with some luck, I'll be able to work on some of my own writing as well. Keep an eye on Mass Romantic's progress meter. If it doesn't go somewhere this month, it probably never will. For the moment, I'm off to watch horror movies with friends. Enjoy your Hallowe'en. Cavan blogged at 6:18 PM \| 0 comments Thursday, October 26, 2006 - Burgers...They Make The World Go Round I was going to write something fiercely intelligent today, but I just finished writing an essay and I'm feeling a little burnt out. So, here's the next best thing: A picture of me eating a burger (and apparently staring at something above me). Oh, and in case you're wondering, those dark circles under my eyes are there because it was 3 AM and I'd been up for a really, really long time. Cavan blogged at 11:42 AM \| 1 comments Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - More Darwin Sightings Still no Amazon.com or Chapters.ca, which are usually the best for me, but there are a whole schwack of others. Hopefully your favourite bookstore is among them: Books A Million, Barnes & Noble, Powell's, Amazon UK, Amazon France, and Amazon Germany. Cavan blogged at 10:18 AM \| 0 comments Monday, October 23, 2006 - Goodbye, Darwin On Amazon Just an FYI - Goodbye, Darwin has popped up on its first online bookstore today. It's now available for pre-order at Amazon.ca. Nothing on any of Amazon's other sites, but I'll let everyone know as soon as I see it. So, if any fellow Canadians out there feel like pre-ordering, well, have at it. Cavan blogged at 1:51 PM \| 1 comments - Ach-ademia I've been asked a few times about what kind of impact studying for an English Lit degree has on my writing. The answer's kind of complicated. Sometimes there's a significant impact, but mostly not so much. Here in Year 5 (yes, I'm doing a victory lap), I'm already starting to assume a post-academic mindset. Or, to put it more simply, I don't really care that much about school anymore. "D is for diploma" is my mantra. The reason for this is that, essentially, once you've taken one series of English Lit lectures, you've pretty much taken them all. After so many years at school, you develop the skills to critique the literature you read without the help of the prof and the point of attending class is just to gather the prof's thoughts so that you can regurgitate them on the final exam. Doesn't paint a terribly pretty picture, does it? I'll be honest, when I'm not terribly interested in the material in a given class, I don't go all that often. I'll do enough to pass, but the unfortunate fact of the matter, is that I'm probably not losing all that much, intellectually speaking, by staying at home. So, it was a nice change to have a couple of seminar classes on my schedule this year. Now this is how university should be. If you're not familiar with the setup of a seminar, the prof simply acts as a guide to discussion, while the students (usually 12-15) sit around a table and talk about the book. As you might imagine, I've never missed a seminar class. It's a fabulous environment, though it's a little sobering to see just how intelligent everyone else is. Anyhow, back to the question at the heart. How has university impacted my writing? Well, it's exposed me to a lot of great literature. Honestly, that's about all that can be said for my years of taking lecture classes. I mean, sure, you learn how to recognize symbolism and metaphor and all that kind of stuff but, as a writer, chances are you might have been doing a lot of that kind of stuff unconsciously anyway. As for the seminars, it's too early to tell if these'll help me develop, but seeing people's differing reactions to certain aspects of novels is definitely a fascinating experience for a writer. I'm sure you get this to some extent if you've ever been part of a book club or some similar type of group. Then again, I'm the boy who comes home from class and writes genre fiction, which is almost universally sneered at in academic circles. So maybe I just haven't been paying enough attention. Cavan blogged at 10:47 AM \| 2 comments Thursday, October 19, 2006 - A Triumphant Return Seriously. If this were a Shakespearean play, there'd be a bunch of stage directions and bit part players called "Heralds" running around, announcing stuff. Alas, it's just a blog, so when I tell you my return is triumphant, you're just going to have to accept it. Anyhow, I'm returning from my self-imposed exile (caused largely by Thomas Hardy, Rogers Video Direct, and various mixed drinks - but more on those another day) with some exciting news. Goodbye, Darwin has officially completed production. For the uninitiated, that means I actually held a finished copy of the book in my hand yesterday. It was snazzy. As for a release date, we're looking at late November, so keep an eye out. I'll keep you posted. Promise. No, really, I'm not going to up and leave again. Any other writing news from me is, well, pretty much non-existent. Of course, every writer's favourite month of the year is nearly upon us once again. That's right, National Novel Writing Month is kicking off in a couple of weeks. I won't be participating this year, per se, though I do plan to write like crazy over the month. I would join, but I'll be breaking all sorts of sacred NaNoWriMo rules, most notably that I'm going to make an attempt to finish a WIP. The bulk of Mass Romantic was actually written way back in NaNoWriMo 2005, so I'm hoping that there'll be enough of that good November karma floating around again to help me finally finish off the second half of the story. We'll see. Keep your fingers crossed. Cavan blogged at 12:08 PM \| 5 comments	Progress Zilch! 0/0 Listening A.J. Croce - "Maybe I'm Amazed" My Music Reading Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerney My Library Watching Black Book: B Sweet and Lowdown: C Breakfast on Pluto: B Wishlist Bridge of Sighs - Richard Russo Rachael Yamagata - Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart