Archive for June, 2025


In which the author experiments with ultra-minimalism

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June 26, 2025

Been sleeping on the floor these past five weeks. This has been due to a very logical set of decisions culminating in a pretty eccentric conclusion. I wrote about it a few posts ago, but briefly: my attempted thru-hike from Mexico to Canada ended prematurely, all my things were in storage, and I still had my empty apartment’s lease till July 1.

Ipso facto, didn’t make much sense to deal with a moving truck for just a few weeks.As of right now, my studio apartment has one small cooking pot (no lid), one fork, one pocket knife (mangos are hard!), a small pile of clothes, a laptop, a cellphone, a few chargers, some hygiene stuff, and two empty backpacks. Oh, and the sleeping bag I use on the floorboards (I’m not a barbarian), though without a mat (I’m not a king). There are also kitchen appliances (fridge, freezer, stove), but they’re more or less a default setting for rentals.

And… that’s pretty much it. Since mid-May, I joined a nice little anglophone library, attended a book sale, and have acquired a small stack of books that I haven’t quite read yet. In other words, the usual routine has been reestablished.I like to think of myself as a minimalist with a bit of an art hoard, but this is mighty minimalistic even for me, eh. This strange little lifestyle design experiment has had some interesting outcomes…

For example, I don’t miss my art, or my cool gem and mineral collection. Not sure if that’s because I’d gotten so used to them over the years, or because mentally, I’m still in a flux over the failed thru-hike adventure. (Not bad, just weird; a lot of compulsive walking.)

I have internet access through my phone’s frankly exorbitant data plan, and I use my phone as a hotspot whenever I need to do something on my laptop. I’m not streaming anything because I want to preserve all those gigabytes, and I rather miss Netflix. And gaming, even though I realize how addictive that hobby is. (I literally dream of Skyrim.)

Ironically and unexpectedly, the thing I miss the most is radio. Just a plain old little radio-clock cube thingy that can be set to a local station, to babble at me in that beautiful blend that is the Quebecois French, because, frankly, it’s impossible to learn from any app. (The continental French is an entirely different animal.)

One objective improvement has been my productivity. With my desktop in storage, I haven’t made any new short films, but now I have so much time (and so few distractions) to simply write. Over the pasy five weeks, I’ve written five short stories. They range in length from 333 to 5,400 words, and one of them has already been accepted by a Canadian anthology, woooo! (More on that later, once the contract is signed.) Also, I’ve just signed the contract for another anthology – this one will be about superheroes, and will feature my February story “To Fly or Not to Fly.” (Inspired by my experience with bureaucracies and the time I jumped into traffic to save a feral toddler.) The other stories I’ve written recently (and earlier) are awaiting replies from a wide variety of magazines. There’s one particular (and major) magazine that has been sitting on my new submitted story for quite a while now… I’m cautiously optimistic, given that their usual turnaround time is just a day or two.

All in all, this has been the most productive stretch of my life, writing-wise. Perhaps it’s the near-isolation, or the sheer emptiness of my living space (my studio isn’t big, but it looks huge without 97% of my stuff), or the fact that the weather is finally good enough to go on looong walks (think 2-5 hours) without being threatened by the elements – just walking and thinking and meditating on new plots and absorbing random new experiences. (Quebec City didn’t get its T-shirt weather till late May. I love this town, but I swear, the spring is getting colder every year.)

Or maybe it’s none of those things, and the wacky desert adventure, where each day had more new experiences than a fortnight in this town, reshuffled my brain and finally helped me internalize the way the narrative process works. I had so many stranger-than-fiction encounters in that desert… I miss it.

Or maaaaybe the secret factor here is that I’ve been doing a helluva lot of reading. In addition to going through my gigantic “to read” list (it’s in triple figures!), I’ve also been devouring the Wolrdcon finalist packet. Worldcon is the biggest annual sci-fi/fantasy convention (held in Seattle this year), and since they picked me for their short film festival, I figured I might as well go for the full event, not just for one day. $275 bought me full membership privileges, the convention pass (it’ll be so much fun to finally meet all my favourite authors), and the PDF versions of all the short stories, novelettes, novellas, and novels (and many other categories) that made it to the final round of voting.

I take my newfound responsibility seriously, which is why I’m reading all of them. Every last one. They are delicious, eh. Currently almost done with Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Service Model” – that novel is an absolute blast. (Think Wall-E mixed with Fallout.) I’ve literally laughed out loud – and often – while reading it. Five stars, highly recommended.

So, yeah, inspiration galore. About a week from now, I’ll move into my new apartment (it’ll have a balcony! but no bathtub…) and get all my things from storage, and my life will once again have Netflix, and video games, and other time magnets. Here is hoping the new habits will stick.

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On symbolism and lack thereof

Filed under: writing — Leave a comment
June 16, 2025

A while back, I wrote that I personalize my social media to absorb only interesting factoids or insights from folks who are experts in certain topics. That doesn’t always pay off (I’ve had to mute a lot of politicians’ names), but when it does, it’s beautiful. Today was one of those days.

Recently, there was a big debate about symbolism: someome made a webcomic where they mocked a Literature professor and implied that Poe’s raven was a happy accident, not a deliberate choice. I’m not going to repost the webcomic here because it turned out its creator was 16 when they made that cringeworthy (but surprisingly artistic!) masterpiece. What folks do before their 18th birthday ought to be a sealed record.

In the aftermath of that online debate, someone posted a link to a fascinating article on the topic. In 1963, a teen asked top writers about their use of symbolism. Here’s what they said…

The article, which is already great all on its own, also mentioned an amazing essay by Mary McCarthy, “Settling the Colonel’s Hash.” She’d published a non-fiction piece that sounded like short story: her train ride amd debate with an antisemitic colonel. Far too many people assumed her story was fiction, and proceeded to over-analyze it, hunting for clever symbols when there were none.

In her “Settling the Colonel’s Hash” essay, years later, McCarthy dived deep into the dangers of looking too hard for symbolism, even when the author’s intent is right there. Enjoy this PDF version of her essay.

Some of my favourite bits:

1. “from the Middle West” is such a posh way to say “Midwesterner”

2. “A surprising number wanted exact symbols; for example, they searched for the significance of the colonel’s eating hash and the autor eating a sandwich.” (I love this weapons-grade snark.)

3. “If the colonel had ordered a fruit salad with whipped cream, this too would have represented him in some way; given his other traits, it would have pointed to a complexity in his character that the hash did not suggest.” (The fact that it’s true makes it that much funnier.)

4. “He declined to be categorized as anti-Semite; he regarded himself as an independent thinker, who by a happy chance thought the same as everybody else.” (That describes folks – especially men – today every bit as much as 60 years ago…)

There are many more amazing bits, but I don’t want to spoil that beautiful essay for you. Enjoy that 10-page read, and take your time – it’s worth it.

…and as for me, sometimes I find so beautiful that I simply must include it in my short films. Other times, it’s only at the very end of the editing process that I find a tiny detail that ties in perfectly with my theme – but had sneaked in right under my nose. And then, of course, there are lots of tiny little jokes in my short stories. Some of them are more noticeable than others, but I don’t deliberately sprinkle symbolism all over the place. (Though, as McCarthy wrote, everything we do is symbolic, which means that’s ultimately inescapable.)

And now I’m off to put a couple of more layers of polish on my new short story. (Technically, this whole symbolism foray – both reading and blogging – has been procrastination on my short story, which is, in turn, a way of procrastinating on my not-yet-started new novel.) The story is my first attempt at fantasy, or at least urban-ish fantasy. “Some Notes on Becoming a God” will end up around 3,000 words, and it touches on some mighty topical modern issues. Let’s see who’ll want to publish it, eh?

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Losses and wins

Filed under: wanderlust, writing — Leave a comment
June 3, 2025

My desert adventure ended early. I wrote about it in depth on my trail journal. Short version: my legs got several injuries, the trail was a lot less developed than advertised (at least 10% included walking on the side of a highway…), and it was soul-crushingly lonely. It was considered normal to walk 3-4 days without seeing another human being. This year, in particular, there was a shortage of hikers, especially from other countries. (Probably due to the politics and the ongoing harassment of foreign tourists.)

The loneliness bit may have been partly due to bad luck. There was one experienced hiker (she’d done the Triple Crown (hiking all three major trails) twice) who managed to form a trail family of eight people around her by the time she reached the first town, 83 miles from the border. Impressive, that. Others ended up walking outside such bubbles.

The desert was beautiful, though… I’d never seen the Milky Way so bright, not even in the Sierra-Nevada mountains during my PCT thru-hike in 2022. Along the way, I explored the ghost town of Old Hachita – or what’s left of it. Those ruins were some grade-A Wild West Americana.

In the end, I made it 155 miles before calling it quits in Silver City, NM. The downtown Palace Hotel was incredibly hiker-friendly, and there were quite a few of us there. Many were recovering from their own injuries, most of them less serious than my own. It was a bit like a hiker-trash field hospital in that respect. My initial (and very very ambitious) plan had been to do the entire Triple Crown by completing the Continental Divide Trail this year, followed by the Appalachian Trail in 2026. But over at that hotel… Yeesh. Yeesh, I say. Multiple thruhikers (who had saved the CDT for last) I met would complain about how much they disliked the AT, and how they were forcing themselves to do the CDT.

I listened to their woeful laments, and nodded, and sympathized – and also asked myself, “Self, is that what I sound like?”

There comes a point when pursuing an overly ambitious quest becomes not merely eccentric or quixotic, but self-destructive, with not much fun along the way. A lot of that desert section was beautiful, and I met some unique and interesting people, but hiking on the side of the highway, alone, with coal-rolling trucks spewing exhaust in my face… That doesn’t count as a “National Scenic Trail” in my book.

…though to be fair, if my legs hadn’t decided to fall apart (should I have done more ThighMaster exercises beforehand?..), and if it had been just a bit less lonely, I might have carried on, if only out of sheer stubbornness.

Ah well.

The unplanned return back to Quebec was pricey: a flight from Silver City to Albuquerque (a very cheap, very tiny propeller plane; great experience!), from there to New York, and from there, an all-night bus back home. My apartment lease was still good until June 30th, so that’s where I’ve been for the past two weeks. No furniture (still in storage), only my sleeping bag, the contents of my hiking backpack, and a big bag of “welcome home” stuff I’d packed away for easy access. (The initial plan had been to finish the hike, get an AirBnB, and hunt for apartments.)

It makes no sense to hire a moving truck, move my stuff back here, and then move it back to my new apartment (just found one) on July 1, soooo here I am, trapped in the midst of strange logistics. Just an empty studio, a sleeping bag, a few books, my phone, and my laptop. (I use the phone as a hotspot when I need to do laptop-specific things.)

It’s a hilarious parody of a bachelor’s life (though fortunately, my girlfriend was glad to see me back early!), but on the upside, I’ve gotten quite a lot done. I’ve already finished a couple of new short stories, caught up on a lot of reading, and done some other productive stuff. If I’d returned to my TV, gaming computer, and unlimited internet, my productivity would’ve been a whole lot lower, eh.

I’ve got some good news, too. I always juggle a lot of different projects, and a few of them paid off:

My essay “A Hierarchy of Apocalypses” has been published in Phano, making it my first-ever non-fiction sale. (I’m not including my Kindle e-books.) Also, the pixel art the editor had picked to go with my essay is a thing of beauty.

“If Time Travel Were Possible…” (a short story set in my OTTO-verse) has been published in Black Cat Weekly, which also resulted in my first-ever fan mail!

“Murder of the Orient Express” (of, not on!) has been published in Pulp Asylum. The title is a bit of a funny story: a couple of podcast hosts had a blooper moment when they mispronounced the title of that classic novel, and they laughed it off. But that got me thinking… Who would want to kill an actual train itself? Why? And how? And thus this story was born!

…and I have a few more waiting in the wings.

It’s a bit funny: in the short-story biz, an “emerging writer” is defined as someone who has three or fewer publishing credits. I guess that makes me an emerged writer, eh?

One particular cool piece of news is that my short film, “Please Don’t Send Help,” got accepted by the first-ever Worldcon Film Festival! Worldcon is the biggest annual sci-fi convention in the world, and this will be their first addition of a film festival alongside all the author-related events. This year, it’s held in Seattle, in mid-August. I’ll get to attend it for free for one day when my film screens, and it’ll be a fun experience, being there as a sci-fi creator, but not (or at least not yet) a published novelist. Just like with my one-day visit to the New York Comic Con last October, I’ll have to make the most of it!

And speaking of film festivals… I’ve got at least two dozen major film fests I’ve applied for. (Why yes, I do have a problem.) All of them are famous for their hospitality, hard to get into, and/or will get me sponsored by Quebec if I get picked. That’s mostly for the European festivals, but I really like my odds with the Finnish Tampere fest! We’ll see.

If even a few of those festivals accept me (and I submitted four films to each one, to boost my odds), that’ll result in more partying within a single year than in my entire life up to this point. All those submission fees have cost me a pretty penny (even with the carefully timed early-bird discounts), but a) parties! and b) unforgettable experiences and c) possibly new grand adventures stemming from those new connections?, and d) once you get accepted, you usually get a lifelong alumni discount, meaning no more fees ever again.

And so, while my dream of becoming an elite professional thru-hiker has gone bust, the upside is that I’d be able to attend my film’s screening at my dream sci-fi convention (that would’ve been impossible if I kept hiking), and I’ve used all this free time (and utter lack of distractions) to double-down on my artsy endeavours. Let’s see how this plays out, eh?

…there’s a distinct possibility that a year from today, I’ll be completely frazzled, drained of energy, filled with way too many conflicting and overlapping memories of far too many events (what folks in the biz call “the festival brain”), but that kind of fatigue will be a good problem to have – or, as I call these things, #GrigoryProblems

I hope all y’all are about to have a fun summer too!

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