Five Facts About Me

About two weeks ago I was tagged by Liesel K. Hill in another one of these blog challenges, but then I went on vacation and forgot about it. But today I finally got around to finish it.

So here you go: Here are 5 random facts about me!

1. I married my high school sweetheart. Who says there's no such thing as true love? We've been together almost 18 years and have been married for 11, still going strong. Not sure if this will colour the relationships of characters in my writing, but I'm not going to complain about having a happy home life. :-)

2. I studied to be a theatre professional. I went to school to be an actor, but the fine folks at York University in Toronto beat that out of me. I am still a ham and love to perform, but I didn't want to be an "Actor" in the way that they taught. I completed my Bachelor of Fine Arts, but specializing instead in technical theatre, stagecraft and design. I was going to be a stage manager or a technical director, but when I graduated I felt I needed more supervisory experience and a regular paycheque, which leads me to...

3. I worked at Kinko's for 7.5 years. It was still "Kinko's" when I started. I was there for the FedEx buy-out and the transition to "FedEx Kinko's" and ultimately "FedEx Office." For those of you outside the USA, Kinko's was the ubiquitous copy shop on every street corner through the 90s and into the early 2000s. Any time you see a character in a movie or TV show go to a copy shop, it's a Kinko's or a parody of it. It's like the McDonalds of copy shops. The best thing about working there is that I have SO MANY stories about weird and interesting customers and experiences that I will have fodder for books for many years to come.

Also, in case you're wondering, I never went back to theatre.

4. I'm a big table-top gaming nerd. This should be obvious to anyone who has poked around my site (or especially my other site), but I love role-playing games (like Dungeons & Dragons) and board games (like this or this - Monopoly is not a game, it's an exercise in futility). I just need to clarify that "table-top" games are exactly that - games you play around a table with friends using pen-and-paper and game boards and dice. I'm not a video-gamer - I've hardly played video games in years.

I love and am fascinated by the design and structure of table-top games. How and why the rules work, how the interact with each other, the probability of die rolls and card draws. In another life I probably should have been a statistician or actuary, though honestly it would probably have only used my skills to be better at games.

5. Most people are surprised to discover I'm from Newfoundland. Newfoundland is the Eastern-most Canadian province and has a long and storied history. It was first visited by Europeans (the Vikings) some 500 years before Columbus, and was the site of some of the earliest "official" European exploration and settlement. My family lived there for many generations and I was born and raised there until I was 18.

The reason people are surprised to hear of my background is because I really don't fit the typical stereotype of a Newfoundlander. We "Newfies" come from a long line of hard-drinking fishermen with colourful accents. My family tree is full of them, on both my mother and father's side. Me? I hate fishing and boats, barely drink, and my accent is pretty non-existent (it's there, but quite faint). Why am I so different than the rest of my family? Who knows, but I'm still proud of my heritage and its history and would love to tell you some stories sometime.

* * *

So that's 5 things you may or may not have known about me. I'm probably supposed to tag someone else on this but I'm not going to bug anyone right now. They're probably on vacation, too!

Freestyle Writing Challenge

I don't usually write flash fiction, but I'm always eager to look for an excuse for a post, and I figured I could spare 15 minutes for this one. Melanie Atherton Allen tagged me with this interesting challenge that's been sitting in my inbox for a week. Somehow I managed to make it all this time without reading the prompt (actually it was easy, I forgot about it) but here it is in all it's rapidly-typed glory.

(The rules are below, in case you're interested in what this was all about).

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Dictaphone in a Swamp

"Roll of tape, pliers, fifty feet of rope.

"And a hammer. Can't forget the hammer."

It was innocent enough. It could be a shopping list. Maybe the guy was going to the hardware store to get supplies for a home improvement project.

There was a few moments of dead air, I let the tape play through this time. I rubbed some more dirt off the Dictaphone as I waited for the next part. The first time I had listened to it, I had missed the second part.

I was praying I had misheard it.

It was an old model recorder, and probably been sitting in the mud and the grime a long time. Years, maybe. There was a tape inside but I didn't have high hopes for it when I popped in fresh batteries.

I listened to it once, heard the list, and that was it. I fast-forwarded a way but didn't hear anything else. The kids started yelling about something so I tossed it in my desk drawer and forgot about it.

That was a year ago. I found it again this morning, and listened to the rest of the tape.

About ten minutes in, there was a click as a fresh recording started.

"I'm gonna grab her after work. She walks home alone along 5th street. I watched her every night last week."

The voice had a slight Southern accent, but I couldn't place it. It was a man, not too young, not too old; he could have been anywhere from 25 to 50, as far as I could tell.

"September 13, 2013. You'll remember that date, won't you? That's the anniversary of the day you left me. That's the date I'm gonna make sure you never forget.

"That leaves us almost two weeks to play, don't it? 

"I hope you make it to the 13th."

That was it. The recording clicked. More dead air.

Why did he record it? Was this his confession? Did he intend for "her" to hear it?

I looked at the calender. August 20, 2014.

I had found the recorder on September 9.

Last year.

It hadn't been in the swamp that long after all.

I put my head in my hands.

What do I do now?

~ | ~

I wrote 374 words in 13 minutes. I had 2 minutes to spare but I saw the end coming and left it at that. I think it clued up nicely. I admit I used the extra time to go back in and add the italics.

I'm going to tag a few more people, in case they're interested in participating. I have no idea if these folks do challenges or flash fiction and I couldn't even get to five, but I've I don't want to tag the same people I tagged last week, so...

Majanka Verstraete

Liesel K. Hill

Serins RH

Natasha Duncan-Drake

Here are the rules:

1. Open a new document.
2. Set a stopwatch or your mobile phone timer to 5, 10, or 15 minutes, whichever challenge you think you can beat.
3. Your topic is at the foot of this post BUT DO NOT SCROLL DOWN TO SEE IT UNTIL YOU ARE READY WITH YOUR TIMER!!!
4. Fill the word doc with as many words as you want. Once you start writing do not stop.
5. Do not cheat by going back and correcting spelling and grammar using spell check (it’s only meant for you to reflect on your own control of sensible thought flow and for you to reflect on your ability to write the right spelling and stick to grammar rules).
6. You may or may not pay attention to punctuation or capitals. However, if you do, it would be best.
7. At the end of your post write down ‘No. of words = ____” so that we would have an idea of how much you can write within the time frame.
8. Do not forget to copy paste the entire passage on your blog post with a new topic for your nominees and copy paste these rules with your nomination (at least five (5) bloggers).
9. Your Prompt:
   Aliens Abduct Famous Actor - (I admit I may have swiped this one from somewhere)