On waking

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This morning the five scenes seemed like quite a lot. Perhaps it isn't a modest aim at all.

I woke thinking I should give thought to my "archives" — a lofty term for the boxes of papers in my basement. Might a library take them on? Now — in that between-novels stage — would be the time to at least inquire. Of course I expect rejection. One, I'm not a lit star, and two, I imagine that the days of libraries having much money for this type of thing might be over.

I must also finish preparing for my reading in Eganville tomorrow night. Yesterday I steamed my gown, and organized my props (wig, poke, bumroll). Today I will transfer the edits from my U.S. reading copy to my Canadian edition. I thought of simply changing the covers, but the Canadian is slightly larger. I might read from the U.S. edition, but without the cover. Or with the cover, and talk about the two designs. It's a wonder I get anything done at all with all this dithering.

I'll type and print out my talk onto cards: the ones I used throughout the US are now scribbled over. Too, I want to say something special. I've done this countless times by now, but in the three weeks since my last one in California, I feel I've never given a reading before. Too, a presentation before friends and neighbours is always more stressful than one before strangers.

It's also time to give thought, shape and title — that's the hardest part — to my talk for PEN in San Miguel de Allende next spring. I'm glad that they are so well-organized, that they are working on promotion so far in advance, but it's certainly far, far from my thoughts right now. I've set an end-of-month deadline for myself.

Picking out a signing pen

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My husband can go in and out of an office supply store in 5 minutes. Not me. Yesterday I had the luxury of time, and I walked all the aisles, lingering. I did have a list -- printer inkers, storage boxes (for packing away Mistress of the Sun notes), stick-on dots (for coding the research books on my shelves), and, most importantly, a good pen for signing my books.

When my first book was published, Richard gave me a beautiful Waterman fountain pen, which I treasure. But it proved challenging to use as a signing pen: it sometimes blotched, stained my fingers, and it could leak in-flight. Also, and most importantly, I had to carefully blot the signed title page before closing the book. In the beginning, when I had only few books to sign, I welcomed a time-consuming process. Now, when I'm signing as many as 40 books, I need to be more efficient.

Recently, I stopped into a Chapters/Indigo store in Toronto, and offered to sign my books. I did not have a pen with me, and I was quickly offered a Sharpie. Well. Not that elegant, but — "They don't blot," the clerk told me. "Which is why we use them." The other nice thing about a felt-tip marker, I later thought, is that you are given notice when it's drying up — not like a fountain or ball-point pen that can quit mid-signature. Making a mess in a $30 book is not a good thing.

So I lingered long at the felt-tip marker section. It wasn't an independent office supply store — the wonderful type of store where you can test the pens on a scrap of paper provided — so I purchased a selection, and headed north, to Petawawa Stables, where I had my horse to visit ... and a book to sign.

I've known Dawn and her mother Yvonne since before I began writing Mistress of the Sun. I used to take riding lessons there, and my horse, Finnegan, is wonderfully looked after there during the winter.

I was delighted to sign Yvonne's book, a gift to her from Dawn. I had tested the markers in the car: the Sharpies, a medium tip, were too fat — a fine-point would be a better choice — but the blue Staedtler (1.0 Medium) worked quite nicely ... if only I didn't have to buy a set of eight in assorted colors to get that one blue.

I'll be in New York soon, with time, I hope, for one of my favorite past-times: lingering in the aisles of an office supply store.

Photo: Finnegan and me, taken by Dawn Townshend at Petawawa Stables.