Category Archives: Nicole’s Novel

Cinco Para Cinco de Mayo

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Smile More

The city is so beautiful right now; all the flowering trees are in bloom, and every day is a little bit more colourful. When Rex stops to sniff, so do I.

We came across a little painted rock on the path the other day.

We both obliged.

It was funny to find that rock as I had just finished reading a chapter in Radical Acceptance about Unconditional Friendliness, and the importance of smiling to one’s spiritual health. Buddha, the book noted, is always portrayed with a smile to illustrate this concept of Unconditional Friendliness, which means to accept and meet feelings, people, and situations with openness.

In recent years women in particular – for good reason – have bristled at being told to smile, but honestly? Smiling is pretty great when it’s on your own terms.

I was in Costco last week and it was pure chaos – this may break the already well-established record for futile statements – but I made a conscious effort to smile amidst the pure mayhem that is endemic within that store. I will tell you that while it did not make the people blocking the aisles to get their free samples of sausage slices move out of the way, it did make the entire experience better. I welcome you with Unconditional Friendliness, I thought while maneuvering around them, I say yes to this experience. My Unconditional Friendliness was challenged in the dairy section, and wavered a lot in produce, but I kept my probably-low-level psychotic smile as I breathed through it. By the time I got to the checkout, there were no lines, and so I am going to conflate correlation with causation for my own purposes.

Science, Bitches

Typically I listen to podcasts while walking with Rex, and most of the time those podcasts are as frivolous as can be, but occasionally I will listen to something serious about economics, history, or science. I was listening to an Ologies podcast about Salugenology, the science of social prescriptions that increase health and well being, the categories of such being nature, movement, art, service, and community. It was a fascinating interview and I immediately put the author’s book, The Connection Cure, on hold at the library. I haven’t been reading much non-fiction lately, but I feel sure that I will love this, and you can be sure that I will report back.

On the topic of non-fiction, I have been approached more than once in the past several months by people asking about my newly-written, but not yet ready for publication, book. Strangely, the conversation immediately pivots from I heard you wrote a book to I never read novels, only serious non-fiction. I read to learn. Which, well. There is a lot of subtext to unpack there, and a lot of opportunity to practice Unconditional Friendliness.

Bad Bad Bad Bad Books, You Make Me Feel So Good

The great thing about books and literature is that there is something for everyone; there are countless books of all subjects and genres. On yet another walk I was listening to yet another podcast, this one by two women who have a romance publishing company. One of the hosts said something interesting: when it comes to books there is a subset of people who consider a book “bad” if one of the characters makes a decision that the reader disagrees with, or if the characters are not likeable.

I don’t belong to that subset. Three of the best books I read in 2024 had extremely unlikeable characters, or characters who made dubious decisions. Sometimes those characters were in both categories. Long Island Compromise was a work of art, it was so smart and so funny and such a great commentary on our society, and every single character was absolutely atrocious. Margo’s Got Money Troubles concerned a very young woman who becomes pregnant via an affair with her professor, and opens up an Only Fans account in order to make money. My Last Innocent Year also concerned a professor-student relationship that could never end well. I guess I’m part of the subset who really enjoys ambiguous endings, unwritten backstories, and layered stories. This is not to say that I don’t occasionally enjoy a cheery, predictable romance or bouncy celebrity memoir or even a serious non-fiction tome that increases my personal font of knowledge! But the only way I will consider a book bad is if it bores me, if the writing is poor, or if it doesn’t make sense. And yet, books are so subjective, one person’s I’d give it zero stars if I could is another person’s five star winner. It’s an interesting distinction: is the book objectively bad, or did you just not like it?

Taking It Personally

I saw a quote on Kari’s blog (HI KARI) that really resonated: If you understood how frequently people cope by projecting, you would learn to take nothing personally. I feel like we all should remember this all the time, both in our interactions with others, and our own responses to situations.

I’m a Creep, I’m a Weirdo

Speaking of responses to situations, a couple of days ago I had a notification of a comment on one of my Facebook posts. I looked at it, and then looked again.

This post was on the Calgary Yoga Community page, in response to a request for studio recommendations, and was written by me in November 2015. The commenter, John R Evans, says I was wondering if we could be friends, I already tried sending you a request, but it didn’t go through. Accept my sincere friendship, and please add me up if you don’t mind. THANKS.

First of all, Unconditional Friendliness does not extend to robot men on Facebook. Second of all, I’m sure the request did go through, but I would have instantly deleted it after seeing that the poster in question “works at US Army Fort Knox” and is “widowed.”

Of course I know this is not a real person, but still, it feels creepy. I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo. Fun fact: until only a few years ago, I thought the lyrics were I’m a creep, I’m a winner, and I always thought that’s so strange, it makes no sense, I guess they’re being sarcastic? Maybe I’m the weirdo here!

Weekly Reading

Caroline. This was a reread for me, first having read it in 2018, but it my friend Laura (HI LAURA) who, I have mentioned many, many times, runs Melissa Gilbert’s Modern Prairie book club, told me that this was their latest pick. So why not? It retells Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie, from Caroline’s point of view, with a few interesting and notable changes – those that were based on actual census data and not from Rose Wilder Lane’s libertarian editing. The wider story is about manifest destiny and fear of the indigenous people who they were displacing, which is hard to swallow these days. Still, I found it was such a thought-provoking read about what an incredibly difficult struggle daily life was back then. It must have been terrifying to be a woman – pregnant, no less, with two small children – riding into the unknown in a covered wagon and trying to figure out how to just make do with what she had. Imagine being pregnant and unsure if there would be a woman to help you with the birth! The reliance on good neighbours and how the very few that they had literally saved their lives is fascinating as well, and is something that is glossed over in the original books to reinforce the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps, be indebted to no one” theme.

Death By A Thousand Cuts. Last summer when my friend Jen was visiting (HI JEN), we went to Mosaic Books, and I picked this up. Then I had a flood of library books, forever, so I put it on my shelf. Friends, I forgot about it! When Jen was here last weekend, she was perusing my shelves for a book to borrow while she was visiting, and found it, still with the receipt. Didn’t you buy this book when we went to the bookstore? I had to right my wrongs and read it immediately after she left. And wow, wow, wow! It is so good! This collection of short stories is compelling and moving, and I devoured it. Every time I’d finish a story I’d think okay, just ONE more. Incredible! And the author is Canadian! You can bet I’m going to read everything she’s written now.

Three Days In June. This author is hit or miss with me, and this book was definitely a hit. I really enjoyed this tiny slice of life that concerned a woman attending her daughter’s wedding, with the day before and after. There was so much humanity in this little story, I loved it.

I wish you could smell these photos! You’ll just have to imagine – they are glorious! I hope you have a beautiful week, friends. xo

Festivus, But Without Grievances

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So, an anti-Festivus?

One week ago today I finished the second draft of my novel. It was my goal in 2024 to write one draft, and now I have finished two, right in time to enjoy the holidays and a break before my revising and editing course starts in January. To say I’m pleased with myself would be an understatement. It’s something I’ve wanted to do my entire life, write a book, and I did it! My goal in 2025 will be to have a manuscript that I feel comfortable sharing with beta readers, so stay tuned.

In my recent Ask Me Anything, which is still open should you have any burning questions, Pearl (HI PEARL) asked What is the book you’re working on about? In its current evolution, it’s a story about a single mother in her fifties who becomes involved with a widower. Her ex-husband delivers some surprising news that affects their daughter, and our protagonist finds herself navigating a new kind of life.

Years ago when I was in yoga teacher training, I was talking to my friend Jo (HI JO), who was a very established teacher at the time. We were talking about teaching yin and she said something that stayed with me: If you want to teach yin, you really need to have a yin practice. Jo and I were and are both Ashtanga practitioners, and I took that to heart, teaching what I knew.

When I first set out to write this book, I had in mind a romance, but for middle-aged people. The thing is, though, romance comprises only about a tenth of what I read. To paraphrase Jo, If you want to write romance, you really need to read romance, and in that vein I would say my novel veers toward a character-driven literary fiction. I wanted to write the book I would want to read, and I am doing that.

Engie (HI ENGIE) asked What is the best year of your life? As you know, I suffer from recency bias, but I really do think that 2024 was one of the best years in my life, particularly coming on the heels of 2023, which was an absolutely crazy year of wild change and upheaval. I have had many wonderful years in my life, absolutely, but this past year was filled with travel and gardening, friends and family. My sons are both doing well and are establishing themselves, my husband is so relaxed and settled into retirement, everyone is in good health, I have a beautiful home and garden, and I wrote a book! Life is uncertain and things can change on a dime at this stage of the game, so I am living in the present and feeling gratitude for all these incredible gifts.

Another incredible gift in my life is, of course, Rex. When our beloved Barkley died in June 2022, I was extremely vocal about Never Again Having A Dog. Never! My older son gently said to me But Mom, we are a dog family, but no, I said. No no no. Well, we all know how that turned out, when Rex arrived to our home in October of that same year. Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH) asked Did Rex come to you named Rex? and the answer is yes. His full name is Tyrannosaurus Rex Stegosaurus, which should tell you a little bit about his original family. I would like to go on the record to reiterate that Rex was NOT a rescue dog. We were chosen by his original family – speaking of gifts, that one was massive – who were incredibly loving and caring but who could no longer keep him. He was a year and a half, and perfectly trained and already full-grown, and some days I cannot even believe my luck that we were chosen to be his family.

Engie (HI ENGIE AGAIN) also asked What’s the best thing about having a dog? I read in a book recently that getting a puppy is a one-way ticket to eventual heartbreak, and while that is technically true, the absolute joy of having a dog far outweighs that. There are so many wonderful things about having a dog, but the best is probably the feeling of love and joy that emanates from them. Dogs are so in the moment, they miss you the second that you are gone and are so happy the second you come back, even if you were just in the shower. They are just happy to go somewhere, as long as they go with you. We are just not worthy of dogs, honestly, they are such incredible creatures and I for one feel so lucky to have not one but two fuzzy balls of love in my life.

Of course one of the best things about having a dog is walking them, although I will say that while I adored and loved my sweet fuzzy Barkley to the moon and back, walking with him wasn’t exactly a joy, even when he was young. He had a terrible tendency to eat tissues that had been dropped on the sidewalk, and as an aside, do you have any idea how many tissues are dropped on a sidewalk in a semi-inner-city neighbourhood? It’s a lot. He knew that tissues were the only thing I wouldn’t remove from his mouth because god, how gross. From the time he was a puppy until the day before he died, I would have to be on the lookout for tissues and redirect him before he snapped them up and ate them, and I was only successful maybe half the time.

While I’m on the topic, once I was walking with him as a puppy – and the boys were little enough to be in the Chariot stroller, this is how long ago it was – and he snarfed up a CONDOM that was on the sidewalk. A condom. I had terrors as to what would happen if he actually swallowed it, because certainly it would be injurious to his little digestive system, and imagine having to tell people that your dog died because he ate a condom. So there I was prying a condom out of my puppy’s mouth while the little boys asked mama whatcha doin wif Barkley’s mouf and I was praying, friends, I was PRAYING that the condom was just used in a silly way by neighbourhood kids, like blowing it up as a balloon, and not for its intended use. I am pretty sure I used up an entire bottle of hand sanitizer after I fished it out of his mouth, as well as a year or two off my lifespan.

I was thinking about this when Michelle (HI MICHELLE) asked her question: I know you go out walking a lot, and I wonder if you’ve ever found anything interesting or strange that was dropped on the side of the road? Well, Michelle, how’s that for an answer? A condom on a busy sidewalk near the elementary school. Oh wait, I just horrified myself anew on a number of levels.

We did come across a dead coyote a couple of weeks ago, but I’m not sure if that counts as “interesting” or “strange” or even “dropped.”

One thing that I always find interesting is when there is a single shoe, which reminds me of a story of long ago. When I was in university, my friends and I were at an on-campus bar listening to live music, and one of my friends had brought her boyfriend, an incredibly nice but dull-witted fellow. The dance floor soon turned morphed into a mosh pit, and shortly after that the extremely inebriated boyfriend stumbled over to us, missing a shoe. Eventually we had to leave, with our one-shoed fellow, but before that I needed to stop in the Economics Society office to pick something up. I was the Economics Society president, hashtag bragging, and while I was in the office our Shoeless Joe drew all over the white board: a number of single shoes, with the caption “Have You Seen Me?”

Since that day, anytime I see a single shoe abandoned on the sidewalk, I think of him, walking home with one shoe on that snowy winter night.

Weekly Reading

The Wedding People. From start to finish, this book was an absolute delight. It was just perfect! It was so smart, and so funny, and so uplifting and life-affirming and heart-warming. The premise sounds a bit off: a woman heads to a hotel to kill herself, and finds that there is a six-day wedding going on at said hotel, and she is the only one there who is not part of the festivities. Themes of friendship, support, and happiness are interspersed with true humour and excellent Mrs Dalloway references. The backdrop is post-Covid, and there are some really interesting thoughts about the pandemic and what it did to all of us, and our relationships. A quote that really hit me: ‘”But life is strange, always thinking this one thing is going to make you happy, because then you get it, and then maybe you’re not as happy as you imagined you would be, because every day is still just every day. Like the happiness becomes so big, you have no choice but to live inside of it, until you can no longer see it or feel it. and so you start to fixate on something else – you want a child, and then the child is here, and that happiness is so big it begins to feel like nothing. Like just the air around you.” Until it is gone, of course.’

The Plot. There is an Alice Munro story called “Family Furnishings,” in which a writer takes details from a relative’s life and creates a story from it. It addresses the question about who can tell a person’s story. I think that most fiction writers take details and experiences from their own lives and the lives around them, and create from them new stories. I was thinking about that Munro story when I was reading The Plot. To whom does a plot belong? This book follows a washed-up writer who is a teacher at a writing residency; one of his students tells him the plot of a book he’s writing, and the plot has an incredible twist. A few years later, he finds out that the student had died without writing the book. So what’s a writer to do? He uses the plot to create a book that becomes a bestseller, optioned for a movie, etc. But, like the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart, he starts to unravel when the heartbeat he hears is a troll on twitter, accusing him of plagiarism. It’s an interesting premise for sure but after a slow start I guessed the twists and could see the “surprise” ending coming, and I found the last couple of chapters terribly explain-y. Still, a solidly diverting read. 

Piglet. This book is brilliant from a literary point of view, but whoa, is it ever uncomfortable to read. I think it needs to be interpreted symbolically, as in a woman wanting more, more, more, and never being really satisfied. Of course this is shown as excessive eating, and I will say the food descriptions are Off The Hook. If you, like me, enjoy a good food description, hold onto your hats. Or forks. It’s a very moving story about a woman from humble beginnings whose wealthy fiance tells her about a terrible betrayal by him, only two weeks before their wedding. In case you, like me, find yourself reading this and thinking that you missed something, no, you didn’t. The betrayal is never revealed to the reader, which is a Real Literary Choice. You know that couples therapy scene in Old School, where Frank is talking about fantasizing about a waitress’ panties? “Probably they’re just plain white cotton. But then I thought, what if it’s lace? What if it’s a thong? What if it’s something really cool I don’t even know about?” The Betrayal is like that. Probably it’s just adultery. But what if it’s something really cool we don’t even know about?

Santa Claus Is Going To Town On Me. Well, you knew this was coming. Heh. Of course I couldn’t let the holiday season pass me by without reading this, after it was mentioned by Bad on Paper. I mean, it’s basically porn, but with Santa. If you have ever wondered what Santa’s dick looks like, this is the book for you! You may be saying to yourself, omg Nicole, of course I haven’t wondered that, NO ONE NORMAL has wondered that, and that is probably true as I myself never thought about Santa in any kind of sexual way before reading this. But what has been seen cannot be unseen, friends. I can never think of Santa in the same way again (tinsel-like pubic hair). To paraphrase Jessica from Drinks With Broads, STOP MAKING SEXY SANTA A THING, HE SHOULD BE COZY. Anyway, the whole thing took me maybe 45 minutes to read and I discovered that a) Mrs Claus is dead, b) Sexy Santa prefers to be called Claus and is maybe Finnish, c) he doesn’t live on the North Pole but instead in some other planet, and d) he has no elves, Sexy Santa is a Lone Wolf. It’s a lot more plot than you might expect from Santa porn, honestly. Quote that sums up the entire book: “I’ve always hated Christmas, but this year will be different, because this year, I’m going to fuck Santa Claus.”

On that very unsettling note, I should end this very long post, which will be my last one until the annual Year in Review. Wishing you all a very happy holiday season! Your readership is a gift to me, and one that I cherish. xo

What Have I Become?

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One thing I didn’t realize would happen, with a retired husband and children no longer in the public school system, is that long weekends don’t really register for me anymore. Every weekend is a long weekend, therefore no weekend is a long weekend.

This is not to say that the Canada Day weekend was really affected by the school system, but since the school year finishes at the end of June, July 1 always felt like the big start to summer. We have a young houseguest – our dear friends’ son, who is himself a very good friend of my sons’, particularly my oldest, with whom he shares a birthday – and when my son mentioned he was coming, I thought oh yeah, I guess that IS a long weekend.

Personally, living in this beautiful climate, I feel like summer started weeks ago, so this holiday feels like a bit of a non-event. Interestingly, though, since Kelowna is very much a tourist town, I have noticed things like increased traffic and a lot more beach-themed items for sale in shops and stores. My new favourite bookshop was displaying all the beach reads, Ogopogo stuffies, and such items that are beloved by tourists, like a new cookbook written by my husband’s family friend, which pairs wines from the Burrowing Owl winery with menus using seasonal, local produce.

Speaking of which, I am still working my way through Julie’s cake cookbook, and this weekend, in honour of our guest I decided to make chocolate stout cake, with the single Guinness I had left in the fridge. I had more, but my son and our guest decided on Friday night to make stout floats using some of the homemade ice cream in the freezer. We didn’t have vanilla, so they improvised with mint and reported that it wasn’t very good. You don’t say? Mint and Guinness are NOT a winning combination? Colour me surprised. Well, the cake WAS very good, although it completely sunk in the middle. I did wonder why Julie had indicated that the batter was to be divided between two loaf pans; I thought that sounds silly, I’ll just pour it into an 8×8. Joke’s on me. Well, it tasted great, even if I flipped it over to hide the sunken middle.

As everyone who knows me even marginally knows, I love being outside. In good weather, particularly summer, I have low-level feelings of resentment for every moment I spend indoors. I think this is partly due to living almost my whole life in Calgary; if the weather is good, you had better enjoy it, because it could abruptly end at any moment. Any time the weather is nice, I just want to spend all my time outside.

At night, though, I like a bed, and walls, and the incredible modern inventions of running water and flush toilets, and so I am not a person who has incorporated camping into my life. Imagine telling our foremothers that, instead of hauling water from a well or creek and then heating it painstakingly on the stove, which has been fueled with wood chopped by hand, just so someone could take a stab at being some semblance of clean, that we have clean water at our fingertips, and not only that, we can choose the temperature? Imagine how exciting that would be for them, and then imagine telling them that we shall eschew this modern miracle to go hang out in the woods and be swarmed by mosquitoes at every turn?

So my stance on camping has historically been a negative one, but my husband found a loophole in my “bed, walls, toilet, and running water” argument by purchasing a camper. I am sure he’d love it if I said “our camper” but really, it’s HIS camper. I’ve been very pleased that he has used it with the boys, and was a bit startled to be asked to go with him and meet up with another couple this past Friday.

My first instinct was to Shut This Shit Down, but after a calming meditation, I realized that a) this was not in keeping with my current Live Your Life With Arms Wide Open mantra, b) the other couple was being really kind and welcoming, and were proposing so many accommodations and fun activities for me, c) sometimes marital harmony is preserved through compromise, and d) it was only for one night.

And you know what, friends, it was actually pretty fun! My friend brought an extra kayak and lifejacket for me, knowing that would be something I would love, my husband packed lots of wine and coolers, and my friend’s husband brought an entire cake and encouraged me to eat two pieces. I felt like the subject of Tonight’s The Night, but in a non-sexual way; like I was a terrified virgin who needed smooth jazz, soft words, and some wine to get things going.

Several of my camping friends, on hearing the news, congratulated me enthusiastically, saying that I would love my new life as a Happy Camper. I would not go so far as that; I cannot with any honesty use the word “love” and “camping” in the same sentence, but it was pretty fun. I did love the kayaking and the walks the girls did with the dogs while the guys went fishing, I did love the cake and the wine and sitting by the fire until I was overcome with mosquito bites.

The happy result as far as my husband is concerned is that I have agreed to go annually, on my one night only condition. I know! What have I become? Someone who is dousing themselves in witch hazel, that’s what.

Weekly Reading

One Star Romance. I expected this enemies-to-lovers book about a man who rates a woman’s debut novel one star, and then the two of them find themselves as best man and maid of honour at their friends’ wedding, to be a light and fluffy read. It was not! It was so much more involved: it is a romance, for sure, but it’s also a book about friendship and family and growing up. I really liked it! It definitely took me by surprise, it’s a very clever and thoughtful book with some great character arcs.

1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide To Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive Year Round. I heard this woman being interviewed on a podcast; she created the 1000 Words of Summer, which is a motivational group for writers. The key is to write 1000 words a day for two weeks in the summer. This was intriguing to me because 1000 words a day, four to five days a week was exactly how I wrote my first draft. This book is about the craft of writing, but is mostly meant to be motivational and inspirational, including short essays from a number of very accomplished authors.

What did I just say? First draft? I had a goal, very quietly kept close to my chest, of writing a first draft of a novel in 2024, and on June 5, I completed that goal! I finished the reread last week and am preparing for the second draft now. I will have much more to say about it, I’m sure, in the coming weeks.

Happy Canada Day, friends! Here’s to July! I hope you all have a beautiful week. xo