1994 High-School Basketball Team Most Valuable Player
1995 High-School Basketball Team Captain
1999 Beer-League Softball Team Most Valuable Player
2003 Monthly Golden Tee Golf Tournament Winner for October
2005 Beer-League Softball Team Most Sportsmanlike Player
2005 "Bartender of the Year" (self-appointed)
2007 Blog of the Day Award Winner
2007 "Driving Instructor of the Year" (self-appointed)5-time winner of the Beer-League Softball Player of the Week Award
Certified to transport dangerous goods
Certified to carry-out life-saving measures
Certified to dispense alcohol in Ontario
Certified to teach in-car & in-class driving instruction
Certified to ROCK
Created own signature drink, the "Mad Russian" (a White Russian with a dash of butterscotch-liqueur)
Randomly met Scott Thompson and frightened/surprised him with nonsense during what was voted "Best Birthday Ever" in 2003 by friends and foes alike
Met Douglas Coupland and got him to "pass me the torch":
In lieu of an autograph, I gave him a signed copy of my story, "A Fictional Conversation with Douglas Coupland", in which a fan named Ryan stalks a writer named Douglas Coupland at a book signing...
That’s right.
Amazing that he hasn’t sent me an email yet as to what he thought of the story.
I’ll leave you with this as I run off to find a paper-copy of the magazine:
Non-stop writing - 3-Day Novel ContestBy Jessica Rose
Many of us romanticize the image of the starving writer, hunched over a typewriter, plunking word after word into place, agonizing over every syllable and every comma. Writing a book isn’t an easy feat. It can take years to perfect.
Ryan Lawson, a 31-year-old Hamiltonian is like most aspiring writers. He hopes to publish a novel, but he hardly has the time to commit to the lifestyle of a full-time writer. A year ago, he stumbled across the rules of the 3-Day Novel Contest. He signed up to be one of hundreds of sleep-deprived writers to take the challenge and produce an entire novel in just 72 hours.
The 3-Day Novel Contest is an annual literary marathon that takes place over Labour Day weekend and is open to writers from across the globe. The winning novelist receives a publishing contract with an independent press. Managing Editor Melissa Edwards expects that Lawson was one of around 600 entrants or more, once the official numbers roll in.
"I knew I’d be a caffeinated, crazy, half-lunatic by the time it was done," said Lawson, after the contest had ended.
"As long as you have the promise of sleep later, you can get through anything," he said, recalling the all-nighters he spent as a student at McMaster University and in film school. Lawson calls the contest a great experiment, because it gives aspiring writers the freedom to focus on their writing.
"This was like a vacation, not slaving over punctuation and spelling," he said. "You need to let go of that inner critic." But Lawson’s keen eye for detail was hardly lost during his three days of near-isolation and he kept track of nearly every move he made.
He got 12 hours of sleep; drank 23 cups of coffee; guzzled four Red Bulls; and smoked 117 cigarettes - all while writing, to ensure that he didn’t lose valuable time.
Even so, by Monday afternoon Lawson was suffering from a case of cabin fever.
By Monday night, Lawson said his computer screen was "like a demon, laughing at me," and he was thinking of sleep. "The less sleep you’re getting, the more your mind is changing," he adds. "It’s exasperating."
In the end, Lawson wrote about 100 pages of text in 12-point font. If simple math proves accurate, that means he wrote about 10, 000 words in three days. While he says that he can’t expect his novel, about a 75-year-old man with "ridiculous amounts of money" to win the publishing contract, he is optimistic and very happy with it. It is step forward that he hopes will take him in the right direction toward becoming a published author.
"You can get intimidated by all the people who think they can write," he said. "It’s like trying to be a movie star." These odds persuade many aspiring writers away from the business.
"You can’t just sit at your computer and wait for a paycheque to fly through the window."
For Lawson, the competition is a call for writers to "put your money where your mouth is and see what you’ve got."
The winner of the 3-Day Novel Contest is expected to be announced in early January.
Next to unconscious in a powerful slumber, I can hear disconnected dialogue from the Home Movies DVD I left in the player, and I can hear a sweet, little voice asking if I would, possibly, make some dinner tonight before the front door closes and locks from the outside...
Next to awake, I’m halfway to the office before I realize that I can hear Ani DiFranco telling me that everyone is a fucking Napoleon, before I can hear the brakes grind like a tin lunchbox against a cheese-grater, before I can hear my inner-voice, the one that’s supposed to be my conscience, telling me to drive my car off a bridge, to jump out at the last second, to roll until the momentum’s worn off, to sit and watch said car buckle and explode against the rock-face of those cliffs they have in Road-Runner cartoons...
Next to the computer, I can hear the brewed coffee sizzle on its battle-tested heating plate, the contented sighs of my puppies in their cave of blankets on the couch, the long-distance ring of the telephone signaling either questions from the boss or a 1-800-number jockey telling me how I can minimize my monthly phone-bill by switching to a competing service-provider...
Cigarette lit, coffee in hand, staring at the computer-screen, as I sit down to write this I can hear next to nothing...
overwhelmed, over & done
over my head & under the gun
underappreciated, underfoot
under the illusion that I’m overlooked
over-ripened, over-lush
over the hill in the underbrush
under the wire ( it was never in doubt)
under-fire, I’m over & out
A grizzled, haggard, wind-breaker-wearing woman pushes past me at the coffee-shop; she yells, "gblxkym" at the girl behind the counter even more incoherently than it looks on paper.
The coffee-girl shares my confused expression, to which wind-breaker replies, "I’m going to miss my bus," as if to get her mystery-beverage sooner.
I say, "if you’re going to miss your bus, why are you stopping for coffee?"
This is greeted by the indignant silence of the interrupted, all grimacing stares and eye-blinks.
I continue: "Or, if you miss your bus, at least you have coffee to sip while you wait for the next one."
The topper: "It’s win-win!"
Wind-breaker yells, "fuck you!" and storms off, the heads of the surrounding patrons turning with her and then over towards me.
"Well," I say, "that sure was a funny way of saying ‘thank you.’"
There is a smattering of tension-breaking giggles, and I am once again a coffee-shop hero.
You can look at the dark, encroaching clouds as a sign of impending doom, or you can see the brilliant blue sky behind them as congratulations, as proof that you‘ve done the right thing.
You can also drink coffee & smoke fervently as you mull over what it means to have quit your day job...
I am inherently untrustworthy because of my (non)religious-beliefs...or so says a 2006 poll from the University of Minnesota.
On the surface, that means that you’d be less inclined to ask me to hold your puppy while you ran in to get coffee, instead trusting your pet to the guy in the pressed shirt who’s clutching a bible and his self-satisfaction so tightly that his knuckles are white and his face is twisted with what you would hope was effort.
If you got lost, you’d prefer directions coming from the hacking, toothless-mouth of that walleyed, foul-mouthed gremlin panhandling on the street-corner over me because of the gleaming cross swaying from his swarthy neck.
If you were dangling off a building-ledge thirty floors up, you’d be more comfortable taking the atrophied hand of an arthritic, 85-year-old Sunday-school teacher then you would mine.
Good luck with that.
None of this is to say I’m not spiritual; I do believe in karma, but mostly because I have to. Otherwise, I’d spend my days inflicting eye-gouges and shin-kicks as vengeance towards the legions of knuckleheads corroding our planet.
It’s called Preventitive Spirituality, and I recommend it highly.
