Newbie authors are always instructed to remember to include scents and sounds into their writing, but of the many seminars and writing classes I’ve attended, I’ve never heard mention of colour. Which, upon review, seems odd. If we are describing the world of our characters, should we not also be splashing it with appropriate colours, as well as the sounds and smells? Oh sure we almost always know the heroine’s hair is the colour of “spun gold” (not that I have ever seen spun gold to be able to compare it to) or the hero’s eyes were “black as night”. (Really?) But what about the rest of the fictional world? What colour is her apartment? Her office? His car? As with everything, the colours surrounding the hero and heroine also add to the romance or mystery.

After researching colour psychology for a design project, it occurred to me the list could easily transition from design to writing. You’ve seen many of these colours used to represent companies and business, but why not the world in our books?

This is a great little chart to show off some of the emotions associated with a few of the major colours. I thought it was worth sharing.

~ Nika

I debated going to look for the source of the sound, but the standard set of Horror Movie rules popped into my head. There’s a reason we’re not supposed to go searching for creepy sounds in the empty house in the middle of the night!

I thought I’d share a few of my favourite rules on How to Survive a Horror Movie:

• Strange noises are never just the cat.
• Don’t take anything from the dead. They’ll always want to kill you to get it back.
• Don’t keep all your knives in a butcher block on the counter.
• Never look behind you when you are running away; the monster/attacker will always jump out in front of you.
• Never back out of one room and into another without looking. It’s always behind you.
• Never split up from the group and go off on your own.
• Never unlock the doors to check outside.
• Never run upstairs when someone (or something) is chasing you.
• If the town is deserted, it’s probably that way for a reason. Take a hint and keep on driving.
• Never solve puzzles that will open a portal to Hell.
• After you’ve killed the monster, never stick around to make sure it’s really dead.
• Never read a demon summoning book aloud, even as a joke.

…and the number 1 rule on surviving horror movies?

• Never, ever, go into the basement — especially if the power is out.

“I’m a little disappointed in the American turnout. If it hadn’t been for the Canadian fans (Tuesday) night at the U.S. game it would have been embarrassing.”
- Bill Shaw of Fredonia, N.Y., Team USA fan

Canadian Fans Stampede into Buffalo (Toronto Star)

Last week I asked my six year old son to help me fill out his Christmas wish list for Santa. He quickly recited 5 items that he “really, really” wanted. They were each very small things, including a $20 Nintendo DS game, and a Hot Wheels trick track. After some encouragement he came up with two more items—also fairly small gifts. When he finished writing out his seven items he commented on how his list was short, but that the items were “seven really cool things” he wanted Santa to bring him.

On Friday nights, some of the teams in my rec hockey league bet on the games. The standard ‘loser buys the 1st pitcher’ or ‘team with the most penalties buys’ is the norm. This week my son’s simple list had me thinking about toys so I posed the bet to the opposing team – loser donates $30 in unwrapped toys to the Niagara Regional Police Annual Holiday Toy Drive. After instant acceptance the taunting began and several other teams got in on the action.

After the games finished last night, both the losers AND winners donated and we collected an astounding $480 in cash. Several players also pre-purchased unwrapped toys to donate. I was shocked and incredibly happy at the showing from such a simple bet between two teams.

This afternoon I took my son shopping for the $480 worth of toys. I explained what the toys were for and he agreed that he would be very sad if he didn’t have any presents on Christmas morning so we would help other boys and girls to make sure they had something to open.

Once we hit the store he was quite distracted with the ‘cool stuff’ to check out, but he never once asked for any of the items he was helping to put in the carts, and he never commented on adding anything else to his list for Santa. In return for helping make all the purchases I allowed him to choose 1 toy that I would buy on top of all the other toys.

His choice after going through aisle after aisle of toys?

A $5 Hot Wheels semi-trailer.

We took the purchases home, took a few photos, then the entire pile of loot was delivered to the Niagara Regional Police headquarters in St. Catharines where it will be sent to Community Cares and distributed to families as needed in time for Christmas.

And as for the “seven really cool things”—well Mommy’s added a few more to the list.

I don’t think Santa will mind, do you?

There’s something absolutely wonderful about waking up to a liberal dumping of snow for the holidays. Maybe it’s the memories of snowmen and snowangels. Epic snowball fights mounted from behind solidly built walls of snow. Sleds and toboggans. Returning to the heat of the house leaving snow caked mittens next to the heaters and being welcomed with hot chocolate topped with coloured marshmellows.

I realize there are many places round the world where snow is never an option… but to me, growing up in southwestern Ontario… Christmas has pretty much always been white.

I guess I’m jaded.
Or spoiled.
Either way I say: let it snow!”

Happy Holidays!
~Nika

Now that I have officially backed out my plot bunnies are peaking their heads out from the dark holes where they were hiding. I feel a slow resurection of ideas and a desire to crack open the files on my laptop and slowly make my way back into the wonderful world I’d begun to create.

Luckily my characters don’t seem too overly upset by my absence. Perhaps they even missed me.

So here’s to finding a lost muse and returning home to my misplaced worlds.

- Nika

Here’s a recap:

Many Canadians followed the saga of Tanner Bawn’s broken wheelchair yesterday in no small part because the proverbial bad guy in the picture was our oft-derided national airline, Air Canada.

The 10-year-old boy, who is fighting a terminal illness, travelled to New York City Wednesday to live out one of his final wishes, but his motorized wheelchair was damaged during transit. While Air Canada was, in fact, in the process of fixing the damage, it still took them 24 hours to communicate that to the public.

That was about 23 hours too late. The Wednesday night after Tanner and his aunt, Catherine Connors, tweeted the following message, directed at Air Canada:

So. @aircanada killed Tanner’s wheelchair. We’re now stuck at La Guardia. #tutusfortanner

What followed Wednesday night and all day Thursday, were thousands of Twitter comments from Connors’ community, many of whom were horrified that hours were passing by without any assurance from Canada’s biggest airline that the boy’s broken wheelchair would be fixed or replaced.

Amber then goes on to give Air Canada (and other businesses) a good look at how to deal with Social Networking. It’s a great read so please check out the full article!

- Nika

Sigh.

There are days when technology rules my world, and days when I’d like to toss it out the window.

- Nika

To most of the known universe, Canada is seen as a country with snow year round. So when I heard on the news that other nations around the world were upset with the Canadian Olympic venue because Whistler’s ski runs had to be closed due to near white out conditions, my first reaction was to laugh.

It’s Canada.

It’s winter.

Sorry ’bout the snow.

What is it with the misconceptions about Canada’s weather?

I grew up in South Western Ontario in a tiny town on the St. Clair river between Sarnia and Windsor. Now when I say a tiny town, I mean tiny. 3 blocks long and 5 blocks wide. We had a general store – that literally sold everything from food to clothes to tools, one restaurant, and the local OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) detachment. We used to have a gas station, but it didn’t do enough business so it closed down. The library shared a building with the post office, and there was a small corner store next to the ferry dock selling maps, candy, and small touristy items to the visitors.

On the other side of the river was the United States. We had a ferry running across every half an hour, which brought many a visitor and tourist across to visit our great nation.

One summer when I was eight or nine, I was in the corner store which was right next to the ferry dock. It was the height of summer and one of those wonderfully hot days where ice cream is the only cure.

My friends and I were just leaving the store when a station wagon pulled up outside. On the roof, neatly set out in rows, were four pairs of downhill skis. The cargo space in the back of the wagon was piled with luggage and heavy jackets.

A man got out of the driver’s seat and called out to us from across the roof of the vehicle. I swear to you these were his exact words:

“Hey kids, how far is the snow?”

Unfortunately we had to break it to him that he, his wife, and the three kids sweating their asses off had a long, long, LONG drive ahead of them if they were planning on going skiing.

In South Western Ontario.

In July.

True story.

So if the perception is that Canada has snow all year round, why is it people are surprised when it actually snows? We aren’t called the Great White North for nothing, folks. And yes while we are also considered the land of beer and hockey, we do occasionally get some snowfall. Especially on those big pointy things called mountains. Heck, even that poor family from the US knew we had snow. They just forgot to calculate out the whole concept of ‘seasons’.

Nika