me Archives - Page 10 of 19 - imaginary magnitude

January 1, 2015January 1, 2015

January 1, 2015 11:58am

I look out my window and the first thing I see is a black cat–our black cat’s spirit guide perhaps, but most likely a regular black cat–on the neighbour’s pigeon coop. This cat long ago gave up figuring out if there was a way inside the coop, but instead uses it as a means to traverse several abutted properties from a conveniently high vantage point.

The wind is intense, heaving and insolent. Seed pods which remain on skeletal tree limbs appear soulless and huddled, perhaps sensing they were abandoned by natural instinct to drop to the ground in autumn.

The sun is a conscience which fights to make itself clear, to see for itself what is real through battleship grey.

Red roof. Brown roof. Grey roof.

November 30, 2014November 30, 2014

Now

Right now, it’s about keeping my energy and clarity in some sort of balance with the demands of reality, whose shifting path I have been navigating for the last while.

I am, by all rights, completing work on the last film I will ever work on. I say this with understandable trepidation since walking away from something you’ve done for 20 years, swinging to a new vine which depends solely on me and me alone: intimidating. Also experiencing the predictable though nevertheless white-knuckle bullshit of completing work on a film.

My psychotherapy practice is humming along nicely, which I am grateful for.

I am awaiting editorial notes on my novel, The Society of Experience, and hoping that they are neither too overwhelming nor the window I am given to do them within too short. Nobody wants to publish a bad book–that’s the good news and the bad news.

I am gratified by the progress I have made as a writer this year, not only in that I had a short story published, but that I feel I have turned a corner with respect to my writing process and the way I approach the development of stories.

I still have bad habits, but that’s what keeps life interesting.

September 24, 2014

Short Fiction: “Snowshoe”

I am extremely happy to announce that my short fiction piece, Snowshoe, is available for purchase and download through Found Press (and via Amazon).

I’m very proud of this story, as it is a concept I’ve been wishing to turn into a story for many years (“decades” is probably appropriate). I finally put pen to paper and out came, quite organically, the resulting story. Working with editor Bryan Jay Ibeas was a great experience in that he and I both seemed to be on the same wavelength, which is perhaps the best that any author can expect.

If you are interested, please (at the very least) check out Found Press’ Snowshoe page. Or, if you are feeling aggressive, go to Amazon and purchase it for the crazy-cheap price of $2 (click here).

May 2, 2014May 2, 2014

Updates

Hello all. It’s been a while. So, what’s new…

1) My psychotherapy site has had a facelift. If you’re looking for a psychotherapist in Toronto, I’m your man. Unless you’re looking for a woman.

2) I have completed my accreditation with TIRP and am now (slowly) preparing to join the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO). I am no longer a “Candidate” – yay!

3) My novel has an official title now. It’s called The Society of Experience. For updates, you can go here for now. It’s to be published in the Fall of 2015. It will be published under the recently-launched imprint Buckrider Books (a subsidiary of Wolsak & Wynn).

I’m extremely excited about the upcoming months. I don’t doubt there will be more things to announce. I will also try to come here more often and actually post something other than point-form updates.

January 1, 2014

So, Another Year (A Needle Pulling Thread)

2013 was good to me, which is not to say that it was without challenges. I suppose it was a cluttered year, and I will take that over barren, even if I’m feeling exhausted.

I had two articles published, on two topics that I took personal interest in: the shape of Kensington Market, and the 10th anniversary of SARS. They both involve Toronto, but aside from that they don’t hold much in common. I took great pride in writing them and each provided healthy challenges for me as a writer.

The biggest news, for me as a writer and an individual, was having my novel picked up by Hamilton publisher, Wolsak & Wynn. Of course, there is a lot of work to be done until its publication date in 2015, but it’s about the biggest milestone for me as a writer that I could have asked for (a big shout-out to my agent, Kelvin Kong, with The Rights Factory).

And yet it was also a year where my psychotherapy practice grew and broadened. This February will mark the completion of two years of private practice and I could not be happier with it, though like starting anything new and independent there are always going to be challenges. I began working with couples in the summer and found myself liking the dynamic very much, though working with the energy in the room can be taxing.

I’m not completely out of the woods with respect to the film industry. I started work on Bruce McDonald’s new feature, Hellions, as a post supervisor/consultant. It’s difficult juggling this type of work with therapy – two different parts of my brain which don’t always play well: the anticipatory, structure-based, logic-seeking left brain vs the open-ended, empathetic, creative right.

I would like to top 2013, but I don’t know if that will happen in 2014. I would certainly like to complete the first draft of my new novel. But it’s a tough nut to crack and doesn’t want to be rushed. My greatest challenge as a writer with respect to new work will be combining the worlds – and words – of therapy and writing: finding a project in which to write from the viewpoint of a therapist. I see this as an inevitability and I would prefer to jump in the pool rather than be pushed. I look forward to the days to come.

September 9, 2013September 17, 2013

Limits

I don’t typically work from home when I’m writing fiction. Too many distractions which are almost purely mental (as opposed to audible or visual). Reminders of things that need cleaning, fixing, adjustment. Things I’ve put off seemingly forever.

I typically write in coffee shops, sometimes the odd bar. So yes, I am typically more comfortable in a strange place, surrounded by strangers (though to be honest I tend not to seek out locations that are packed), with music that is not my own playing overhead. This may sound odd. After all, what could possibly provide more distraction than that?

I find the hardest variable is music. The last thing I want is to write while music I know is playing. Why? Because if I like a song, then I’ll be focused on it rather than the brittle little fictional world I’m constructing. My foot will inevitably start beating on the floor to the drums. I will anticipate the dynamics, the chorus. Pretty soon lyrics will be passing through my eyes like ticker-tape instead of my characters’ dialogue.

So, though it might seem paradoxical, I prefer the random jukebox that is the playlist of whomever is working at an establishment I’m located in. And you know what? I discovered many years ago that I can write through pretty much any type of music. And the stranger or furthest away from my taste the music is, the easier it is to tune it out. When I’m in a place that isn’t home, with people I don’t know, with music playing that I wouldn’t necessarily choose to listen to, I can more easily fall into that glorious black hole which allows me to sync with the fictional universe on the other side of my consciousness. Continue reading…

August 29, 2013September 3, 2013

New Author Site

Hello all. In order to promote my upcoming book and to (eventually) be a hub for promoting any published works I do between now and then, I thought it best to have a standalone author site created: mattcahill.ca. This task was handily undertaken by Ingrid Paulson, and it looks great.

Eventually I will start adding pages to the site, to flesh it out (so that it is more than just a page, but an actual “site”).

The question currently stands: what will happen to this here blog? I’m not sure. The more I focus on writing gigs, the less time I have for blogging, and yet – paradoxically – I have more things to blog about because potentially I have more gigs. In other words, there is still a need for the blog, so imagitude will stay where it is and perhaps be linked-to from the author site at some point.

July 18, 2013December 13, 2013

Big News

I’ve been sitting on something pretty big for the last while. Rather than tell you in my own words, I will use one of the rare opportunities in my life where a press release does the talking:

Wolsak & Wynn senior editor Paul Vermeersch has acquired North American rights to Matt Cahill’s debut novel, Someone Else and You (working title). The story is about a man whose life changes irrevocably when he volunteers to take part in a secret society’s time-travel experiment. Kelvin Kong of The Rights Factory arranged the deal.

So yes. This. Huge news.

It’s been a very long road, and while it is not yet over (not by many miles more) I’m grateful for the opportunity to have something of mine released into the public. One less writer polishing his stones, wondering whether to keep bothering.

This would not have been possible without representation from The Rights Factory, specifically my agent (extraordinaire) Kelvin Kong. I look forward to working with everyone at Wolsak & Wynn, particularly my editor, Paul Vermeersch.

Onward and upward. Hugely excited.

June 23, 2013November 9, 2013

Kensington Market Essay in BlogTO

For those who don’t live in Toronto, there’s been a lot of discussion about my neighbourhood, Kensington Market, in the news. Much of it is about preservation vs development. I offered to write an op/ed for BlogTO and they published it today. I’m quite pleased that they kept the essay intact (you never know what an editor’s going to do sometimes). You can read it here.

It feels good to work on my non-fiction chops, and even better when something gets published.

May 21, 2013

Away

I’ve been terribly busy for the last three years: work, school, new career, new work. No complaints except that my non-academic writing has suffered considerably. I believe I’ve only squeezed out one, maybe two short stories during this time. Of course, the bevy of my attention was on revising my novel (and whatever energy I had left was spent on the subsequent one).

With respect to this here blog, I’ve been unapologetically negligent. I’ve had no choice. Blogging’s great, but it’s the odd man out when it has to compete for creativity-expenditure with other areas. For one thing, it doesn’t pay. Another drag on its sail is the competition that social media plays. Between posting stuff on Facebook and Twitter (between which I don’t consider myself a fanatic contributor), little is left for blogging and I think there’s a problem with that.

Twitter ends up being a Post-It Note for ideas which never get developed. You tell yourself: if I just jot this idea down I can come back to it later. The problem with this otherwise workable concept is that in Twitter-land what you post takes the form of its own singular effort – it’s a public communication unto itself which fulfills a basic function which makes me, the author, forget about what it was I was hoping to say (or develop the idea of) later.

And Facebook is just a mess of “seen this” and “done that”.

And so I come back to blogging, for now, to say firstly that I’m still here. Secondly, to say that I feel there is room for this format, out-dated and seemingly formal compared to Tumblr, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Soon (I think) I will be able to get back to saying things of note and interest.