Something New / the End of the Year

I’ve been thinking about an Australian-made series I watched this year, called UPRIGHT. It’s about a man named Lucky who is driving his piano across Australia and meets a teenager named Meg who is running away from something. It was hilarious, dark, and incredibly sad in places, and I absolutely adored it. Eight episodes was all it took to remind me what great writing is, the kind that carries a plot and great characters and lets sadness and happiness sit right next to each other in the front seat of the truck. And what about those characters — flawed and awful and wanting something so badly they make terrible decisions.

There was a lot of great stuff in 2021: vaccines and reuniting with friends and family after months of separation. A small vacation and lots of long walks around the neighbourhood. So many great books. (SO MANY.) Opportunities for advancement or at least more interesting work at my paid job. New slippers and beautiful fountain pen ink for Christmas.  But when I reflected on my writing year, it was UPRIGHT I thought of, how it shocked me into remembering what story is built on.  How it made me stop in my tracks and do a squealingly sharp turn to start down a different road. I had been working on a novel, you see, quite half-heartedly, for quite a few months, and I just looked at it one day in June and thought, these people don’t WANT anything. No wonder I didn’t really care what happened to them, no matter how hard I tried. So I left that novel in a bunch of folders and moved on. (Don’t worry about those characters, they’ll be fine. They’re just totally fine. That’s the problem.)

You just never know what’s going to hit you between the eyes, you know?

In sum:

  • I recommend UPRIGHT (CBC Gem has it in Canada)
  • please bear with me while I try to get my longer form blog voice back in shape after years of 140 characters
  • and welcome to my new website!

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *