Incite 2012

The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked Incite authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are...

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Perpetual motion. I’m happiest when I’m on a train, or a ferry, or driving somewhere far away. I think if I could live in that limbo between departure and destination forever, I would.

What does your ideal day look like?
My ideal day is one that is memorable. I want to have as many adventures as possible so that I can look back on my life and not feel that I’ve wasted my time.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Books, as far as my bank account is concerned. Taken less literally, I would say time. I do what I want to be doing, most of the time, and I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve found ways to make my living that way.

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost?
I don’t have any particular totems that I keep with me for sentimental reasons, and though I’ve accumulated a lot of possessions, they’re just things. I’d be heartbroken if I lost the pictures I’ve taken, though, or the stories I’ve written so far.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I suppose I would like to be more comfortable in my own skin.

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood?
I’ve always been afraid that bad things would happen to my family.

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?
Yes. I mean, both.

Do you remember your dreams?
Some of them. Generally they’re the recurring ones, or the ones that have something to do with what I’m stressing about in real life. Some of them just disappear.

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly?
I have a little notebook that my dad gave me for Christmas several years ago that I try to use, though more and more I use my iPhone or my computer for that stuff.

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The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked Incite authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are...

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Touching down in Sydney, Australia, for an extended holiday across that continent.

What does your ideal day look like?
7 am – walk the dog. 8 am – go to the gym.  9:30 – start writing. 1 pm – finish writing. Spend the afternoon reading. Then cooking a nice meal for when my partner gets home. A glass of sparkling wine and a DVD.

What is your greatest extravagance?
First class flights. Good hotels. Hardback novels.

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost?
I have a wall where I keep one copy of every book I’ve written, in every language and edition they’ve been published in. I wouldn’t want to lose them.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I’d be a better guitar player.

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood?
Mice and rats. Can’t stand them. Can’t even look at pictures of them.

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?
I don’t have any strong feelings about either! Although I do quite enjoy those long winter days where it never seems to get any brighter.

Do you remember your dreams?
Not often, but I do have a recurring dream where I am about to go on stage in a play and can’t remember any of my lines, nor is anyone willing to tell me them or show me a script. I have no idea what it means.

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly?
I keep a notebook with me at all times and write down every random idea in there. Most of them don’t come to anything but every so often one is a keeper.

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The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked Incite authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are...

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Contented exhaustion. Maybe I’ve been out climbing mountains all day, or taming lions. Now I’m inside with a cup of tea and a good book and there is a thunderstorm outside. It’s pouring rain. I have no choice but to read until I sleep.

What does your ideal day look like?
It’s an impossible dream of being all my favourite places at once: on a Mexican beach for breakfast, in an Amsterdam café for lunch, and back in Canada with my family for turkey dinner (why not?) by sunset.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Peanut butter and jam. Often I can only afford one or the other. When I’ve got both, life is good.

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost?
I move so often, and have so few possessions that my computer has become everything. It holds my music, my photos, my every idea. I don’t think I could give it up even at knifepoint.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I wish I were a better singer. I’d like to be the kind of person who could burst into beautiful song at any moment. Of course, if I could do that, I probably wouldn’t feel the need to write.

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood?
The misguided belief that if I can imagine it, it will happen. Like Chicken Little, I spend far too much time envisioning and then expecting the worst.

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?
I definitely find comfort in darkness, but comfort and me have an uneasy relationship. I’m pretty sure comfort is what killed the cat, not curiosity.

Do you remember your dreams?
Often. My dreams are technicolour, sci-fi, epic dramas. Many of my story ideas come from my dreams.

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly?
Several years ago I decided it was too overwhelming to try and record every little burst of inspiration. I had too many notebooks and could never remember where I had written things. Now when I have something I want to remember, I repeat it to myself over and over for weeks or months. The ideas that survive this test of time, the ones that rise to the top of my mind again and again, are the ones that find their way into my writing.

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The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked Incite authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are...

What is your idea of perfect happiness? 
“Perfect happiness?”  Shoes that fit, happy children, being in love. On the other hand, creatively speaking, one must never be “perfectly happy” …with anything. But knowing when to move on is good. 

What does your ideal day look like? 
I read somewhere that Picasso’s days were like this: sleeping till noon, spending the day at the beach with his kids, having a late supper, and working all night. And I thought, “I could get into that.” It’s not practical right now, but my family and I do spend a lot of time at the beach in the summer. 

What is your greatest extravagance? 
I don’t have many. Quitting drinking and smoking saves lots of money. My one extravagance: my husband and I will nurse an expensive soda water or cup of coffee at the Bengal Lounge in the Empress Hotel, because they have a jazz band you can listen to with no cover charge on weekends.  

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost? 
I try to be Buddhist about things: I’ve started over with the shirt on my back more than a few times. There’s this proverb I heard, “In the course of a long life, a man must be prepared to lose his luggage many times.” In a way, there’s a liberating side to losing things. 

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? 
I’m really not very sympathetic. I want to fix everything, and if it’s beyond repair I will pretty quickly leave it by the side of the road. I’ve also been told I think too much, going over a thing that happened for days from different angles. 

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood? 
That someone/something will steal the people I love.

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?  
I take comfort in my family, the ocean, poetry, music. I think that it’s from darkness that light comes, or, as Camus said, our majesty comes from the confrontation of our own mortality. Like a man with a knife fighting his way out of a barrage of machine guns -- that which we cannot conquer, but never giving up. 

Do you remember your dreams? 
These days I have a recurrent dream set in a tenement house. I’m always trying to find my room in the building, or make money to pay my rent. 

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly? 
In a little book with a spiral binder. If I have no paper, I write on the back of my hand. If I have no pen, I repeat a key word or phrase, which is usually is enough until I get to a pen and paper. 

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The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked Incite authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are…

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Answering online questionnaires.

What does your ideal day look like?
Tuesday.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Glacier-chilled strawberries hand-fed to me by ostrich-fan waving servants.

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost?
My sense of wonder. That, and my cellphone.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
The ability to whistle a recognizable tune.

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood?
The fear of being followed, ironically enough.

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?
I’ve always been an equinox man myself.

Do you remember your dreams?
Well, there was this one time when I dreamed I was a butterfly who dreamed he was an Emperor who dreamed he was a butterfly . . .  But that may have just been the burrito I had before I went to bed.

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly?
I have a snippet app on my iPhone.

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The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked Incite authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are…

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Safety. The company of loved ones. A well-written paragraph. A decent cup of coffee. A view of the ocean and the mountains. Library shelves with a sliding ladder. A worn leather wingback and a good reading lamp. A clear and organised desktop. Manuscript pages. Cake. Music playing on shuffle.

What does your ideal day look like?
Not at all like I would imagine it.

What is your greatest extravagance?
I collect first edition hardbacks – novels by authors whom I think people will be collecting seriously in, oh, 50 years time. My as-yet-unborn children will inherit these books one day and marvel at the rudimentary technology their father had to endure just to read a good story.

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost?
I wear my grandfather’s ring everywhere—it would be a very sad thing to lose.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
My inability to speak foreign languages.

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood?
Saying or doing the wrong thing at the right time.

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?
I try to embrace the darkness until the light appears.

Do you remember your dreams?
Not always… I’m amazed by Paul McCartney’s story about the entire melodic structure of Yesterday coming to him in a dream. How could a song so utterly perfect just announce itself in his consciousness like that? They’re the kind of dreams I want to have every night.

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly?
I have a notebook that I carry with me whenever I leave the house. And the Moleskine app for iPhone has been quite useful when I can’t find a pen. Sometimes I tear things out of the paper and stow them in a drawer for future reference. Sometimes I just rely on memory—if it’s a good enough idea, I’ll remember it.

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The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked Incite authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are…

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Immersion in water, outdoors. 

What does your ideal day look like?
Wake up in the darkness. Be elsewhere. Move a lot. Sleep easy.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Very hot showers.

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost?
I don’t have a possession that, if lost, would break my heart.  I don’t wear jewelry and I use the library. I would be heartbroken by people in my life being lost but people are not my possessions.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I would change being born in Canada.

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood?
Claustrophobia and fear of crowds.

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?
Light.

Do you remember your dreams?
Fairly often.

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly?
I repeat them to myself and try to remember them this way, as impressions or ideas that I can call up for use at some later date.

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The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked Incite authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are…

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Succeeding at knitting and reading simultaneously, while my 12 year old son is on the other couch crunching chips and immersed in a book. Outside a storm is happening that we periodically comment on to each other.

What does your ideal day look like?
It would start with a bit of gymnastics, involve a long supine stretch of reading, followed by Grandma Suzu's Japanese dinner, or my partner Jeremy's best cooked egg, some cups of tea with friends, a bit of scribbling that makes perfect sense and needs no changes, interspersed with receiving my mother's funny phone texts and would end with a bout of either knitting or sledge hockey. There would be 136 hours in one day.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Books, cardigans, books for my son, and teabags.

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost?
I recently mislaid Phylis Bowman's self published history of the railway in Prince Rupert and was pretty distraught for 2 days.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
It's a toss up between complete ineptitude at cooking and my kidney that periodically misbehaves.

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood?
Mortality.

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?
Both. But more darkness because it's snuggly.

Do you remember your dreams?
No, only patchy flashes and  it regularly frustrates me.

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly?
Sadly I don't. I think I do. I am sure I do. Then I can never recall them.

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The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked Incite authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are…

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A family with a shared sense of humour--about such things as--oh--perfection?

What does your ideal day look like?
It starts early.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Perennials, at a nursery garden--why do I need to replace them every year?

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost?
Bookshelves, with real books in them.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I heard someone in a gym once day say 'Could you come over here and be tall?' I'd be tall. And I'd play the piano really well.

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood?
That irony will disappear from the face of politics.

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?
About half the time, or else in the other half.

Do you remember your dreams?
No, unless--wait---was it all a dream?

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly?
On a thousand pieces of paper, most of which I misplace.

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The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked Incite authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are…

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Time would be accordion-shaped, with any minute or hour or afternoon  infinitely expandable. You could keep packets of it on hand, to use as needed.

What does your ideal day look like?
It holds much walking, good bread, some red wine.  Books. The assurance that everyone I love is well, and that they don't need my attention.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Stockpiling black ink-jet cartridges. Sad but true. A stay against chaos.

What possession would you be heartbroken if you lost?
An Acme roller ball pen  my spouse gave me. It  has  old typewriter keys on it, and  lays down ink like velvet.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I'd be as driven and  task-oriented as I was in my early 30's, but it might kill me.

What childhood fear has followed you into adulthood?
Bombs in mailboxes. What moonlight can do to clothes on a chair back. The fear of shame.

Do you take comfort in darkness or light?
Definitely light, but I 'm an Olympian  sleeper,  so there's comfort in the dark, too.

Do you remember your dreams?
Yes, especially the recurrent ones. For example, I've been missing and/or avoiding the same British Airways flight for 20 years. The destinations change, but the plane always has the same flimsy aluminum staircase.

How do you collect snippets of observations and ideas that come to you unexpectedly?
With a pencil-- best app ever.

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