Clark MacLeod

It was a lot of driving yesterday -- Montague to Sackville to Truro and back. Punctuated by whiteout conditions in parts of Nova Scotia and passing an accident in Charlottetown. Apparently Prince Edward Island ranks second only to the Yukon for car accident injuries, or car accidents in general. I thought it was just my skewed perspective as someone who hates driving. We met up in Sackville and had dinner at Fener's Place. It was good. Friendly people.I drove from Sackville to Montague alone.…

Sheryl's aunt passed away yesterday in Truro. Just over a week ago, she and Sheryl's other aunt were on their way to Montague from Truro with a car full of pies and other treats when a car pulled out in front of them on Mount Edward Road, resulting in a crash. Polly was in the passenger seat and suffered four fractures. She was rushed to the QEH where her prognosis was initially hopeful. Though she received excellent care, experience has taught that landing in emergency at that age is never a…

If our current business fails - which, though not exactly imminent, is always a distinct possibility - I have my next venture already mapped out. I'll start a service business where I come to your house and do the things you don't have time or energy for: weeding the garden, mowing the lawn with care, raking leaves, clearing out the garage. Minor tasks that just need a body. I even came up with a bad business name: The Unhandy Handyman. Which is accurate as I am no tradesperson. But I would…

I'm sitting here at The Gallery this morning, enjoying a treat and drinking coffee while listening to a trio of people discuss their plans for the novels they are writing. Their prospective stories sound interesting, as does all the thought they put into each segment.People and their stories are interesting -- though not so interesting that I would want to be thrown amongst vast groups of strangers like I was at the last writers conference I attended. A whole room of people you don't know,…

For most of this year I have at times been finding it difficult to summon the patience to start my day with pour-over coffee. Some days I am just too tired or too impatient to slow down and enjoy the process — so I found myself reaching for instant coffee, which is an aberration.I thought I could get a machine with a timer — quality machines like that certainly exist. We have one, without a timer, and the power switch is a weird toggle that won't work with a smart plug. I hesitated to spend the…

I'm not in the anti-AI camp like so many writer friends of mine - though I am anti-data centre, which I realize is a contradiction. I see AI as yet another in a long line of tools replacing various parts of the creative process, sometimes for the better, often for the worse. It started with software eating physical processes, then informational processes, and now parts of cognitive processes. I prefer to keep my ability to think alive and well.I do find a number of use cases genuinely useful,…

Peter shared a couple of examples of AI intruding into his life in a malicious way in his post, The Weekend AI Came for Us. I've had a few of my own, but this is perhaps the most notable of late.For almost 5 years we have been producing a science show, iterating year after year to get the right fit for bedtime. Writing science content in a short time frame is difficult, especially for someone without a genuine science background like me, and we have worked hard to make the process as efficient…

Sheryl and I at the top of some hill. I did a lot of walking, hiking and running in Ireland, some days upwards of 40k, which my knees protested.

Coming back from Calgary on Monday we had what might be considered a normal flight experience. Normal is worth celebrating in light of the barrage of negative experiences we have had. It's not lost on me that my constant harping about the dire state of air travel might seem like someone complaining about the thread count at a four-star hotel — but I see it more as spending what little money we have on things that matter, so when Air Canada and YUL ruin our experience, I can be found harping on…

Coffee experiences anchor any visit to whatever town or city we visit - it's not always specialty coffee, but even Sackville or Saint John, New Brunswick, have nice places to sit and have an espresso. Visiting Dublin, everyone kept mentioning the need to drink Guinness; I guess it's an institution with tourists because I saw many people topping off their morning breakfast with a pint. Succumbing to pressure, I tried a taste and survived. I don't drink beer.What we did do, happily, was…

I’m sitting on a flight from Calgary to Toronto, en route to home. The screen is a blur, my glasses stowed in my bag in the overhead bin above. I could grab them, but the dapper old gentleman sitting behind me might have a cardiac episode if I went near his bags in the same bin. He appeared quite offended that I took time to store my luggage. Or maybe it’s my ragged dress.I was in Calgary to attend the When Words Collide conference three days of workshops, seminars, and panels covering the…

It seems to work, didn’t see dog poo on the sidewalks we walked on. I’m thinking of proposing this for Montague, or simply a sign for my neighbour.

I'm sitting at a Tim Hortons in Montreal Airport, which feels familiar -- we were here a couple of weeks ago under similar circumstances. We arrived from Dublin and were funneled through some makeshift security corridor to reach our gate, like walking through the inside of an old mall, dark corridors and weird doors, except punctuated by about five layers of security. I'm tired and crotchety, and when the border agent asked why I'd been in Ireland, I wanted to say none of your damn business. I…

Yesterday I was hiking with Sheryl up a cliff near a northern suburb of Dublin when my doorbell rang -- a delivery back home. I could see the car on the camera and asked the driver to leave the package at the door. A little further along the trail, I mentioned to my daughter Catriona that someone had come by. She was on a call with someone on the other side of the world.Today I was in a pub in the city centre, noisy, just finishing dinner, when I joined a Zoom call with our critique group in…

Sheryl and I went to Read by the Sea earlier this month — nice, if far too short. Apple Maps took us on a route I'd never been on, and Sheryl hadn't seen since she was a kid. Read by the Sea was held in River John, a small place I'd never heard of. You can get there via Route 6, which follows the coast through some pleasantly narrow roads from the Caribou ferry.The actual highlight of the day was a visit to Pictou, a town I've driven past many times and always wondered about. There isn't much…

I am sitting at Starbucks in the Ottawa airport, listening to cheers from the restaurant nearby as Spain looks set to win.We came to Ottawa for the weekend -- an unusual choice, but we haven't been here in years, and the winter and spring in Montague felt long. I needed to get off the Island. An expensive mental break, but a needed one.Unfortunately, Air Canada had other plans. Flights out of Charlottetown are prone to problems, and this was one of those times. Our flight to Montreal -- Air…

...

I set up a daily task in ChatGPT and while it has only performed it once, I'm a bit surprised by its usefulness. It finds articles and insights across the web tailored to my professional interests, summarizes them, and gives me actionable insight on each one. That's far more useful than Google Alerts, an RSS feed reader, or other methods I have tried.The downside is that it takes me farther and farther away from personal websites, where I spent so much time at the beginning of my last career.…

Eight years back in Canada, and most of the reverse culture shock has faded. So have the memories — or at least the complicated ones. What remains is mostly romanticized: fruit stands on every corner, the food, more food, the general modernity of life in Taiwan and China.But twenty years shapes you in ways that don't fade as quickly. Lately I've been thinking about work — specifically about how I assumed leaving would help me escape a toxic relationship with it. Everyone worked there. School…

I sat down at the table, coffee prepared, iPad open, white page waiting. I'd already written in my diary — which is like a warm-up before a marathon — and I was ready. But nothing came. Or more likely I didn't want anything to come, so I set new writing aside for another day.The weather has been wonderful, and the gap has filled itself with other things. Physical, sweaty things: running in the woods, cutting grass, planting perennials, throwing bags of mulch around. Today there will be a…

From Seth Godin who appears to me making a case for including AI in the creative process:Real artists do all the painting themselves, not like RembrandtReal artists use brushes, not technology like Cartier-BressonReal writers write it out by hand, not like Jack KerouacReal musicians record it live, not like Steely DanReal singers sing without processing, not like Kanye West and Daft PunkReal directors do the prep without AI, not like Martin ScorseseIt turns out that real artists have always…

For me the day starts with quiet and coffee. Time to prepare slowly for what's ahead. It takes about 5 minutes to make good coffee, a little longer to open the book I'm learning from - the second habit of the day, reading to learn. Lately the house has been noisy and so has my mind. I have no patience for good coffee, and it takes much longer to open the book. I read but I'm not reading. I'm not working, and yet distraction finds me anyway. My mind races, concentration is fleeting, and nothing…

Some quick and disjointed thoughts.I am sitting here looking out my dining room window at blue skies and swaying trees, devoid of any interest in writing. I need to write — that's the rule. Maybe I should abandon the story I can't seem to progress on and return to an old trope. At least something will get done. My lack of desire might also have something to do with a brief flirtation with the news via social media.It's possible, I think, to go through your life without meeting someone truly…

I am reading Creative Authenticity by Ian Roberts. I’ve only just started, so I haven’t made up my mind about it yet — perhaps it will improve as I wade deeper. One quote from the first chapter on searching for beauty aligns with my thinking of late:“Beauty doesn’t flourish in a culture that honors the bottom line above all. How can a significant architecture result when a corporation’s quarterly report, reflecting the sensible use of resources to build a new factory-a metal rectangle…

Sheryl and I drove to Fredericton on Saturday so I could run the marathon yesterday. It’s a long drive — four hours feels like a journey these days — but we arrived with plenty of time to walk the whole downtown. Finding somewhere to eat proved difficult, and we ultimately ended up at some nondescript pub where I ate something purposefully bland. I’ve been having trouble with my stomach, and it was the kind of meal I hope to forget by tomorrow.I find it hard not to be critical of any…

I was reminded of public school gym class last week. There is not a lot I remember about it other than emotion — the feeling of embarrassment for not earning an award, like the Standard of Excellence or some such. Bronze, silver, and gold as well, I think. This was a completely different age, where rope climbing and a general lack of accommodation for different abilities were simply the norm. Rope climbing was not something I could do without considerable extra effort, and the only…

There are a number of adjustments we’ve made since moving home, back to the old country. I think of PEI the way characters in films or books talk about returning to some small town in Italy or a quiet corner of Europe after decades living in what was once considered modern — America.PEI is quaint, quiet, and slow. Which can be nice.I know I’ve written somewhere about how the medical system fails patients and professionals alike, and how entrenched the bureaucracy and fiefdoms are that resist…

I haven't quite made up my mind about AI. I am influenced by many who think it's a greater scourge on our lives than any technology previously introduced, and I'm not entirely sure they're wrong. Working alone, though, I do find it has some uses — mostly in being able to run ideas past it, particularly when it reminds me to suspend my desire to tell partners they are wrong in ways that don't actually help.For instance, it talked me out of sending this: This reads like a Nickelodeon bumper from…

I have had the pleasure of interacting with a great many writers these past couple of years, many of whom are interested in memoir. Writing, I have seen, is a creative pursuit that people put off most of their lives until they reach an age where their schedules open up and allow them to work on things that have no relation to family or work responsibilities.Memoir is not something I have a great deal of interest in, nor even a slight bit of talent for. If you are to write about the events of…

I'm reading On Writing And Failure by Stephen Marche — it's a book you could finish over a couple of cups of coffee if you're so inclined. One of its benefits is that it was published in 2023 — newer than most books on writing or the creative life I've read.Even only two-thirds of the way through, during my morning coffee, I find it capable of giving new perspective on what I'm so fortunate to fill my days with — a mediocre writer making a living writing.The fact that he can fill a book about…