Happy Family Day! Hope you’re getting to spend it with your loved ones.

Now that the dust has settled, so to speak, from getting my permanent residence, I wanted to talk about the timing of the very last step: getting confirmation of my PR status. Which I found out, to my confusion and — I’ll confess — frustration, is not the same as approval.

You see, I got an email from IRCC on the 22nd of December saying my PR application had been approved, and that because I was already in Canada, I’d be allowed to use the online portal to confirm my permanent residence. It asked me to reply with some basic information about my wife and I (another form!) and then they’d create an account for me in the portal, where I could upload a recent photo (yet another form!) and then they’d send me my PR card.

At first I was ecstatic. Here I was, barely four weeks into waiting for my PR to be processed, and they’d already approved it?! And right before the Christmas holidays as well. What a present!

I dutifully sent off the requested info that very day, and settled in to watch my inbox, waiting for the account creation email.

And waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Weeks went by. I started to wonder if I’d replied to the wrong address. When I’d reassured myself that I’d replied correctly, with the right info, to the right address, my mind next turned to fraud. Maybe I’d been too hasty to reply, and had accidentally sent my info to some kind of identity thief? All sorts of scenarios went through my head.

Because throughout this time, when I logged into the ExpressEntry site, and checked my application status, it still said they were reviewing my information. Not “approved” or “waiting for confirmation.” It was basically in the same state it’d been in since I first applied.

Finally, on 10 January, I got the email from IRCC with account credentials (username, temporary password) for logging into the account they’d created for my in the PR confirmation portal. Again, a celebration on my part; this was the last step! I logged into the portal — using Firefox, because IRCC does not support Safari — filled out the deceptively simple web form (“just a checkbox, an address field, and a passport-style photo? easy!”), and sat back, expecting to hear something within the week.

…yeah, that didn’t work out. Over the next four weeks (!), I got in the habit of logging into the portal every day to check its status, because I encountered a bug (though I didn’t know it was a bug at the time) in the web portal: periodically, when I logged in, my photo would vanish.

I mean really gone, like I’d log in, go to my status page, and it would just have a blank entry where my uploaded photo was, and it’d be asking me to upload one. But when I did try to upload a new photo (I had three separate sets of photos taken, because at one point I thought this was IRCC’s subtle way of rejecting my photo as unacceptable), I got an error: “File Did Not Upload”. And then I’d refresh the page, and there my photo would be, as if nothing was wrong!

This bug drove me absolutely batty. Because there was no way to get feedback on the status of my confirmation. Calling into IRCC got me automated responses. Checking my ExpressEntry profile showed it as still under review, as if the confirmation process hadn’t started. Emailing IRCC meant a response might come in three weeks, if ever.

And this whole time, I was in a legal limbo. You see, I had a new job lined up after getting laid off, but because my work permit was tied to Elastic, I couldn’t start the new job without some proof of the legal right to work in Canada.

Originally they were just going to get a new work permit for me, so I could start on 17 January. But as a theoretically approved permanent resident, I wasn’t eligible for a work permit anymore. Meaning I had to wait for the entire PR process to complete, so I could get my confirmation of PR status, and then give that to my new employer as proof of the legal right to work.

Which meant every week in January I had to call the (incredibly patient) onboarding person at Cisco at tell them that no, I hadn’t heard anything from IRCC yet, so can we push back my start date another week?

Every week.

I got so worked up I paid for a phone chat with an immigration consultant, to get some advice on what to do here. He’s the one that told me what I was experiencing was a bug. He also said I wasn’t the only one to have these kinds of frustrations, but that however long it took, once I was in the confirmation stage, I was almost certain to get my eCOPR (electronic confirmation of permanent residence). I just needed to be patient.

He also explained a very important distinction that I’d missed: that I wasn’t yet a permanent resident, even though I’d gotten notice of approval. Until very recently, what would happen is a PR applicant would get notice of approval, while outside of Canada. Then they’d have to let IRCC know when they were coming across the border, and at the border they’d have to talk to an IRCC agent and get their official PR papers there. That date would be the date that they became a PR.

Since I was doing everything electronically, I wasn’t technically “landed” even though I was already in the country. So my PR wouldn’t officially start until I had my confirmation in hand; the date they issued that would be my equivalent “landed” date.

Once he’d explained things to me, I calmed down. I stopped trying to contact IRCC. I still checked my status every day, and re-uploaded a photo when it vanished, but I stopped worrying about whether it might affect the process.

Still, the day (3 February) I got the email that my permanent residence was confirmed was a huge, huge relief 😅 I was finally done!

Now, I'm not writing this to complain about IRCC, who have been put under a lot of pressure to admit more immigrants while dealing with a massive shift in how they operate due to the pandemic. I’m writing all this down in the hopes that it helps someone else keep their cool when going through this last bit of the process. For basically two months I had no feedback on what my PR application’s status really was, or how long each step would take, or what to expect. If I’d known on 22 December that I was looking at six weeks or more of waiting, I would have been a lot less frustrated.

So if you fall into the same legal limbo that I did, just hang in there! You’ll get through it, eventually.

Started the new job this week! Which means I’m suddenly wondering how in the world I ever had time to write while working full-time 😅

I’ve made it about halfway through the first editing pass on the novel. Well, I made it halfway as of Monday, but the rest of the week I’ve wrapped work feeling simultaneously too drained to be creative and too stuffed full of facts and process (from the company onboarding) to get anything done.

It doesn’t help that said onboarding consists of four hours of back-to-back meetings, which is hard on this introvert. I’ve not had the Zoomies in a while, and this is definitely it 😬

I’m telling myself to be patient, though, rather than beating myself up about not making daily progress. The onboarding will finish, the meetings will drop away, and I’ll eventually work those extrovert muscles enough to handle a 9-to-5 again (and be able to write after the work day is done). Plus, there’s always the weekend. And there’s a long one coming up, so I can carve out some time (and spoons) to play catch-up.

Wish me luck!

The title of this post is going to crack up anyone that lives somewhere with a “real winter,” like Yellowknife or Winnipeg or, really, any other major city in Canada (and large swathes of the northern US).

But for me, having grown up in West Texas (where the high today is a balmy 18C) and then lived in Southern California for over a decade (today’s high: 15C), I had some concerns about being able to make it through the winter up here (currently 0C with the wind chill) 🥶

Would I ever go outside? Would I get worn down by dark, dreary days? Would I be forced to walk around inside the apartment with every article of clothing I had in my closet (like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man brought to you by LL Bean), just to stay warm enough to type?

I’m happy to report, then, that the answers turned out to be: Yes, No, and Not At All 😊

We’re halfway through February — a month so terrible they knew we could only stand twenty-eight days of it — and so far, with the exception of a couple of cold snaps (one the week of Christmas and the other checks forecast right now), winter’s been kind of great, actually. A little rainy, often cloudy, and yes, colder than I’m used to, but not bad. I still go out for my daily walks along the harbour, or down to Beacon Hill Park. I go out for my groceries and errand runs like always, though with one extra eye on the forecast to avoid the most blustery periods. And yes, I’ve got my heat set to 21C inside, but that’s, um, totally because the radiators are inefficient 😅

Granted, it helps that I arrived with some cold weather gear. Regular trips to the East Coast in November and December over the years had already pushed me to get a decent coat. And during a pre-move shopping trip I grabbed a wool tuque that has proved to be indispensable. Ditto my camping boots, which I originally got for trips to Joshua Tree and Anza-Borrego, but turned out to be waterproof, and have been wonderful to have in the cold and rain.

And I’ve had to supplement since then. Blankets and a small room heater for indoors, when the outside temp drops to freezing or below. Along with a handful of flannels and a wool pullover, so I can layer up when needed. Finally, new gloves, because the thin things I brought up from California were not even close to cutting it.

Looking over that list, I guess the saying is true: No bad weather, just bad clothes. I’m lucky that I came with a lot of what I needed, and could buy the rest. And that I’m not anywhere much further north, where — for example — you have to both bundle up and beware of sweating, because your sweat can freeze!

All that said, I’m looking forward to spring next month. It’ll be nice to see things in bloom again 😀

As you can imagine from my last post (and lack of posting through Nov, Dec, or Jan), absolutely nothing went as planned, writing-wise, over the last three months.

NaNoWriMo? Sure, I got 16,000 words into it before crashing and burning. Now I have two incomplete novels sitting on my laptop, waiting for me to pick them back up 😬

The TCF? Dropped it. Okay, I delayed it first, then dropped it. There was simply too much else going on, between racing to get to the PR finish line and interviewing for a new job. And the holidays. I’m still studying French, mind, but I’ve had to let go of the idea of getting tested on it, for now.

Ditto the Clarion West classes. I attended a few sessions of the mystery-writing one, but the homework (a new story every week) overwhelmed me, and the lectures + feedback turned out to be less valuable than I thought. So I backed out of the other classes, too, freeing up time in my schedule to deal with everything else that was happening.

I did get two new stories out of the class, though. True, one of them I didn’t finish until January, and then only by ignoring the parameters of the original assignment. But still. One of them I think might be a trunk story, but the other (the January one) I’m really rather fond of, and plan to polish up for submission…later 😅

On the good news front, I did keep up with my critique group (bless them for putting up with me), and we’re almost to the end of the prison-break-in-space novel I wrote a few years ago (fourth novel completed, second sci-fi book, prior to the two unfinished novels were started). So I’ve gone back through their feedback up to this point, distilled it to a set of edits to make, and have started in on actually making those edits.

I know, this is what you’re supposed to do with novels, yes? Write a first draft for yourself, do a second draft for others to read, and then edit, edit, edit based on feedback and your own reads before sending it out to agents.

Well, I’ve got the first part down — four novels in first draft stage — and I’ve done the second (for this book, anyway), but I’ve never gone past that point. Always started a new book rather than revise the last one.

But not this time! I’m going through the thing, chapter by chapter, editing as I go. Most of the feedback I received concerned physical descriptions and layout, so that’s what I’m working on first. Which means, oddly enough, adding material instead of chipping things away. So the book’s getting longer, not shorter, as I work on this revision.

If all goes well 🤞I think I’ll have the edits wrapped by May. Which is not that far away, all things considered! Then it’ll be time to compile a list of possible agents, and start shipping out query letters.

What about you? If you did NaNoWriMo, how did it go? If you didn’t, have you made any writing goals for 2023, and how are they coming along so far?

Hey, there! Wait, pardon me one second…

blows dust off the blog

coughs

That’s better.

clears throat

Bonjour, hello! Apologies for the radio silence since November. Things have been…a bit chaotic and uncertain these past few months. It’s all worked out in the end, but getting here has meant many weeks of stressful limbo.

I’m not even sure where to start, tbh. Since November 2022, I’ve:

• been laid off
• filled out a ton of additional paperwork for IRCC as part of the ExpressEntry PR process
• interviewed with half a dozen companies, one of which was interrupted when my wife called to get troubleshooting help with our EV so she could make a medical exam appointment 200km from our house as part of the PR application
• got a new job
• was told my PR application was accepted but not confirmed so I couldn’t start said new job
• flew home for the holidays
• came back to Canada to fight with the web-based PR confirmation portal over my uploaded passport-style photograph
• pushed back my start date by one week every Thursday for four weeks while waiting on my PR confirmation

I’m leaving out…so much. But that should give you some sense of everything that’s gone down in the last few months.

In the end, it’s all worked out, thank goodness. As of last Friday, I’m officially a Canadian permanent resident!

I have my eCOPR (electronic confirmation of permanent residence) in hand, which I’ve passed on to my new employer (Cisco) as proof of my ability to legally work in Canada. That means I can go back to work, and finally end the weird forced sabbatical I’ve been on since getting laid off by Elastic (they cut 12% of their workforce, so it wasn’t just me, those tech layoffs really are going around).

I’m still processing everything that’s gone on, tbh. Been so focused on immigration issues that I’ve neglected other things, like my writing (NaNoWriMo did not go well), my friends (I kind of dropped off the grid there for a bit), and projects for back in SD (there’s a mountain of paperwork my wife needs help with in regards to her mother and younger brother). I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

But at least now I have the mental head space in which to do it. With the PR behind me, I can focus on settling into my new job, helping my wife, and actually planning for the future (I’ve been unable to see past “get my PR” for so long).

So, happy (belated) new year! May your 2023 be more stable than my 2022, and give you the space to breathe and work to accomplish your goals, whatever they are.

So I signed up for NaNoWriMo this year.

“But,” I hear you say, “you’re already studying for the TCF in December, trying to put together the last pieces for your permanent residence application, taking three classes from Clarion West online, and supposed to be finishing those short stories you started over the summer. How are you going to also write 50,000 words in a new novel?”

And, well…I have no idea.

But! I want to try, for three reasons:

1. I’ve noticed lately my writing output has slowed. A lot. Used to be I could crank out 500 words a day, no problem. Now I’m struggling to get even a hundred words down. I need something to kick me back into gear. NaNoWriMo can act as that something.
2. The short story I’ve been working on — the sci-fi story that started as flash and then grew to 8,000 words in a second draft — has grown even more. I don’t know what the word count is, because I’ve been writing it out by hand. But when I stepped back and wrote up an outline, it looked very much like one of my novels. Not a short story. And if I’m going to be writing a new book anyway to finish this out, what better way to get it started than during NaNoWriMo?
3. Failure is an option. All of this is voluntary, with the exception of the PR application (fingers crossed I get invited soon, and can get my paperwork together in time). I can drop out of the Clarion West classes without any hassle. And if I don’t hit 50,000 words this month on the novel, so what? So long as I push towards it, spend more time writing, and make progress on a new book, that’s enough.

Number 3 there is really important to me. I don’t want this to become a source of stress. I want it to be motivating; a challenge, not a directive. So I’m letting myself be okay with flubbing the first two days, when I only cranked out 400 or so words. Last night I put in over a thousand, and it felt great (I rewarded myself with some leftover Halloween candy). If I can keep that pace up, and do a little extra on the weekends, I’ll make the goal. And if not? Well, at least I’ll have a solid start to the next book.

If you want to follow along with my stumbling progress, my username is mindbat and my project is here. Hit me up, and let’s be writing buddies!

Big news from last week: They approved my application for the British Columbia Provincial Nomination Program!

waits for applause, hears nothing

Ok, let me explain.

Canada uses a points-based system for immigration, handled via the ExpressEntry web portal. You create a profile, filing in all your personal details, along with your job history, occupation (which must be mapped to one of their NOCs, which could be a whole other post), education, language test scores (yes, you have to take an English exam even if it’s your first language), and whether you’ve got a job offer already.

They then assign you points based on that profile, total them up, and that’s your score. All candidates in the ExpressEntry “pool” are ranked by that score (higher is better). When the government decides to issue a call for applicants, they look at the top X ranked candidates, and send out invites to apply for permanent residence. That last bit is key: You can’t even apply for permanent residence without getting a high enough score.

The scoring system is transparent, you can have a look here. Basically the system is skewed towards folks who are young (20-29), highly educated (a bachelor’s alone will net you 120 points), bilingual (50 points for french fluency as a second language), and employed in a highly paid profession (nurses, engineers, programmers, etc). The maximum score is 1,200 points.

Back in September, I finally got all my paperwork together to submit an ExpressEntry profile. I knew my score would be lower than it could be next year, after getting a year of work experience in Canada, but the profiles don’t expire, so I thought I’d put mine in and see where it came out.

My result? A relatively meagre 348 points. Especially when the lowest scores being invited in the last few draws are in the 450-500 range.

It’s actually really good I submitted my profile now, because while next year I’ll get more points for having a year of work experience (40 points!), in the same month that clock hits 1 full year, I’ll also turn a year older, and I’m already at the low end of the chart. So while I’d gain 40, I’d also lose 11 points, for a net gain of just 29. Ageism: It’s a real thing, you know?

So I’ve been hunting for ways to boost my score. I discovered you can get more points for two bachelor degrees, which I have, though I only went through the certification process for one of them. Cue another payment to WES to update my credential evaluation. And I decided to double-down on my French studying and scheduled a time to take the TCF in December, for a chance at those extra points, as well.

Finally, I decided to go for British Columbia’s Provincial Nomination Program. Each province has a PNP; it’s their way of signalling to the federal government what kind of immigrants they want. Which makes sense, right? Canada’s a big place, and it’s sensible for each province to want to tailor what kinds of occupations they need. I could see Alberta needing more geologists, for example, while BC might want more film crew.

Anyway, if you get nominated by a province, you get an extra 600 points added to your score. Almost no matter what your other qualifications, if a Canadian province gives you the thumbs up, you’re probably going to be invited to apply for PR. They don’t make it easy, mind you; I had to basically fill out all the same info for ExpressEntry again, and get a half dozen different docs from my employer’s HR team (shout out to Elastic’s Global Mobility folks), and pay $1,000, all within thirty days after they invited me to apply (oh, forgot to mention that: just like ExpressEntry, you have to first ask for an invitation to apply, and then apply).

That’s why my getting the nomination was such a big deal. Not only was the turnaround much faster than I thought (average time is three months, they approved mine in three weeks), but my ExpressEntry score’s now 948 points! I have a very good chance of being invited to apply when they do the next round, which means if all goes well, I could have my PR sometime next year 🤞

It’s Truth and Reconciliation Day today, in Canada. A new holiday, for an old injustice. Not that old, in some ways; the last residential school only closed its doors in 1996, meaning while I was going to high school and going on my first dates, native kids were still being taken from their families and forced to get “educated” in a system designed to destroy who and what they were.

I’m going to the ceremony later today, in remembrance of the many — too many — children taken, and children killed, as part of this program.

And while I know this day is not about me, and shouldn’t be, I did my own little part in digging up the truth this week. I finally researched the old story my parents have always told me, about how my dad’s grandmother was Blackfoot. Said she was born on the reservation, that she had long, perfectly-native-straight black hair that she used to unwind at night to brush out, before bundling it all back up again. Mom claims she has a picture of two “relatives,” dressed in Native garb, outside a teepee that’s been erected in my great-grandmother’s yard.

Well, thanks to ancestry.ca, I now know that’s all BS.

My paternal great-grandmother, Mattie Vera Franklin, was born in 1903, in Texas. Not on a reservation. Her parents, Jason Pope Franklin and Maggie Ann Ussery, were also born in Texas. And their parents. And all of them were white.

There’s no mention of any of them in the Dawes Rolls. No ‘In’ in the race column of the Census docs. Instead, there’s Social Security cards, draft cards, birth and marriage and death certificates. All proclaiming over and over again that all my ancestors that far back were US citizens. Settlers. Colonizers.

Nothing more.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. What’s one more lie my parents told me? But this one I thought might actually be true. My “beard” simply won’t grow over most of my face, my hair is preternaturally straight, I tan faster than most white people burn, I…I’ve been ridiculously naive about this.

Mom always told me she wanted to get us put on the tribal rolls, but we were just one step too far to be accepted. I never went around bragging about my Blackfoot connection, or wearing moccasins or any of that Pretindian crap. It was just, this little part of my identity, a connection, however slight, to a history and a people bigger than myself.

And it’s all lies.

So I’m going to apologize to the people I passed on this lie to, thinking it was real. And stop spreading it myself. And recommend that if, like me, your family’s white but there’s some legend in there about a fur trapper and a Native “princess,” go do the research before telling anybody else.

Finished typing up the first draft of the new story over the long weekend. Even found time to create a new Ulysses export style based on the Shunn Manuscript Format (the standard for most of the markets I submit to) so I don’t have to manually fix up the margins, etc when exporting to Word (there are existing Styles that claim to be standard format, but are all missing one or more essential pieces).

Not that the story is ready to submit, mind. I typed it dutifully, and edited as I went to make it the best version of this draft I could. But the tonal shifts are still too big to handle in a short story, and the ending doesn’t land with near enough force.

So over the past week I’ve taken a page from literary agent Donald Maass’ workbook, which I’ve used before to edit novels. One of the big points the workbook drives home is the need to look for connections in the story: between plots, between characters, between locations, everything. Strengthening connections can both tighten and deepen the story, making the stakes feel larger because there’s more history — more connection — between the events and characters.

For this story, I had a set of three characters loosely connected. One was the main character, who worked for one of the other characters, and had hired the protagonist to work on a case for the third. There was no prior history, no relationship between the characters other than the business one. As a result, the conflicts were mainly business conflicts: Can the protagonist get the assignment done (extracting a secret from the client)? Will she rebel against it when she finds out what it really entails? Etc. Not bad, but certainly not world-shattering, either.

But what if the three characters were more connected? What if the client was the protagonist’s father? And the person hiring her to dig into his past was her mother?

Now things get more interesting. Why would the mother pit the daughter against the father? What marriage would have that level of conflict? Why would the daughter agree to go along, at least first? And what might possibly change her mind?

This one shift generated a whole new slew of ideas for me, so much that yesterday when I sat down to work on the story, I started writing out — longhand, again — an entirely new draft. New starting scene, new tense, new voice, even (it’s now in first-person).

I’m already happier with the new draft. It feels more assured, like a train engine already running under full steam. I’m looking forward to exploring what the characters do in this new situation, with these new connections between them.

I never could have gotten there, though, without that first draft. And I’m still going to crib plot and structure from it, even if they end up squeezed into new shapes.

What about you? Have you ever done a complete rewrite of a story, and were you glad you did?

Taking the day off today. Thinking of going down to walk the Government House grounds, which should be open (and lovely).

Not much to report on the immigration side of things. I’m still waiting for my employer to write up a letter of support (and trying not to think about the potential implications of them dragging their feet there).

I also found out that if invited to apply for permanent residence, I’ll need a police report from the FBI (!), which they’ll only give out if you pay for it (of course) and provide them with fingerprints. They only take ink-and-paper for folks not currently living in the US (like me), and it has to be in a certain format, on a certain kind of paper…Oof.

Luckily, Canada has (once again) come through. I found a non-profit with a service for taking FBI-standard fingerprints, precisely for people like me that need them to immigrate. I’ve got an appointment there, but not till later this month, which means…more waiting.

So while I’m waiting (and you’re hopefully getting ready to spend Labour Day with family or friends), here’s some shots I took from the top of Mount Doug on Saturday, after hiking up there for the first time.

Draft is done! Long live the draft!

Finished the first, very messy, draft of the new short story this week. I already kind of hate it, even after writing the last scene like the previous one didn’t happen. Both those scenes, I think, are going to see heavy edits in the next draft.

For now, though, I’m simply typing it up. Yes, typing: I wrote the first draft longhand, in a little notebook, after reading the advice in Chavez’s book on anti-racist workshopping. Her take was that making her students write out the first draft by hand made them more willing to experiment, to scratch things out and rewrite on the fly, without their inner editor getting in the way. And for the most part, I’ve found that to be true; I’ve got scenes that are out of order on the page, with squiggly lines connecting the pieces to each other in the right sequence. And knowing that I would type it all later — and “fix it in post” — made it easier to finish writing the scenes that I knew, even while writing them, that I was going to have to change.

(she also said that writing longhand got her students more in tune with their bodies, but being over-40 myself, I mostly got in tune with how quickly my hand starts to cramp up)

I am making changes as I type. Fixing a phrase here, adding some blocking (e.g., “she sat back and crossed her arms”) there. Discovering I wrote an entire scene in the wrong tense (!), or used the wrong character’s name in places.

But I’m holding off from making any big changes till I’ve finished typing it. I want to go through the whole thing once more, reading and typing, getting a better feel for how it might all fit together. I’m taking notes as I go, on things I want to change (or simply try differently, to see how it reads), so I can come back after this and do a second draft.

My intent — my hope — is to have the characters and basic plot nailed down during the second draft. (oh, you thought I’d have that set by the time I started the first draft? welcome to pantsing) From there, it’ll be much easier to iterate on revisions, including at least one pass where I’ll print it out and then go through it.

Given my current pace, I might have something to show beta readers by the end of the month? Fingers crossed.

So this week it’ll be five months since I moved to Victoria.

Five months! It’s hard to believe. Most days it feels like I’ve only been here a few weeks.

I attribute that — mostly — to the fact that I’m still exploring. I’ve my routines, sure. Groceries every Sunday from the nearest Save-On Foods, weekend pizza from Panago, tacos from Café Mexico when I need that taste of home.

But I’m still learning about all the holidays, and the politics, and even the weather, out here. And deliberately pushing myself to go out of my normal loops, discovering parts of the island I wouldn’t normally see. Like this past weekend, when I went hiking around Elk Lake (absolutely gorgeous, go if you get a chance, the photo at the top of this post is from Beaver Lake, just south of Elk).

Thankfully, to do all this exploring, I’ve not (yet) needed something that would have been critical back in the States: A car.

True, I’ve got my BC Drivers License. And my apartment allots one parking space (for an extra fee). But I came up without a car, partly as an experiment (nothing pushes you to learn public transport like being vehicleless) and partly out of expedience: The Bolt EV I drove back in San Diego is currently under recall, and you can’t import a recalled car to Canada.

Hence the need for an apartment in downtown Victoria, where I knew I could at least get the essentials on foot. What I didn’t know was how long I could go without getting a car, especially if I wanted to take advantage of being close to so much natural beauty (which I definitely do). Or do normal things like, say, head to the mall, or get to the airport, etc.

Back home in San Diego, for example, there’s only one bus that goes to the airport, and it’s on a very short route with an infrequent schedule. So unless you happen to live basically on Harbor Drive (the road to the airport), it’s useless. And the city has a trolley, but it’s designed mainly for bringing tourists from their hotels north of downtown to the downtown district, and nothing else. My wife and I tried living in San Diego without a car when we first moved there, but it was miserable, and we gave up after a few months.

In contrast, here in Victoria — a city about one-third the size of San Diego — I’ve been getting along just fine. It helps that the city itself is rather compact, so I can reach most parts of it by foot.

Now, “by foot” has expanded in scope a bit since my move. Back in San Diego the twenty-minute walk I take to my local Indigo bookstore would be a non-starter. Getting to any mall like Mayfair in San Diego would involve trying to cross a freeway or two, which is not something you really want to do on foot (and that’s assuming there’s even sidewalks to take you there). But here, the walk’s a twenty-minute stroll along a tree-lined street past smaller shopping centres, apartment buildings, and parks. It’s not a chore. It’s pleasant.

But what about reaching the airport? I’ve had to do this twice since moving here, and there’s multiple options. One is to fly out of Vancouver, which means taking a bus (there’s two routes that go from Victoria to the ferry terminal, running every fifteen minutes or so most days) to the ferry (which is awesome) and then connecting to YVR.

The second is to fly out of Victoria’s own airport, which means taking a bus (again, pick one of several routes) and then walking past some fields to the airport. No car required. (and if you don’t want to bother with changing buses, etc, there’s a reasonably-priced BC Ferries Connector that can take you all the way from downtown Victoria to Vancouver airport).

Getting to Elk Lake, which is a good 13km north of me, was again a matter of just hopping on a bus (there are five routes, at last count, that can get me up there) for a short ride north. I’m looking to hike Mount Doug next, and that’ll again be a direct bus ride out to the park.

Granted, I don’t have children; needing to ferry them around to school and activities might push me to get a car. And I live in the city itself, not one of the suburbs, like Langford.

But still. In the States, no city this small would have even a fraction of this kind of public transportation. No city this small would be this walkable, either. They wouldn’t bother building the sidewalks, to start with, and they wouldn’t be as safe (cities in the States actually get more dangerous, statistically, as they shrink in size).

So I’m happy to be car-free. We’ll see if I can make it the full year, though (because winter is coming).

Ever write a scene, and immediately regret it?

This week I’ve been focusing on finishing one, just one, of the story first draft I’m in the middle of. I carefully plotted out what scenes were left at the start of the week, and spent each day’s writing session chugging along, setting them down.

Only when I got to the second-to-last scene, I made it halfway through before coming to a screeching halt. Despite all my well-laid plans, I was suddenly out of track, for two reasons.

One, I’d decided to have the main character expose her boss as a fake, by flipping open the many file boxes her boss has strewn around and showing them all to be empty. Very dramatic, fun scene, in my head. Only I forgot to come up with a reason why the boxes were empty.

So when I got to the part where she opened them up, and I needed to show her boss’ reaction, I had nothing. No idea. Nothing to see here folks, the muse has gone home for the day.

Two, even once I’d spent some time brainstorming ideas for the boxes, and started back in on the scene, I realized the tone was completely wrong. I’d started the story off as a meditation on memory and purpose, with a protagonist gradually realizing she wants to do something else with her life.

Emphasis on gradually. Not big-d Dramatically, or in some blaze of glory, but over time, like the tide receding from a beach. And here I had this high-volume scene right towards the end of the story. It doesn’t wok, and I knew it wouldn’t work as I was writing it.

But I finished the scene anyway. I’ve been told too many times, by too many authors more experienced and skilled than me, that stopping to edit in the middle of a draft is an excellent way to never get anything finished.

And once again, they’ve turned out to be right! Because in finishing the scene, and chewing it over once I’d done it, I realized moving the scene earlier in the story — with some tweaks — will give it all the things it was missing before: a ticking clock, a purpose behind the boss’ actions, a push for the protagonist to make her life-altering decision.

I’ve got one more scene left to write in this draft, so I’m going to take another page out of their advice, and write it like I’ve already made the change I’m thinking of doing in the next draft. That way, when I actually write that draft, this final scene won’t need as many edits (and I’ll have a completed draft, which is an accomplishment on its own).

What about you? Have you ever had a scene (or a story) that you thought you’d need to throw away, and instead it became the spark that set off something even better?

Finally.

After waiting sixty days for my Personal Health Number to arrive (and be valid), then sitting on the BC family physician waitlist for ninety days (and counting), then trying to get into a walk-in clinic (you have to call in for an appointment these days) and failing, I finally, finally, saw a doctor.

Granted, I only saw them virtually. I'm still on the GP waitlist, and I've yet to set foot inside a walk-in clinic. But I spoke with a real, BC-licensed doctor, got a real prescription, and had it filled at a local pharmacy.

Thank goodness.

Don't get me wrong, I'm in general good health (post-Covid). I've managed to dodge the family diabetes so far (touch wood), I don't have any mobility issues, and my asthma has actually gotten better since moving to BC (cleaner air than the States). But I've had an issue for the last few months that I wanted to get checked out, because it didn't seem to be getting better on its own.

Luckily, one of my friends at work (that also lives in BC), recommended I checkout Maple, a tele-health company operating in Canada. I was skeptical, but out of options, so I signed up, and was pleasantly surprised to find out they had BC-licensed doctors, which meant my consultation (their word) would be covered by my provincial health insurance.

Not everything is covered, mind you. They have dermatologists and other specialists available, but those are not covered by provincial health insurance (yet), so they charge for those. And you have to select BC GP (not the normal GP button!) in order to get covered care.

Which is only available certain times of day, of course. And while their estimated wait time is an hour, I spent close to two hours keeping tabs on my laptop's screen, waiting for a GP to pop in.

But they did, eventually, show up! And one look at the pictures I uploaded (ahead of time, while waiting for the GP) was all they needed to diagnose exactly what was wrong, soothe my worries about it being serious, and issue a prescription to fix it.

I was expecting a video call, but it was just chat at first (I guess that's simpler to implement, and is why they have you upload pictures). They surprised me by calling me at the end of the text chat, just to see if I had any other questions about the diagnosis or the medicine.

They surprised me again by being...well...very Canadian! That is, professional but not rushed, willing to chat a bit and earnestly interested in my well-being. I know: "They're a doctor, they're all interested in your well-being," but that has not been my experience in the States. So it was nice to once again have the experience of encountering not bureaucracy, but people, in this Canadian system.

After the call, Maple sent my Rx direct to the pharmacy I chose, after a few button clicks online. And that was that!

I know this wasn't a life-threatening condition, but it was such a relief to finally get access to healthcare after being in limbo for so long. To know that it can be there when I need it, and free.

Hope wherever you are, that you can get the help you need, when you need it, whatever form of help that might be.

Earlier this week I decided to take a survey of what stage my various stories are, since I lost track of them over the course of Covid July.

Here's what I came up with:

• Flash pieces needing final revision before submittal: 2
• Short stories needing significant drafting: 2
• Stories needing a complete first draft: 3

That's seven stories in various stages, none of which are ready to go out to beta readers or submitted to markets! My original list only had five stories; I woke up the next morning and realized I'd left two off the list entirely.

I seem to be replicating a pattern from my day-job, where I commonly work on multiple projects at once, pushing each forward until I hit a blocker (or a stopping point) and then switching to the next. I've apparently started doing the same thing with my writing, starting a story and then switching to another if I feel any resistance to working on the first one.

So now I've got four months of story work, and basically nothing to show for it (to anyone else, anyway). At this point, my inner Paul McCartney is going "We need a system!"

But is that the case? Is it wrong of me to borrow this working pattern from my day job?

I'm not sure. I don't have any deadlines to meet. No editors or publishers waiting for my words (those these are problems I'd like to have, someday!). I've only got myself, and so long as I'm happy working on several things at once, who's to say I need to stop?

Except. The danger -- as I found in July -- is that I lose the thread of the story, or many stories, in trying to work on too many at once. Or end up repeating and re-using elements across them, instead of letting each story grow into its own unique self.

Maybe the answer is compromise: Don't start another first draft until the current one is finished. Always come back and edit the previous story's draft before doing the next one. And so on. So I can still work on multiple pieces at once, so long as I only have one or two in the revision queue at the same time.

What about you? Do you work on one story at a time, all the way through from draft to final edit? Or do you bounce between multiple pieces at the same time, working on whichever one strikes your Muse as the one for the day?

After spending just one week in the States, it's good to be back in Canada.

I literally felt the muscles in my shoulders and neck relax as I passed through the Passport Check in Vancouver. It'd been a smooth border crossing, starting with the ability to fill out my Customs Declaration completely online, before I even got on the flight. So when I landed in YVR, I only had to go to one of the (many, open) kiosks, have my photo taken, and bring the printed receipt plus my passport and work permit over to the nearest Border Services Officer (no line, no waiting this time). Said Officer chatted me up as she checked over my documents, and sent me on my way with a "Good luck!" (in my work).

Contrast the experience of flying into the US, where I had to go through security twice, then fill out a customs declaration on the spot, then get interviewed by a border guard who growled at me while eyeing me suspiciously. Brrr.

I was supposed to catch a connecting flight from Vancouver to Victoria, which left me with three hours to kill in the airport. But when I reached my gate, I noticed an earlier flight (which I didn't think I'd make, and thus didn't book) hadn't boarded yet, and was leaving in half an hour. On a whim, I walked up to the desk and asked if they could get me on that flight. Without rolling her eyes, or sighing, or telling me there'd be fees involved, the agent just said "Sure," found me a seat, and printed out a new boarding pass right there!

From the Victoria airport, I decided against waiting for the first bus, and instead walked for about 15 minutes through forested parkland and farm-lined roads before coming to the main exchange, where a five minute wait had me on a bus heading directly downtown. The view from the bus stop was so good I had to take a few pictures; the shot at the top of this post is one of them. Forty minutes later, I was back at the apartment, safe and sound.

I've spent a lot of time knocking the Canadian Healthcare system here, and it has been the most surprising and frustrating part of the move. But so many things are better here than in San Diego: The roads are better maintained, the buses are cleaner, bigger (they have double-deckers here), and run more frequently. People are friendlier, as the cliché goes, but more than that, they seem genuinely interested in helping. Whether that's the ICBC clerk giving you your driving exam, or the passenger next to you on the plane whom you solicit advice on local hikes from. That attitude extends into infrastructure -- the roads, yes, but also even the water fountains are better designed, having spigots at the top now for easily refilling water bottles -- and the way events are run, like the ASL interpreter at the Canada Day celebrations.

In short, I can relax in Canada because I feel I don't need to do everything on my own, here. There's help available (for the most part, see healthcare) if I need it. And that makes all the difference.

*Not a political comment, just a play on The Beatles' "Back in the USSR"

Yesterday was my first time fiction writing since I got sick.

That's three weeks of not making any progress. Of not being able to make progress, because even once the fever and the chills and the wracking cough subsided, I couldn't focus long enough to read a story, let alone create a new one.

I confess I worried I might not be able to, even now. I've heard so much about a lingering "brain fog" after getting Covid to make me anxious that I would try to write again and fail, that I wouldn't be able to pick up the stories I'd been working on, or find myself writing only in clichés and bad dialog.

Well. I won't speak to the quality of the draft I worked on yesterday, but I did work on it, and I did make progress. In fact, the rest of the story is coalescing in my head now, and I can see the path to finishing it.

This draft, anyway. There'll be edits to do afterward, of course.

But at least I know I can keep working. I still get fatigued more easily than I used to; back-to-back meetings at work leave me not just mentally but physically drained now. And when I tried walking last weekend, I made it just a few kilometers out before turning back for home, where I promptly fell into a nap.

And yet. My brain keeps on ticking, and I can work around the fatigue till it passes. So that's one worry resolved, for now, at least.

Hope you're able to write through your own worries, and find ways to make progress no matter what stands in your way.

Haven't posted in the last two weeks, because I finally caught Covid-19 (or it finally caught up with me).

Went to a small D&D session on the 10th. There were just five of us, and we'd all been triple vaccinated (one person had already gotten their second booster, in fact), and we all were homebodies who masked up in public.

And yet we all got sick.

I seem to have gotten hit the earliest and the hardest, which is good because two of the other folks have other medical issues that would make anything more than a mild case potentially life-threatening. We all seem to be pulling through, however, which is about as good as we could hope for.

I learned a few more things about living in Canada, along the way, that I'd like to share:

No Testing

Trying to be a good citizen, I went to the BC CDC site to see about getting an official test. I know that case counts are inaccurate because not as many folks are getting tested in a way that's reported back to the government, so I wanted to have my infection, at least (if it was Covid), count.

Unfortunately, the official advice for someone like me -- triple vaccinated, relatively mild symptoms -- is not to get tested.

I didn't have any home tests, either, so a friend volunteered to look around at local pharmacies and see if any of them would deliver to me. The answer was a resounding: Nope.

So, technically, I don't know for certain that I had Covid-19. Everyone at the gathering that tested (using a home rapid test) did come back positive, which is fairly compelling. But I wasn't able to get tested.

No Contact

The BC CDC does recommend self-isolating, even if you don't get tested. They say five days is all you need, but I've also heard ten days, so I decided to wait two weeks, to be safe. That meant not leaving the apartment to check my mail, etc (which meant I had a package stolen from the mailroom downstairs, but that's a different story). And it meant I needed to find another way to get groceries.

Not just groceries. I was totally unprepared for being sick, it turned out. I didn't have any Nyquil, no Advil or Tylenol, no cough drops, no extra tissues, nothing. I had some soup, but not nearly enough for two weeks. So I needed food and sick supplies.

Thankfully, there's a couple of Save On Foods near me, and their delivery program is simply fantastic. Everything I worried about turned out to be easy. I picked out my groceries, set a delivery time, left instructions for the callbox, and that was it. No texting me in the middle of me trying to get some sleep to ask if a substitution was okay (they had me indicate in advance if subs were okay or not, and I said "no" to most of them). No multiple notices about shopping starting, stopping, checking out, etc. Just an emailed final receipt and a single phone call to let me know they were ten minutes out.

My one big worry, though, was the callbox. I've had many a Skip delivery go awry because they can't figure out how to use the callbox so I can buzz them in. If the grocery delivery had the same issue, I wasn't sure what I'd do. Even if I could physically make it downstairs, how many people would I infect along the way?

Turns out I needn't have worried. The delivery driver -- who I gather works directly for Save-On -- had no problem using the callbox, and brought everything up to the apartment door using a little delivery cart. No contact, no issues, just the food and medical supplies I needed.

No Doctors

I've mentioned this before, but I'll say it again, because it was the scariest part of being sick: What if I needed to see a doctor? How would I get in to a clinic in time to be of use? If I had to call 911, would anyone answer? Would there be anywhere in the hospital for me to go?

Thankfully it didn't come to that. Though I monitored by Blood Oxygen levels using my Apple Watch (for however accurate it is), it never fell below 90%, so despite being miserable for most of a week and a lingering cough, I've been ok.

Going Forward

So one of the first things I did this weekend -- my first time outside the apartment since the 10th -- is go pick up a home testing kit.

I was already masking up indoors, which I'm going to continue doing. And I'm going to start testing on a regular basis, before doing things like meeting friends for dinner or getting a haircut (for which I'm also masked).

I know I was lucky enough to get a mild case, but having Covid was miserable. I don't want to catch it again. I don't want to give it to anyone else. And I hope wherever you are, that you're staying as safe as possible.

This week I've mostly been focused on typing up the mix of notes, scenes, and outline from my notebook for the now expanded, gender-flipped, sidekick-to-protagonist science fiction story (whew!).

I'm having to do a bit of expansion and interweaving as I go. I didn't write the scenes in order, to begin with, and then I've also been blending it with what I wrote in the second (typed straight to laptop) draft, so that hopefully the whole thing is coherent.

I'm nearing the ending, which I haven't written yet, but I've got such a strong image for that I think I can just type it out when I get there. Also I've got to lay the path for it, so to speak, by weaving in elements in these earlier scenes so the final one feels like a proper payoff, rather than an abrupt turn (though there is a turn, I just don't want it to jolt a reader out of the story).

One thing I want to pay particular attention to, and change if I can't get it right, is the (now) main character's ethnicity. In my mental storyboards, she's a second-generation Asian-American, and that's how I've presented her in terms of name, etc. But in reading books like Craft in the Real World and The Girl at the Baggage Claim, and novels like Earthlings and The Woman in the Purple Skirt, I'm starting to doubt whether I can properly portray such a character. I've been thinking I can use my experience as an internal (and now international) immigrant as a bridge to their worldview, but I think now that that's not enough. There's the pervasive racism experienced by minorities in the States, and on top of that the misogyny that uniquely harms Asian-American women (I say harms, not harmed, because it keeps happening: witness the one character in "The Boys" who is introduced as completely feral and whose voice is silenced is the one Asian woman in the cast). And that's before we get into differing family relationships, unique cultural touchstones, etc.

So I'm not sure if I should change the POV character's ethnicity or not. I think that during these handwritten drafts I've found an approach that can be both representative and respectful. And I don't want to be the kind of white writer that only writes white people (any more than I want to be the kind of male writer that only writes men). The world is diverse, and I want to represent that in my fiction. But I want to do it well, which means more than just changing a character's name or skin color.

We'll see how the draft comes out. And what my sensitivity readers say when they review it.

As someone who grew up in the States, I'm used to celebrating July 4th, but I'm not used to really enjoying it. The fireworks are often cool, but the sheer volume of jingoism and military parades rub me the wrong way. They always made me feel out of place, like anything less than my-country-or-else patriotism wasn't welcome. Not to mention the holiday itself is set on the absolute wrong day; the Declaration of Independence has absolutely no legal standing, and nothing to do whatsoever with the way the US is governed or the rights of its citizens (bringing this up at the Fourth, of course, is an easy way to get glared at).

So I was unsure what to expect for Canada Day. I'm also by myself, so no family or friends to go hang with. Thankfully, the City of Victoria threw a celebration downtown, right on the harbor, which turned out to be just about perfect.

Here's three things I liked about this year's celebration:

The Community

The first thing was having a community celebration at all. San Diego's a city three times the size of Victoria, but if you look for their events for the Fourth, they've got the fireworks show at night, and a pub crawl, and...that's it. No concerts, no closing off streets and setting up street vendors, nothing. The Fourth is meant to be celebrated at home, with family, and that's it.

Which is fine if you've got a large family, or network of friends, but for a new immigrant like me, I was incredibly grateful to have the city's Canada Day celebration to go to. It was completely free, with a central concert stage, bleachers on the hill facing, flanked by an open-air market and a bevy of food trucks. Oh, and a bouncy-castle style playground for the kids. And yes, there were flags, and people were wearing maple leaf shirts (and umbrella hats), but it was all low-key. No military fly-overs, just folks from all over the city out having a good time. I fit right in, and that felt great.

The Inclusivity

Speaking of fitting in, one of the reasons I wanted to go down to the celebration on Friday was to see all the shows they had lined up. They had Native dancers as part of the opening ceremonies, and Ukrainian dancers, and Chinese lion dancers, and...Just a whole host of people and communities that I'd never seen perform before.

In fact, it struck me that I'd never seen Native performers before, in person. Not in forty-three years of living in the United States. There's never been a Fourth celebration that I've heard of or attended where Native Americans participated; they've probably never even been asked.

Now I know Canada's record here is very far from blameless. The residential schools, the Oka Crisis, the conflicts over land and self-government that continue to this day. But one of the things Thomas King remarked on in his The Inconvenient Indian is how often colonial governments want to make native peoples invisible, to make exploiting them all the easier. And in this case, at least, the Lekwungen Traditional Dancers were making themselves more visible, right there on stage.

I confess it moved me, and as I watched them dance, followed by the Ukrainian dancers, the listened to the Ukrainian choir, then watched Chinese lion dancers jump and gambol in front of the stage, I realized they'd turned Canada Day into a celebration of diversity, instead of a suppression of it.

The Scope

That inclusivity was a reflection of another thing I noticed and liked: the breadth of the celebration.

Again, unlike the US, this wasn't a primarily military holiday. No call-and-response about army figures who "died for our freedom." Not that the military was absent, mind you -- they had a booth in the market where they were recruiting, excuse me, "hiring" (as they put it) -- just that they weren't the focus.

So there was plenty of room for a Ukrainian choir, talking up the deep connections between Ukraine (many Ukrainians settled the Canadian plains) and Canada. And room for a local white blues musician. And for a Guinean-led band. And for a Vancouver-based electronic group. And for every announcement to be interpreted live in ASL by a woman standing prominently on the stage.

And for me.

I think my writing brain is telling me to move on from the short stories.

I've kept up with the notebook writing this week, jotting down scenes and brainstorming directions for the plots of both short stories (the shorter mystery and the longer sci-fi one). But on Monday my fingers refused to write anything for either story, instead choosing to talk about the summer weather (which became my last blog post). And yesterday, when I reached for my notebook, I had a spark of an idea that turned into a plot for an entire rom-com novel.

It's like my subconscious is telling me it's bored of drafting the short stories, and wants to move on, to something different. Before I can do that, though, I need to actually type up what I've written freehand, and try to edit it into a coherent piece.

So that's what I'll be working on this weekend and next week. Typing, editing, and revising both stories, till the ideas in my notebook have been fitted into place. Hopefully that'll be enough to keep my writing brain engaged and happy; it's different work, after all, from drafting, and uses different muscles.

And then...maybe I'll give this rom-com a shot? Or maybe it's a thriller. It really depends on the ending, you see, and...

Well. We'll see.

It's too damn hot to want to do anything, really.

Just when you think you've adjusted, some internal thermostat finally clicking over to "This is Fine," the humidity kicks up another ten percent or the breeze you were depending on just to be able to breathe drops away or the thermometer slides up another degree or two. And then you're right back where you started, standing in front of the floor fan with your shirt raised and the blinds shut tight to keep out the traitorous sun. Waiting. Wondering what'll give up first, you or the heat.

And you think fondly -- yes, fondly, now! -- on early spring, when buds were just starting to poke shyly out from the trees and the sky was still dark and cold. And wet. God, you remember rain pattering against the windows and wind rattling the panes but you were safe inside, weren't you? Not breaking out in a sweat just from crossing the room.

You do not, ever, think of winter. Winter was worse.

I've been reading Craft in the Real World and The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop, two books that both approach the issue of how the traditional writing workshop in the US -- silent author, readers and teacher judging the work, comparison to an all-white literary canon -- was constructed less to promote healthy writing communities and more to reinforce white supremacy in the States.

I confess it's been hard reading, sometimes. Being confronted with the way I've been taught -- and taught to teach others -- about writing and being shown its racist underpinnings does not make for comfortable reading. But I'm pushing past that white fragility of mine, and interrogating it, and each time what I find at the root is simply fear. Fear that I'll be the one erased, in the kind of workshop these authors describe. Fear that I'll become the marginalized. Because the one thing all white people know, even when we don't want to admit it, is that being in the minority in the Western caste system sucks.

When I face that fear, and name it, I'm able to move past it, and see the workshops they're presenting as what they really are: places where everyone can take center stage for a time, where each author is empowered with the tools and the confidence to better their craft. Those tools are there for me, too, if I'm willing to listen, and use them.

So I'm testing them out, so to speak. I don't have a formal writing workshop to go to, but I am trying a new approach with the feedback I give to the other writers in my writing circle. I'm aiming my feedback less at "I liked this" or "I don't like this character" and more towards highlighting the choices I see them making. Like asking how scenes might play out differently if X were changed, or querying about the symbolism behind the repetition of a certain element. I don't know if I'm succeeding, just yet, but I'm striving for the kind of centering of the author as an actively participating artist that Salesses and Chavez encourage.

I'm also borrowing some of their practices for my own writing. For this new short story I'm writing, I've taken to writing out the new draft by hand, in a notebook. Chavez says she insists her students write by hand, as a way to silence the inner editor and let the words flow onto the page. And so far, it's working; writing it out has helped me get out of my own way, and make progress on the draft, when staring at the computer screen would feel like too much pressure. Chavez is right: Something about using hand and pen and paper is liberating, making me feel less like every word needs to be perfect and more like the story in my head needs to be written down right now.

As a result, the new draft is taking shape. It's going to be longer and more complicated than I originally thought, with POV shifts and an expanded world. The side character that I had in the first draft and then gender-flipped has now become the protagonist (!) with all the changes that entails. But where I initially approached this new draft with trepidation, now I'm excited to see it come together.

What techniques do you use, to quiet your inner editor and feel free to write the stories you most want to tell?

So I've decided to apply for permanent residence here in Canada.

I know, many people apply for PR first, before they upend their lives and move thousands of miles. But I went for the work permit to start, since a) It was faster, and b) I didn't know if I'd like it here.

After my gushing last week about how much I love living in Victoria, that second reason might sound silly. Canada's safer than the US, with a smaller prison population, more public transit, and (generally) better health outcomes. What's not to like?

And yet I worried. I'm 43, well past the age most folks immigrate. I worried I'd be unable to adjust to a new system, and end up clueless how to take the bus, or rent a car, or handle my finances. I worried I'd encounter a version of the ice-cold reception I got in Seattle, and never get a chance to meet new people. I worried it would be too cold, or too rainy, or cloudy, for me to ever dream of going outside the apartment.

I worried, in short, that Canada would reject me. Spit me out like a bad piece of gristle, sending me back to San Diego on the next plane.

But -- so far, at least -- that hasn't happened. I have had to depend entirely on the kindness of strangers in order to navigate the various bureaucracies here, but so far, that help has been forthcoming. From the ICBC clerk who told me exactly how and where to send over my driving record to lower my insurance premiums, to the librarian who quietly reminded me that my "password" for using the self-checkout was probably the final part of my phone number.

It's only been two months, and already, I want to stay.

So I'm assembling the pieces I'll need to apply for Express Entry. The first part was an assessment of my college degree, to see if it meets Canada's standards for university credit. That's done (and my degree passed!), so now it's on to the next piece: Taking an internationally-recognized test of English skills to verify my fluency. I'm not too worried about the test, but I'm going to take some practice exams anyway, just in case.

Once that's done, all I'll need is a letter from my current employer that they intend to keep me on for at least a year after I get PR status. I certainly hope they'll be okay providing such a letter!

At that point, I'll be able to apply. But I'm going to take one more step: Take an exam for French proficiency.

I studied French for two years in college, and I've brushed it up every now and then. It's been good enough when I've needed it, on trips to France, so that I could get by without English. I've never kept up with it enough to get fully fluent, though. That's going to change.

I found out that in 2020 they changed the rules in Canada. If your main language is English, and you test well in French (thus proving you can communicate in both official languages), they'll give you an extra 50 points on your application. To put that in perspective, the current cutoff for getting invited to apply for permanent residency is just 66 points. So if I do well on this test, I can boost my application up and really increase my chances of getting through.

So that's what I'm going to do. Submit my initial application as soon as possible, and then study, study, study, for the French exam. I'm hoping to be ready to take it sometime in October, which means I'd be able to update my application with the results before the end of the year.

Wish me luck!