In this newsletter: The Zoo Trip, Writing, Reading, and ICYMI.
After a long drive we checked-in around 9. Both of us were a little surprised by how large the room was. For a single night it felt like a little too much, but it was kinda nice. If I had planned the trip, we likely would have been in a sketchy motel.
It was already bedtime, but we hadn’t eaten yet, so we went and grabbed Pizza Pizza pizza. To my pleasant surprise we saw on the menu they had gluten free chicken bites. Between the half a medium pizza and 5 chicken bites it was too much food, but I was feeling satisfied after stuffing my face (and was surprisingly not overly stuffed). We fell asleep watching Criminal Minds.
Now this all sounds lovely, but morning coffee caused quite a kerfuffle. I almost wish Ben had pulled out the camera to record my rant after he got out of the shower. He hopped in the shower, and I decided to figure out the Keurig. It should be easy; I’ve used loads of cup-based coffee machines before. I pull out the drawer it’s on, read the instructions, fill the water reservoir, pop in the k-cup, close it, and press the button. Nothing happens. After some futzing around I realize it’s not plugged into anything. Kind of annoying, why wouldn’t they have it set up? It’s the place of luxury! So I pull the machine up onto the top of the TV console and try to plug it in. The cord doesn’t reach. Okay, fine. I’ll shove it through the hole in the back. It reaches, but I can’t pull the drawer out far enough to access the buttons! AHHHH! Finally I move the unit all the way over to the sink area of the room, at this point I’ve spilled half the water in various areas of the room, so I dump and refill. I plug it in, push the button, and nothing happens. But I know these machines are weird; the “have you tried turning it off and on again” of them is to open the K-cup holder and close it again. What do you know the button lights up with a bright, cool white light. The coffee brews, Ben comes out, and I go through my rant.
Hilariously he does not listen close enough and can’t figure it out. I go through making him a coffee with no issues. However, over at my coffee I’m realizing they have only a single, small sugar packet in the accoutrements bag. It *should* be fine with how I usually take my coffee. But it turns out the coffee is the most bitter coffee they could have chosen. Absolutely awful. Both cups go down the drain. It’s okay, we should be able to try again at the breakfast.
While there weren’t a lot of options for this gluten-free girlie, I had a yogurt, some orange juice, and they had much fancier coffee machines with lattes and syrups. We’re now fueled and ready for our adventure.
After the coffee debacle, it was time to explore the Scarborough Bluffs. The zoo doesn’t open until 9:30 and despite our late night, we were still our early rising selves. We had some time to kill, and I’ve never seen a Great Lake before. We took a quick drive down to the beach.
It was a truly mind-blowing, heart-stopping moment for me upon first seeing the misty expanse of Lake Ontario. I’m not sure what else to say about it if I’m being honest. I’ve never been near water where you can’t see the other side.
We walked the shore for a bit and enjoyed the mist lifting as the sun rose. The bluffs themselves were beautiful. But I’ve seen awesome rock faces before, the lake was really the highlight of this portion of the trip for me.
And then there is the zoo. Another first. I’ve never been to a proper zoo. Petting zoos and Ray’s Reptiles, but nothing like this.
I keep trying to decide what my highlight animal was, and it’s so hard to choose. I keep coming back to the brief glimpse of the orangutan. So strangely human in its movements and visage. The gorillas were likewise interesting to watch. Mostly they seemed like very stoic, tough guys.
Of course any big cat is a sight to see and we were blessed with seeing a sleeping tiger, a shy jaguar, and a lazing mountain lion. I have a thing for goats and hooved animals in general, so the mountain goats were certainly high on my list. My favourite guy was the one lounging on top of the food crate.
Of course, babies will always be a blessing to see. A baby giraffe and baby camel were among the ones out and about. There were otter babies hidden somewhere inside while mom dazzled us with her swimming. She was quite a ham.
Now, there were some animals that were hiding away that I would have loved to see. Particularly the lions and the hyenas. And something that I feel like was “missing” from the experience was watching any animal enjoy their enrichment toys. Of course, they’re not there to perform for me (except maybe the otter mom!), but I just really wanted to see the animals enjoying themselves with their toys. We were given the tip to come back in winter to experience the zoo in a whole new way. I suppose there are generally less people around as well as the temperatures accommodating different animals (like the snow leopard!) I think we’ll eventually visit in autumn and winter to get some different viewing. And I’d like to possibly attend some of the talks. This trip was really about trying to visit every exhibit. The next we might curate a little more.
By about 4pm we’d walked the whole zoo and my body was ready to be off its feet. We did try to revisit the orangutans but they were hiding away. So off we went on the long drive home returning some time around 8pm. Just about 28 hours after we’d left. Short trips like these are so worth it, and I hope we do another one soon!
That “rom-com turned serious mode” WIP I’ve been talking about for a while? I did manage to finish the first draft before I got really into the writing challenge!
Of course, it helps that I went to a new cafe with the sole purpose of finishing it! The Art House was a nice little place to check out. I would love to explore the interior a bit more some time, but the vibes in the cafe area were great. However, we did end up sitting outside because the only place that fit two laptops was right in front of an AC unit and that was not a comfortable way to live.
I don’t know when I will be returning to this story. That’s the problem with having about four billion WIPs on the go at any one time. But when I do, I have some big edits to make. It wasn’t until well into the draft that I realized I’d been focusing on the wrong thing the whole time. This story isn’t about the relationship with the woman, it’s about the relationship with himself.
I wrote an outline thinking I was writing a romance story, all the beats were about where the relationship was at the time. And while in the end it might be able to be marketed as a romance because it will end HEA, it’s not one at its core. It is one of those stories where I’m not quite sure what genre it is though, and that’s something I will have to figure out.
This month really was all about writing. I revisited a short story from earlier this year (which has actually been in the works for 2 or 3 years within my brain wrinkles), which for now will simply be called TBEH, to do some editing because I couldn’t work on my challenge at the write-in. Mostly because I am recording the challenge and recording at a group event in an IKEA seemed like a terrible idea.
I got my first round of big picture notes created and added in a bunch of missing stuff including a whole flashback scene. I’m still not sure if it’s necessary, and I know people say to avoid flashbacks blah blah blah, but I have been given compliments on my flashbacks in my one published story [self pubbed by the school; the feedback (from an instructor) was “I usually hate flashbacks, but you executed this one well.”] so it might be a necessary part of the story! The edit isn’t complete, but I already feel better about the piece.
I hate to say that one of the things I had to really focus on was making sure I was using the correct tense throughout. I don’t know why I’m so into the present tense right now, and I don’t know why I find it so hard to stick to it while writing, but here we are. (I say this because I have struggled with this in every recent piece…)
I won’t bore you with a huge recap of this challenge because you likely have seen the articles, videos, reels, and/or Insta posts.
What I will say is I’m having a blast, and I’m so happy with the idea that has made it to the end. It doesn’t mean I won’t revisit any of the other four stories, but this cannibal one feels like a good one.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it a million more times, I love writing from prompts. And this exercise in trying to write many stories from one prompt was a great way to really get the best out of it. Highly recommend, not just because it’s my challenge, but because it’s been a fun experience.
I am sad to report that this month’s reading was kind of mediocre. Not bad, some good ideas and information (fiction and nonfiction), but the writing was lacking in both books.
This was a story about a Hungarian immigrant in Canada during the Great Depression. While the story obviously tackles race, I found it to be far more about class issues. Obviously those two things often overlap. All of the ideas were there, but there were some writing things that really got to me. I would have been easily inebriated if I drank every time the author used the word suddenly. I don’t hate adverbs, I don’t hate suddenly, but this one really stood out to me in the novel. There were certainly some other awkward sentences too.
Some of the ideas felt a little forced to me, particularly the clear contrast between the socialist father and capitalist son. I think this is a product of needing the context.
My biggest gripe has little to do with the story and everything to do with the expectations I had from the cover copy. I expected a main character that was torn between Hungarian ways and Canadian ways, but the main character wanted nothing to do with being Hungarian. There was no blending of cultures like the cover copy suggested; there was only the stark difference between Hungarian father and Canadian son. It brought to light the self-erasure of culture and perhaps explains why when people ask me where my family comes from I can only say, “Europe I guess, I’m Canadian.” I assume my family went through a similar “fitting in” period. Which leaves me wondering how we have created this mosaic of culture after all. Enough people were like the father and instilled enough of that in their kids, kept the community centres alive, maybe their grandkids came back looking for answers and tradition simply skipped a generation? I don’t know, and I’d like to know what other people think about it.
And a teeny tiny last gripe, the author provides pronunciation tips for a few first names, but doesn’t give one for the main character’s last name! Now, that’s actually a whole theme in the novel, but the reader should still get to know if you’re going to provide the info for some!
This was the first ever true crime novel I’ve read. Watching and listening to true crime shows, docs, pods, you name it, I do it all the time. But this was my first novel. I say this because one of my biggest gripes might be a genre expectation.
I thought the story of Yves “Apache” Trudeau was certainly an interesting one. However this book, while focused on him, felt more about the Hell’s Angels from the 50’s to today (which I didn’t realize I was getting; I hadn’t looked at the pub date of the book!) There were large pieces of text following other gang members, which certainly all lead back to Trudeau, but definitely tell a larger story. That being said, I learned a whole lot of stuff about gangs in Montreal and have a few things I’d like to check out from there like the gang wars, and the other big players in Montreal including the West End Gang and the Italian Mafia. I learned how the Hell’s Angels came to be and how they expanded to Canada. And there are a few guys that came up behind Trudeau that might be interesting to look into.
Now for the thing that bothered me, that might be a thing that I’ll have to get used to, is reminding me who a person is every time they are mentioned. The amount of times that it was written “[Name], one of the bikers present at the Lennoxville massacre,…” was insane. Like yeah, I get it, we’ve been talking about them for forever! The reason I think this might be a genre convention is that nonfiction books are used as reference books. If someone is not reading the book front to back, they may require that context. But as a front to back reader of the book, it drove me nuts!
Another large part of my reading time this month has been judging the Solstice Owl Writing Battle. We’re not finished yet, so I don’t want to say too much, but it is wild what some people can do with 100 words.
I will certainly give my full two cents once the judging process is complete.
This month’s ICYMI is filled with Writing Challenge videos, so here is the playlist rather than the whole list.
Blogs on the other hand, went about their usual business with the following:
15 prompts with summer location vibes including three things, first sentences, and experiential styles of prompt.
Conflict and his friends stakes, tension, and pacing plus theme, style, and tone.
Tips for how to work on craft while you read.
Jerrica Black is an editor, writer, and content creator with a variety of passions including but not limited to literature, cooking, crafting, hiking, and gaming. She graduated in May 2025 from Professional Writing at Algonquin, is the author of “Flames to Remember” in Shattered Reflections, and creates educational and conversational blog posts and videos about reading, writing, and editing while encouraging (and editing for) aspiring writers and assisting small businesses with copy & content.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.