Jumbled July Thoughts

I honestly don't know what my problem is, but I have been having such a hard time getting here and writing a few words to reach out, share and keep in touch. Even my monthly virtues have fallen by the way side when it comes to sharing them with you. I'm choosing two this month BTW - JOY and GRATITUDE!

I used to wake up in the middle of the night with thoughts and ideas that I'd jot down on my little bedside notebook so I could show up in the morning and tell you all about it. Now I wake up from a nightmare that I've moved back to Vancouver, or that I'm completely unemployable, or that I've gained 60 pounds and started smoking again. Whew.

Call it stress, a break in routine, a shift away from my focus on the Tracy Anderson Method, a bit of the blues, family troubles, the heat - I could go on and on with excuses but that's what they are, just excuses.

I love writing and I love coming here and talking with you through these pages. I jump eagerly to read your comments and thoughts. You're amazing noble reader and I miss you. I am seriously going to try harder to get here more often and to prove it I am going to post a short story. This week. Depending on how long it is, I may have to write it in more than one post as I am aware that it's summer and you're out in the world having fun and you don't have time to sit in front of the computer all day reading. But should you take your ipad to the beach or under the shade of a lovely tree, you just might want a bit of short fiction to keep you company and take you to another world. 

So now I've said it out loud, I'll have to hold myself to it. I've always been so terrified of what you'd think. What if you hate it? My grammar sucks and I can't spell for shit. Honestly I think there are days I have no business being a writer, but I write so may as well share it.

And since it's birthday month, that will be my gift to you. It's all I can afford right now. I know that is a temporary temporary state. I'll find a great job soon, I can feel it.

Meantime I have been writing a series about a female gangster and I sort of feel like talking about it. You know how when you watch a great show and you want everyone else to watch it too? It's like that, but so far this show only exists in my head and on my computer, still I can tell you about it. But before I do, allow me to grovel a little further.

I think I got so used to writing about health and working out that when I started this blog to get away from that stuff, I got scared off. I was afraid to share more of me, but fuck it! There is a handful of you that stuck around because you wanted to and how did I reward you? By going silent. Well nay nay I say. No more. 

So my show is called THE WARD and it takes place in this ghetto in downtown Toronto that literally no longer exists. If you know Toronto today, this neighborhood was leveled to build Nathan Phillips Square. True story. Anyway --

Here's the pitch:
 

It’s the spring of 1919; only months after world leaders signed an armistice to end the Great War. People strive to put the conflict behind them, unfortunately for single mother Charlie Kitchen, a war of another kind rages on.

Charlie fronts a gang in the heart of THE WARD, Toronto’s worst neighborhood. An ethnically diverse community that’s rife with racial tension; it’s over populated by refugees, immigrants, and fugitive slaves flooding into the country in search of a better life. But when you wind up in a place where your neighbors don’t speak the same language, where you’re crammed in on top of one another like rats, where poverty, filth, and disease are so rampant that you’re all but forgotten by the rest of society, the normal rules don’t apply.

You cannot rely on justice to be served. Opportunities are not provided to those who work hard. Women are still considered second-class citizens, and if you’re Native? Forget justice, opportunity, and equality. You’re lucky if you survive residential school.

But Charlie Kitchen is determined to do more than survive.

A mixed-blood Ojibway, Charlie managed to escape the horrors of her youth and scrape together a living in The Ward, both off her back and her brains. She did whatever she had to. And when the men in the neighborhood, including the gangsters, were hauled off to fight for their country, Charlie smelled an opportunity. She stepped up and made sure that protection dues were still paid, that the whiskey still flowed, and that the brothel doors stayed open.

She had a keen instinct for leadership and with prohibition now in full swing, business is booming. But it’s drawing the unwanted attention of the hungry young men returning from war. They want what she’s built and they intend to take it. Fortunately, Charlie has surrounded herself with a pack of loyal warriors who won’t let her be usurped without a fight.

It may be the end of World War I, but it’s the beginning of the biggest fight of Charlie Kitchen’s life.

This series is not one of mobsters gunning each other down in the streets with Tommy guns; it’s no ordinary turf war in the hood. This is the story of woman stripped of her identity, her dignity, and her faith in justice, whose aim is to reclaim all three while her very existence is under constant threat of extinction.

It’s a time of prohibition in Canada; it’s a world filled with gambling dens, bling pigs, and brothels. THE WARD is Canada’s PEAKY BLINDERS; it’s BOARDWALK EMPIRE from the poor man’s point of view. A limited series, THE WARD details the grisly rise and fall of gangster come entrepreneur, Charlie Kitchen in her crusade for equality.

Not content to simply make a living, Charlie Kitchen intends to make history.

 

I'm excited about it. I know it's going to cost a fortune to make and it's a very tricky sell, but I won't know unless I try. I'm grateful for having had the time to write it, and hard as it was, it was a joy to create. Ha ha, you see what I did there? Incorporated my virtues into everyday life.

Hope you're having a great summer and stay tuned for "The Hidden Arrow" the first and only short story every written by me... and likely the last. I'm more of a film and tv gal but what the hell, right? YOLO!

xo
Shan