I wrote this for the issue of the Projector  that came out this morning. I hope those ink splAters with access to it will read the actual paper, but I’ll share my article with the rest of you on here, because I’m so proud of it…

“It’s no way to start off a cast, but we begin tonight with a goodbye.”

This was the opening message from anchor and Red River College graduate Kim Kaschor on Oct. 2, when CKX-TV broadcasted for the last time.

 As the news came to a close, CKX-TV reporters, shooters, and other staff members gathered behind the anchor desk, laughing, clasping hands, and wiping away tears. News director Monica Truffyn, a 20-year veteran of the station, was given the last word, a pre-recorded message of explanation and thanks to the viewers, before the screen faded to black.

The announcement came as a surprise. As early as the day before, Bluepoint Investment Corp. had intended to purchase the station, viewers expected to receive local coverage, and the 39 staff members of CKX-TV were employed.

“Bluepoint Investment Corporation pulled out of the deal yesterday afternoon,” Kaschor explained. “As of last night it is no longer a viable buyer. This will be the last newscast for CKX-TV and the last time viewers will pick up any signal, at all, for this station.”

CKX-TV started in Brandon in 1955 as Manitoba’s first privately-owned station. Over the years it became a part of CTVglobemedia and increased its reach to serving all of western Manitoba, or Westman, from Dauphin to the U.S. border.

Aside from local news coverage, the programming of CKX-TV was predominantly CBC content, so worries about the station’s survival began in April 2009, when CBC notified CKX-TV that they would not renew their contract. This began a series of potential sales and refusals. CBC turned down an offer to buy the station, while Shaw Communications Inc. pulled out of their plan to purchase it for a dollar in June. It was a relief, then, when CKX-TV finally found a buyer in Bluepoint Investment Corp.

Bluepoint Investment Corp. is a holding company formed in the last nine months by former president of Avenue Financial Corp. Colin Berrie and Bruce Claassen, CEO of Genesis-Vizeum Inc. Their first acquisition was to be CKX-TV, they announced in July, with the deal finalizing by Dec. 31 pending approval from the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

But after the CRTC rejected CKX-TV’s application for mandatory satellite carriage, Bluepoint Investment Corp. pulled out of the deal.

According to the email that Ivan Fecan, president and CEO of CTVglobemedia sent to his staff, “I returned to the office and waiting for me was a letter from Bluepoint Investments, the would-be buyer of our Brandon TV station, pulling out of the deal. Bottom line, they didn’t think there was a sustainable business without satellite coverage, which they cannot get.”

That was the afternoon of Oct. 1. Just over 24 hours later, CKX-TV no longer existed.

With the CKX-TV transmitters switched off for good, Westman residents have lost their community-focused news; the region is now served by Winnipeg-based CBC station CBWT. But CKX-TV was not only a trusted local station, but an opportunity for aspiring journalists and broadcasters to make their start in the industry.

“It’s a huge loss for western Manitoba and the community that CKX has served so diligently for the last 50 plus years” says Leah Hextall, sportscaster for CTV Winnipeg. “It’s a really sad thing for young kids coming into this business. A starting point for anyone trying to get into the industry is now gone.”

Hextall began her career at CKX-TV, and explains that the station was the place where she could learn, make mistakes, and gain the experience she needed to bring her talent to a larger market.  

“I learnt so much there. I learned to edit; I learned to produce. I wore so many hats and that was the main reason that I got the job at CTV in Winnipeg and got that opportunity to help myself further along.”

Brandon residents will feel the effects of CKX-TV’s absence, but more broadly the closure is a prime example of the struggle in which the broadcasting industry is embroiled. In the last year, many smaller local stations such as CHCA-TV in Red Deer, Alberta, CKNX-TV in Wingham, Ontario and its sister-station CHWI-TV in Wheatley/Windsor, Ontario have gone through similar troubles, resulting in closures or temporary fixes.

It’s a money issue. Local stations are in financial trouble, and Canada’s major broadcasters have united on a campaign called Local TV Matters to try and garner public support for a new method of funding. According to localtvmatters.ca, “[…]local television has been struggling financially for more than a decade, and now we have reached a critical point. Advertising revenues for local stations have decreased and the traditional model of free local television is unsustainable.”

This group of broadcasters hopes to persuade the CRTC to create a system by which the cable and satellite companies pay local television stations for using their signals. Beginning on Monday, Nov. 16, the CRTC will hold hearings to discuss this issue and the future of local stations.

Regardless of the decision, Westman residents, CKX-TV employees, and Manitoban students hoping to make their start within the province will be left unsatisfied.

“It’s just a very obvious statement of the times in broadcasting,” says Hextall. “The industry is in a very sad place, and it doesn’t look like it’s getting any better.”

Haha. Got you. I’m not caught up. I did, however, have a superb day today and I have a treat for you fine ink splAters.

I know you’ve been suffering over the last month.

“Sure,” you’ve been thinking, “I’m so proud of Sarah for concentrating on her incredibly demanding schoolwork. But I’ve really missed hearing about her book. I even have a sneaking suspicion that she has been putting off working on it. I feel guilty for even thinking that she would neglect a project about which she feels so passionately, but excerpts have been in mighty short supply lately.

“Also,” you think, “despite the fact that she says it had to do with faeries, I have seen no evidence of that in the excerpts she has posted. Oh Sarah,” you cry to the heavens, “why don’t you post more pages of your lovely book so we, your loyal, charming, brilliant, good-looking, humble ink splAters can regain faith in you and praise your work for hours on end? Please!”

It was something along those lines, no? Well, here you go folks. Have a ball. Compliments go in the “comments” section.

C’s journey back through the trees was lonely and frustrating. After leaving the eerie sourceless light around the clearing she trudged, stomping, behind the blue twinkling body and buzzing blurred wings of Rose Isa. The tiny faerie named the trees that they passed, sometimes reaching out to one with her delicate little hands. C was amused when she noticed Rose call them not by their species, birch, elm, and pine, but instead by names like “Leafy Joe” and “Prickles.”

When C had once again climbed up to the Ridge, she remembered Dennis and the retreaters, Julian and the twins, and jumped when a shower of red and yellow-white sparks exploded in the sky. Time in Faerie must run strange, C thought, swearing that it should be approaching dawn, that the fireworks and celebration must be long-since spent.

She stared hard at the forest now below her, the place that held so many secrets and two people she loved. Rose Isa flew in a large loop of farewell and darted into the trees – a minuscule flame swallowed by an endless dark.

C started down the path back to her site, picking up speed with every step so that by the time she reached the tennis court it was by in a blink. She raced for the beach, toward the echoing bangs of the multicoloured explosions leaving smoky imprints on the sky.

There were a couple hundred people gathered around bonfires collectively oohing and ahhing at the pyrotechnical display. C pushed through strangers, ignoring their grunts of annoyance. She scanned the crowd impatiently, trying to search out Julian. He was Rainee’s best friend and C felt driven to tell him why she had disappeared, but when an appreciative cheer rumbled around her after a particularly spectacular combination of fireworks it occurred to C that no one noticed Rainee was missing. For everyone else, the last few hours hadn’t been one impossibility after another; it had simply been another summer evening by the beach.

Then she spotted them. The twins gazed hopefully at the sky, waiting for the next explosion. Mama D sat on a lawn chair with her hands folded peacefully over her stomach, her eyes blinking in the slow, heavy way that signalled exhaustion. Julian stood behind her chair with one hand resting on its back. He didn’t watch the sky but instead dissected the crowd. He kept returning to the collection of CASB retreaters clumped uncomfortably in the centre of the beach. C noticed Dennis searching through the mass of people with his eyes, a frown of annoyance or disappointment showing. Apparently her absence was noted.

Conscious of promises to him and the twins – conversations that seemed like memories from another life – C walked forward to stand between these two groups. She waited for Dennis to pick her out of the throng, and by watching his face morph from irritation to pleasure to alarm as he recognized her, she knew she must look a complete mess.

He began to move toward her, but she put a hand up to stop him, attempted a reassuring smile, signalled that would be back in a moment and carved out a path to Julian’s family around the bonfire. Dragging her feet a bit, she stumbled into a few people on her way.

Wanting more? All you have to do is ask. P.S., please excuse any grammatical errors. This excerpt is not yet edited.

ink splAt’s in-house writer,

inksplAt bookworm

Sarah E. Lund

Who’s there?

Interrupting cow.

Interrupting c-

MOOOOOO!

Hahaha.

Last night I re-wrote the beginning of the book. Here. Read it and like it.

”

C leaned heavily against a worn oak desk. The cash register to her right was napping, wrapping itself in the thin layer of dust that covered every surface left disused for even an hour in the fusty second-hand store. The faded books in the stack on her left waited patiently to be shelved back with their fellows, ignored but not neglected; C would get to them by the end of the night.

At that moment she was leafing through a pictorial of lake country, her chin perched in the palm of one hand with her elbows resting on the edge of the desk. Her other hand clutched a pen as she flipped the pages with a careless snap.

            The playlist that spilled through the store was an eclectic mix of C’s favorites. Punk followed banjo music which flowed into a string of motown hits. When the last notes of the final song drifted into nothingness, she was too tired to notice.

            Her head wavered on her arm and her eyes drooped. “Hò-bhan, hò-bhan, Goiridh òg O, my love was not where I left him,” she hummed, oblivious to her own voice and the symbol she had started to doodle down the side of the book. A long wavy line traced its way down the length of the page in thickening black ink. A second line, separate at the top of the page, gradually overlapped and then appeared to twist itself in ever-tightening spirals around the first until the two ends connected at the bottom of the page in a crude imitation of an intricate v-shaped charm.

            C’s chin teetered dangerously on its balance point, spilling long strands of her chestunut hair across her forehead. Her large hazel eyes flew open and her humming stopped.

“Damn” she said, examining her handiwork. She wasn’t nearly as irritated at herself for defacing the store’s property as for drawing that particular symbol.  She slapped the heavy covers of the book closed and grabbed the rest of the books that needed to be shelved. The desk groaned as she lifted the pile from its wizened top.

She didn’t need to think much as she distributed the books to their rightful places. The layout of the store made sense to her in a way that was second nature. Aside from the owner, she was the only one who could boast of this innate knowledge of Pendham’s Used Books & Oddities. Most people, customers and the few staff alike, got lost in the small store with its cache of very hidden treasures. They were used to box stores with logic and labels to lead them, and couldn’t understand Mr. Pendham’s distribution of stock foremost by mood, then by author.

The store was created as a shelter and a maze. People who fought the feeling of getting lost, the notion of browsing, never felt quite comfortable among its shabby shelves.

C walked to the Regional Interest section with her drawn-in pictorial. The section, her favourite, was tucked into the back corner of the small space and had easily the most eclectic collection of stock in the store.

Posters for small town harvest festivals, dances, craft sales, and bake-offs papered the walls in this area. A giant map of the prairies functioned as a carpet, and books were piled geographically rather than alphabetically in the space. Worn, faded, poorly refolded road maps spanning several decades were stacked beside ancient coffee-stained pictorials. Rural community pamphlets and newsletters filled two filing cabinets against the wall.”

Here you go, ink splAters. I won’t be posting in the next couple of days because the Huldafolk are calling. Hopefully this will tide you over until Monday.

I dare you to sing a chorus of your favorite guilty pleasure song right now, as loud as you can.

inksplAt bookworm

“They were near the edge of a cliff. The rock they stood upon dropped off suddenly, as if a giant hand had scooped out a kilometres-wide hole in the world. This valley was filled with trees which were squeezed together in a deep green mass that C had at first mistaken for a great dark ocean. The moonbeams caressed the tips of the pines, and in the distance she noticed an occasional hill which raised a copse of trees above the rest. Its green-black silhouette was just discernible from the inky blue-black background.

She was only vaguely aware of Rainee, who had sat down at the very edge of the cliff and was leaning back on her hands, her face turned up toward the sky which was packed with stars like so many thousands of pinpricks in the universe.

C breathed in the scent of needles and bark, and was overcome with a need to get down into the valley. There was a path that wasn’t too sheer; perhaps gentle enough to attempt to climb down to the forest floor. She wandered toward it but Rainee casually grabbed her arm and plopped her down in the spot beside her.

“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” Rainee said. She inched forward slowly and dangled one leg over the edge of the cliff.

C nodded. She didn’t quite know how to describe how much the valley was affecting her. She was generally frightened of heights, but in this place that fear seemed irrelevant. She followed Rainee’s lead and swung both legs over the edge, her feet suspended over the endless expanse of trees.”

I did it! I caught up on my pages! Harry Potter Day will be a coordinated footwear day after all.

Sure, it did take the majority of a sick day - if I hadn’t been completely ill, there is no way I would have been able to catch up - but they’re done. Eight pages in one day. I will not let myself get that behind ever again.

You know what? I’m really starting to enjoy this book-writing thing.

This will be a shorter post, just an update so you too can revel in my triumph, but a couple of life details must be noted.

1)  I’m off to the Islendingadagurinn on the long weekend. It’s official. Hotel room booked and everything. This will be a glorious half-party half-research weekend where I can hopefully visit Snorri and Snaebjorn, learn a little more about Icelandic elves, and eat a lot of good food. This trip is mostly thanks to Mum and DoubleO who are bravely trusting me with a car, and JT who somehow doesn’t think I’m completely mad for going to talk about elves with strangers. It will also be the first time JT and I go away anywhere just the two of us. The Islendingadagurinn, how romantic.

2)  I finally got the courage to send this blog around to a selection of friends who have shown interest in my Project and/or will likely not laugh at my attempt to document my life under deadline. If this is your first time reading ink splAt, welcome! And you should probably start from the beginning…

That’s all for now ink splAt-ers. I will now go bask in the glow of a day on which Harry Potter is released in some form.

Live long and prosper,

inksplAt bookworm

P.S. Here’s an excerpt from my work today. Severely unedited.

“I just slept in; it’s no big deal,” she said. She didn’t particularly like the idea of enlightening him on everything that had transpired with Rainee in front of the rest of the students.

Dennis was about to comment on this when a black BMW sedan rumbled up the gravel road. All the students stared intently at the car. C, especially, was willing the doors to open. Buck Stanton was like a rock star to her. She had followed his political career since she was old enough to understand how the electoral process worked, and had always been in awe of his progressive views. Before going green was trendy, he had been elected to city council on an environmentally-friendly platform. In his federal campaigns, environmental issues had always been an integral part of his promises to constituents.

His policy was not the only reason that C admired him. He was at once eloquent and out-spoken, blunt and ingratiating, and his genuine, charismatic smile had an old-Hollywood gentleman quality that made businesspeople and elderly ladies trust him and young men want to emulate him. The grey streaks in his hair, his sun-browned skin, and the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth gave him the look of an aging western sheriff. This was a striking image that had, fortunately for him, increased his charm. According to the pundits, it was only a matter of time before he was promoted to Leader of his party to make a run for Prime Minister.

The door opened and he swept out of the car, smiling and greeting Philip Eastwood warmly. He was shorter than C had imagined, though she quickly amended that observation with the thought that height is virtually impossible to get an accurate impression of from television. Mostly he was exactly as she had seen him in press clippings and on the news, and she was feeling positively giddy at the thought of talking to him. Dennis was mocking her under his breath, suggesting she get Stanton to sign something for her. She ignored him. For the first time, she was determined to be noticed above the other students.

Probably, many people who experienced a day like the one I had today would be hesitant to call it productive. But I’d say I accomplished a lot today. And, perhaps more importantly, I really enjoyed my day.

I was dreading my morning. JT had colluded with my mother to make me take driving lessons - (“Seriously?!” you ask, outraged. ”He called your mother?” Yes. He did. I wasn’t very impressed either…) -  so there I was at 10 am, waiting for my driving instructor, cheque and beginner’s licence clutched tightly in my fist.

Harvey was a nice man. It turns out that he taught my sister, Bree (I decided to overlook the fact that Bree still doesn’t have her full licence in my assessment of him).

An hour and a half later I was dizzy from all the turns. I’m now a turning fool. I can turn left, I can turn right, I can avoid curbs and stay in my lane and signal, brake, and accellerate at the government-approved times. Mostly.

Ok, so Harvey did say that he  would bring me a cane for next lesson since I drive like such a Grannie, and he did imply that I get distracted by anything and everything on the road around me (but hell, if I always kept my eyes straight ahead I never would have seen that deer on Friday. How about that Harvey!), but I’m pretty confident about turning every which way (except in a U- or three-point manner of course), so we can call lesson #1 a success.

It wasn’t even noon and I had bravely faced my driving fears (sort of, if I had been at all frightened of turning). I could have donned my shorts, runners, new sports bra (so amazing!), and some sort of top and gone for a run. But it was noon, and a blazing 23 degrees already, and I was lazy.

I’ve struck up this deal with myself, you see. I can either work, exercise, write, blog (but only after writing), or complete necessary errands. Reading, TV, and miscellaneous computer pursuits are only allowed as “breaks” from the previous activities. This way, I’m always achieving something.

If I wasn’t going to exercise, and I didn’t have work or errands, there was only one thing I could do. I wrote. I wrote three pages (which means that I only really have to write one tomorrow, if I’m going to write 14 pages per week, averaging two per day). Yay.

My afternoon was dedicated to making these brilliant improvements to ink splAt. If you’ve visited before, you might notice:

 - the new widgets on the sidebar

- the new pages (bio, links, etc.)

- the fancy links between pages (HTML, baby. That was all me.)

- the new categories

- updated tags

- a bookworm twitter page and link; and

- general increased attractiveness

I count that as productivity.

I heard from the great and powerful Voice (sort of like the great and powerful Oz, except we haven’t yet discovered the tricky man behind the curtain) who filled me in on the tent-hopping beer -soaked extravanganza, complete with drama and celebrity, in which he participated this weekend. Liver transplants for everybody!

Just an excerpt so you know I’m actually writing…

“The fat woman heaved her tie-dyed bulk up the short flight of stairs and disappeared through the painted doors.

The twins were hopping with excitement, Rainee’s eyes were fixed unblinkingly on the doors, and her companion was statue-like, tensed. They were all waiting. C realised she was holding her breath and released it in a whoosh.

A piercing scream erupted from the building and Rainee’s wind-chime laughter filled their hiding place.

That poor hefty woman. She gets so much abuse in this book.

Nighty-night ink splAt-ers.

inksplAt bookworm