James Bow's Blog, page 16

How the Faeries Saved the Night Girl

This photograph was taken by Damian Baranowski.

The Night Girl, as you may remember if you are a regular reader of this blog, took some time to get from initial idea to publication. Over sixteen years, in fact. At one point, I'd almost given up on the project. But something happened.

For one thing, some agents I talked to, including my rep for Icarus Down saw something in the work, and encouraged me not to abandon it. I obviously felt something too. So, in 2013, I went in and rewrote The Night Girl from the ground up. Many scenes I re-used whole hog, but lots of things were on the table: Fergus's job (going from barista to cab driver), Perpetua's relationship with her mother (her mother made appearances in the early drafts; no longer), and the ease with which Perpetua found a job and an apartment (she had an apartment in the first version, and needed to find one in the second).

But one of the biggest changes was the relationship between Perpetua and Earthenhouse, and one of the things that brought that about was the arrival of faeries into the mix of humans, goblins and trolls.

Faeries did not have a role in the initial version of The Night Girl, despite them being a part of the lore I dipped into when I crafted my tale of goblins and trolls seeking to eke out a living in the human economy of Toronto. They had used their beauty and glamour to marry themselves into the human race, assimilating -- not the best of fates, but better than the alternatives the goblins and trolls had to contemplate.

And in the first version of the story, that gave me no main antagonist except for Earthenhouse, who was also Perpetua's mentor. Now, I'm sure there are many good stories out there where the mentor is also the primary antagonist, but it wasn't working here. Despite Earthenhouse rocking the boat slightly to try and give the goblins and trolls more within the human economy, he acts as a defender of the status quo, determined that humanity should not wake up and see the goblins and trolls around them, lest bad things happen. When this fails, then he swings and tries to bring the status quo down around everybody's heads. In some ways, I think this is understandable, but it wasn't quite right. Why would Earthenhouse spend so much effort trying to maintain the status quo if he ends up deciding to destroy it?

That's when I remembered the faeries. What if we brought them back? Instead of assimilating in with the humans and disappearing, what if they didn't disappear? What if they were beneficiaries of the status quo, sharing Earthenhouse's fear of humanity waking up and seeing the mythological creatures around them, but still benefitting from the status quo?

Suddenly, Earthenhouse has something to fight against from the start, and his progression of revolting against the status quo gets a more natural progression by giving it a further starting point. He's rocking the boat, and he knows he's doing that. He's defying the faeries, but he has to do that to help his goblin and troll brothers and sisters get a better life. And when that fails, well, his act to bring down the whole rotten system is a mere escalation of what he was trying to do in the first place.

The faeries also gave me a new primary antagonist in the form of Christina Bell, the main advocate for the faeries but one who, like everybody else in the story, is not a true villain, as everyone is motivated by fear and misunderstanding, and a desire to both hold on to what is good, and to make things better. It was a lot of fun having Perpetua stand up and talk back to this woman; it had a lot more edge than her more jovial relationship with Earthenhouse.

The result was a significnat expansion in the word count, from 64,000 words to around 85,000, and a more complicated but, in my opinion, more complete story. And after sixteen years of shepherding its creation, one which I'm proud to finally see in print.

Launching this September: The Night Girl

The image above is courtesy PixaBay.

It has been a long time since I last wrote, here, but the time has come to wake up this blog from its slumber. I’m pleased to report that a new book of mine will soon be out.

The book is The Night Girl, and many of you will remember the long process it took getting from idea to manuscript. I started writing in 2003 when Erin suggested the premise of TTC workers “digging too deep” and unleashing something on Toronto, and it morphed into something much more complex, featuring goblins and trolls trying to make it in the human world, and a young woman who helps them along as an employment agency’s secretary. In 2013, I rewrote the story from the ground up, taking the concepts and many of the scenes, but adding a new antagonist and broadening the world that Perpetua lived in.

So, after sixteen years, I’m about to hold a book in my hands, and it feels really good to have achieved this milestone. The Night Girl is worth it. I’m fond of its protagonists, I love its take on the City of Toronto, and I believe the story is compelling, funny, and hopefully surprisingly deep.

Well, we’ll see what the reviewers have to say.

I’m working on a few promotional events to celebrate The Night Girl’s launch, starting with a trip, of all places, to Portland, Oregon. REUTS Publications, my publisher, operates out of Portland, and so have a booth at the Rose City Comic Con event on the weekend of September 13-15. Over 40,000 people attended Portland’s Comic Con in 2016, so it seems an excellent venue to promote the new book. The organizers have also arranged me to participate on a panel entitled “How Urban is Your Fantasy”, talking about how urban settings contribute to the fantasy narrative.

I’m able to head to Portland thanks to a grant by the Canada Council for the Arts, and I would like to thank the Canada Council for this opportunity to promote my book to a wider audience.

After Portland, the next event will be an authors’ panel and launch party organized by Bakka-Phoenix Books in Toronto. It will either take place at the bookstore, or at the Merrill Library at the corner of Huron and College. Details will follow, but the event will take place on the afternoon of Saturday, September 28, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., and I will be moderating the panel discussion about Toronto as a setting for science fiction and fantasy. My fellow panelists will be Shawn Micalief, Mari Ramsawakh, J.M. Frey, Phoebe Barton, Ben Berman Ghan, and K.T. Bryski. This diverse group of science fiction, fantasy, and urban writers should provide many interesting insights, and I’m looking forward to the free-flowing discussion.

The following Saturday (October 5), from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.., I will be in Kitchener-Waterloo, hosting another author panel/launch party with the panel discussion on Canada as a science fiction and fantasy setting. My fellow panelists there will be my wife Erin, Leah Bobet, James Nicoll, and James Alan Gardner. Words Worth Books is helping to promote the event and will be along to sell copies. I’m hoping to confirm a venue shortly.

And I’m working on attending the Can-Con science fiction convention in Ottawa on the weekend of October 18-20, and Scintillation 2019 in Montreal on the weekend of October 11-13, where I hope to meet and greet attendees, and participate in a panel or two (fingers crossed). If this works out, I look forward to meeting you and enjoying good company in the fine cities of Ottawa and Montreal. I’ll be enjoying smoked meat, and (I hope) riding Ottawa’s LRT.

I’m looking forward to talking up my fifth novel, and launching it onto the world. Please watch this space as we get more information in the lead-up to the release date, including a cover reveal and (I hope) reviews.

The Reasons I am Here (and where I am going).

Back in 2002, I launched this blog on blogspot to try out this weird new phenomenon known as blogging. I thought this would be fun. I would have a chance to get used to writing about things regularly, build an audience, promote myself and my writing, and generally mature as a writer. For the most part, it worked! I caught the bug, and soon I was posting to my own website, using a blogging program I had to install called Movable Type. I got involved in discussions on other blogs. I became a part of an emerging community. I made friends.

Then Facebook and social media happened. The comments stopped coming to the blog. My online activity moved onto other sites. I kept writing here because this was the only place where I could spread my wings and write posts that were more than 280 characters long, whose copyright I clearly controled, and where previous posts were easy to find. But I did find other places to write, such as my weekly column for the Kitchener Post. Or my over 70 non-fiction books for grade school kids.

There sadly isn't the time to keep up on this blog, and rather than let it languish, I am writing this to put a capper on it. And also to let you know where else you can find me. I'm keeping this blog active for big new announcements, and possibly if the fancy takes me to come back and write something for it. If you want to hear me get personal and political, read my columns in the Kitchener Post. If you want to hear my pithy rants, follow me on Twitter. If you want to know a bit more about my life, I'm here on Facebook and over here on Goodreads. And if I ever get the knack of blogging using pictures, you can check out my Instagram feeds via night_perpetua and transittoronto. My tumblr account (though I really haven't got the hang of it) is here.

I'm typing this in November 2018 and using the date in the future to pin thiis post to the top of the site. I have a few things coming up that I'll be talking about on various venues, including possibly here. There's the publication of both The Night Girl (Spring 2019, hopefully) and The Dream King's Daughter (Fall 2019). There is my Red Maple nomination for my non-fiction book Canadian Structures and Sustainability. And there's all of the other curveballs that life throws at you. I've greatly appreciated the audience I've built through blogging. I've even more greatly appreciated the friendships that it has helped me build. Though this blog sits quietly, I am still active. Come and visit me at the venues I've pointed out, and don't be afraid tto say hello.

(Update: April 15, 2019): As part of our shift in focus, Erin and I are putting together a mailing list, combining the audiences of our books into a single mailing list that we'll send out regularly, but not overwhelmingly. If you would like to be a part of our mailing list, receiving updates on upcoming titles, appearances, and just what's happening in our lives these days, please fill out the form below. We look forward to hearing from you.

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The Reasons I am Here (and where I am going).

Back in 2002, I launched this blog on blogspot to try out this weird new phenomenon known as blogging. I thought this would be fun. I would have a chance to get used to writing about things regularly, build an audience, promote myself and my writing, and generally mature as a writer. For the most part, it worked! I caught the bug, and soon I was posting to my own website, using a blogging program I had to install called Movable Type. I got involved in discussions on other blogs. I became a part of an emerging community. I made friends.

Then Facebook and social media happened. The comments stopped coming to the blog. My online activity moved onto other sites. I kept writing here because this was the only place where I could spread my wings and write posts that were more than 280 characters long, whose copyright I clearly controled, and where previous posts were easy to find. But I did find other places to write, such as my weekly column for the Kitchener Post. Or my over 70 non-fiction books for grade school kids.

There sadly isn't the time to keep up on this blog, and rather than let it languish, I am writing this to put a capper on it. And also to let you know where else you can find me. I'm keeping this blog active for big new announcements, and possibly if the fancy takes me to come back and write something for it. If you want to hear me get personal and political, read my columns in the Kitchener Post. If you want to hear my pithy rants, follow me on Twitter. If you want to know a bit more about my life, I'm here on Facebook and over here on Goodreads. And if I ever get the knack of blogging using pictures, you can check out my Instagram feeds via night_perpetua and transittoronto. My tumblr account (though I really haven't got the hang of it) is here.

I'm typing this in November 2018 and using the date in the future to pin thiis post to the top of the site. I have a few things coming up that I'll be talking about on various venues, including possibly here. There's the publication of both The Night Girl (Spring 2019, hopefully) and The Dream King's Daughter (Fall 2019). There is my Red Maple nomination for my non-fiction book Canadian Structures and Sustainability. And there's all of the other curveballs that life throws at you. I've greatly appreciated the audience I've built through blogging. I've even more greatly appreciated the friendships that it has helped me build. Though this blog sits quietly, I am still active. Come and visit me at the venues I've pointed out, and don't be afraid tto say hello.

Red Maple Nomination

So now the truth can be told.

A few weeks ago, on a sunny morning as I sat down in front of my computer, Teacher-Librarian James Steeves, from the Peel Board, called me from out of the blue and asked if I was sitting down and swearing me to secrecy. His voice was entirely too cheerful for this to be bad news, so I told him I was sitting down, and he said, “You’ve been nominated for the Red Maple!”

I was, I admit, floored. Nobody expects to receive good news out of the blue like this, but I was also shocked at what had actually been nominated: Canadian Structures and Sustainability, a 32-page non-fiction book for grades 2-5, published by Beech Street Books and Saunders Book Company.

Though I consider myself first and foremost a fiction writer, I have produced over 60 non-fiction books for young readers as part of my freelance day job. These are entirely different beasts to write. My fiction takes months, if not years, from idea to draft to something publishable. For many of the non-fiction pieces, the publishers have come to me with the idea, asked for an outline, and expected a fully-researched and finished manuscript within weeks.

But, truth be told, I am proud of every one of them. Each may be a more collaborative affair as editors work tirelessly to keep each title relevant to school curriculums, and ensure that the language is appropriate for the audience, but I am pleased at some of the touches I’ve been allowed to put in, and it has been fun researching a topic from scratch, learning about it, and reworking it into a format that kids (I hope) enjoy reading.

Canadian Structures and Sustainability was a particularly interesting title because the topic was both limited and broad at the same time. I got to talk about Hurricane Hazel and other natural disasters, what keeps structures upright, and the latest in green technology that helps our new buildings fit into the environment. And it all has to happen within a Canadian context.

And thanks to the work of the editors and designers who took my manuscript and made it into a book, the Forest of Reading Awards, run for the Ontario Library Association, have recognized this book among other extremely worthy finalists for their Red Maple Non Fiction Award. I do not expect to win (Have you seen the other nominees?), but for the Forest of Reading, just finding yourself in the finals is a true honour, something which my mother and my wife Erin know all about.

So, thank you to my editors, and thank you to all involved with the Forest of Reading, for giving me this chance to talk a lot more about this book in the coming months.

What We Did on Our Summer Vacation

If you've been reading the past few posts, you'll know. I'm sorry they ended abruptly as we crossed the Colorado River, but around that time, our energy for driving kind of hit a low ebb. Other than working towards my deadlines, I didn't feel able to blog, though we took lots of pictures. But, as you cn guess, we havea returned.

We got back from our journey on Sunday, August 26. We spent 24 days abroad, with five nights at my father-in-law's place in Fresno, two nights on a tugboat in Sausalito, two nights in a hotel in Pueblo, Colorado, two nights in Salt Lake City, two nights with friends in Batavia, Illinois, and nights with friends and family in Omaha. We also spent quicker stops on the road in such places as a Rodeside Inn somewhere in southwestern Utah, a Days Inn at Flagstaff, and the Winnemucca Inn and Casino in Nevada. We also saw a massive thunderstorm over the Hoover Dam in Boulder City.

We took lots of photographs, and Erin wrote about our great road trip on her website. The journey was also fodder for Kitchener Post columns here, here, here, and here. In total, we drove for around 10,000 kilometers, or one quarter of the circumference of the planet. We saw the landscape of our continent change multiple times, and we probably road on the longest segment of single roadway in my lifetime, as we took the I-80 back from Oakland all the way to Davenport, Iowa. We kayaked in the Sierra Nevadas, squinted into the smoke at the Grand Canyon, and were charmed by otters in teh Monterey Bay aquarium. We saw how thoroughly gentrified Cannery Row had become. We played the soundtrack of the musical The Book of Mormon as we left Salt Lake City.

I'm pretty sure the kids won't ever forget this trip. They both admired the scenery, but both expressed a prefereence for future such trips either not being as long, or not being in a Prius. Still, I have to say that I was impressed by how well my mother-in-law's Prius handled the transcontinental trip, ascending to 12,000 feet and getting up to 80 MPH without complaint. And we definitely saved on gas compared to, say, a Grand Caravan.

Erin will probably not talk about this aspect of our trip, but she and the kids were kind enough to give me a day in Salt Lake City to explore its transit network, adding it to the list of cities whose LRTs I've ridden on. Overall, I was impressed with the operation, which was reliable, clean, reasonably frequent, and gave the sense that it took people where it needed to go, and was well used. There is a section where they've clearly built transit ahead of planned development, and I laud them for planning ahead, even if it did remind me of the preamble of the famous crop-duster scene in the movie North by Northwest.

It's good to be back, and it's good to get back to work on my writing. But I'm glad we took this trip.

Bridge Over the Colorado

I had not realized this, but we have been following the Colorado since Grand Junction. Sort of.

We crossed the Colorado River on the I-70 just before we entered Utah. Actually, the Colorado follows the I-70 deeper into Colorado, through a spectacular canyon that's shared with Amtrak's California Zephyr. After Grand Junction, though, it cuts southwest through Utah and into Arizona, where it cuts out the vast landscape that is the Grand Canyon.

After leaving a nameless town in western Utah, we headed south on US-89, fortified by some excellent coffee and burgers by a roadside caf��. We entered Arizona and approached the Grand Canyon from the north. The north rim does not receive the attention that the south rim gets, mostly because it's harder to access; all of the big cities in the area (Las Vegas, Flagstaff, etc) are on the southern side. So, we were promised that the north rim would still be impressive, but less touristy.

We were impressed by the drive up to the north rim, which passes through a microclimate of pine forest and bison. It was really quite beautiful. And then the land drops away, and there's the canyon, diving hundreds of feet deep. It's spectacular -- or, would have been if it hadn't been totally obscured by the smoke of three nearby wildfires. It made the visit quite a disappointment, and the smoke actually made Eleanor physically sick. Fortunately, she recovered quickly as we high-tailed it out of there, heading for Flagstaff.

Leaving the pine forest, we entered Moon Canyon, a wide, flat expanse across northeastern Arizona that's buttressed by tall, red mesas. I couldn't help but be impressed: crossing the Grand Canyon is impossible, of course, so to get around it, you have to go nearly a hundred kilometres out of your way, where the Colorado River hasn't cut so deep. And here is where we found a sight that made our day. Moon Canyon is wide and flat at this point, and the Colorado River cuts into it deep. There's a steel road bridge, and an older footbridge that used to be the road bridge. We got out and walked across the bridge, and saw that the Colorado River was about a hundred feet below us. It's like the Grand Canyon is just getting started here.

We took pictures of the bridge, the canyon and the surrounding mesas, and drove off to Flagstaff as the sun set, arriving after nightfall.

Tomorrow, we will try the Grand Canyon again, heading for the south rim, but further west, hopefully avoiding all of that smoke. We'll bunk down near the Nevada/California border, and be in Fresno by Sunday night.

Grand Junction

I've calculated that, by the time we've finished this drive, and have returned to Kitchener, we will have travelled the equivalent to one quarter the circumference of the globe.

And I suspect we'll be feeling every inch of it.

The past few days have been worth it, though. We spent the past three days in Colorado, starting with a two-night stay in Pueblo. We ventured behind the front range mountains and visited the Great Sand Dunes. Altitude sickness affected us more than we would have suspected, however, so we weren't up to sledding down them. But we did see mountains, spectacular scenery, and met up with two of Erin's friends online. We returned home tracked by a thunderhead that produced a wonderful show.

Then, yesterday, we struck out for Grand Junction, Colorado, following US-50 through some of the more rugged territory of the state. We crossed the continental divide at Monarch Pass, and took a tram to the summit, 12,000 feet above sea level. The sun was bright, the sky was clear, and we could see over 150 miles. We pushed through canyons that were jaw-dropping. Vivian, who often tries to be too cool for things, was impressed enough to say, "what is it like for the people who live here? Who look out on this stuff and think it's normal!"

The trees started to run out as we approched Grand Junction, and passed through what must have been honest desert, but we're not sure. The sun had set and it was getting dark.

The difference between Utah and Colorado is night and day, but it is no less impressive. First, driving out on I-70, the state makes it perfectly clear that it would kill us if it wanted to. Yellow sand and rock stretched as far as the eye could see. Exits advised "NO SERVICES" (then why put the exits there, then?). That spooked us enough to fill up the tank about as often as we saw a gas station. We stopped at a gas station convenience store that had been carved into a rock outcrop. We had mediocre burgers at a dry, desolate location. All-in-all, Utah looked grim. But we drove down UT-24 to UT-12, which is consistently ranked as one of the most scenic drives in the world. They're not kidding.

We stopped to dip our toes at Capitol Reef near the Harrison Bridge. We went over, around and through some spectacular badlands, as well as other places that were green oases. And we arrived at Bryce Canyon National Park as the sun was setting.

I didn't know what to expect here, but this national park is a forested area that overlooks the start of some of the most spectacular badlands in the world. You hike up to an observation post with no idea about what to expect. The result takes your breath away and makes you reassess your place in the Universe.

We are now in southwestern Utah at a Rodeway Motel that's not attached to any city, so far as I can tell.We finished the day looking up at the stars in an almost dark sky. Unfortunately, the light from the inn's sign from two miles away was enough to cause some light pollution, but we were still able to see an unusually bright Mars and the sweep of the Milky Way.

Tomorrow, we head to Flagstaff, Arizona, by way of the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Fresno beckons in two days.

I will make photos available on Flickr when I have more time.

On the Verge of the Rockies

This was, unexpectedly, the longest day yet, but I write this from Pueblo, Colorado, about fifty miles farther than we planned to end up the night and about a hundred miles further than I'd expected. We avoided the freeways of Denver, and saw land that was flatter than a pancake. Let me explain.

We left Grinnell, Iowa, fortified by excellent espresso, and had a short jaunt to Omaha, where we spent an afternoon and stayed overnight with our old friend Therese and her husband Rob. The rest stop was greatly appreciated, and we played Ticket to Ride and learned a interesting Scrabble-like puzzle game called Quirkle. Then we headed off into Nebraska after breakfast.

On trips through Northern Ontario, there's a song that people are supposed to sing, to describe the wonderful things they will see a lot of along the way. The lyrics go something like this:

Rocks and trees! Trees and rocks!
Rocks and trees! Trees and rocks!
Rocks and trees! Trees and Rocks and waterrrrrrr!

Nebraska could come up with its own song very easily, and it would go like this:

Corn and beans! Beans and corn!
Corn and beans! Beans and corn!
Corn and beans! Beans and corn and cattlllllllle!

The states get bigger the further west you go. You cross the border on I-80, and the mileage markers start counting down from over 400. We made good time on the i-80, but it was hot and loud, and the kids were getting somewhat battle fatigued. So Erin made an executive decision to turn the car south at Kearney, and take a route that bypassed Denver for Colorado Springs and also, incidentally, took us into Kansas, thus knocking another US state off my list.

Urban legend has it that scientists measured Kansas and pronounced it to be, on average, flatter than a pancake, and I have no trouble believing this. You'd think that, with Nebraska being among the Great Plains states, that it would be flat. It isn't. It's hot, and rugged, and tinged yellow wherever you go. It's strange, but heading south caused the land to flatten out almost completely, and turn green. The sky also got even more interesting. We followed thunderstorms for miles, only occasionally getting wet. We observed lightning strikes in the distance. And we came through places where we could only see crops; no houses, and no other cars on the road. And these were US (federal) highways.

We hit I-70 and turned west, and the land changed soon after we entered Colorado. Visiting Denver back in 2016, I was amazed at how flat Colorado seemed, before transforming within the span of a city to a community in the foothills. I see now, after having seen true flatness in Kansas, that Colorado has small ridges -- possibly waves in the techtonic forces that preceed the mountains.

Because the mountains are still amazing, even though we came in after sunset. Their presence can still be felt. We know we're on the cusp of things.

We'll be staying in Pueblo for two nights, meeting some friends, and seeing some amazing scenery. And also catching our breath a little after a long day.

Heading West, Again

Erin took this picture above, as we struck out from Moline, Illinois, across the Mississippi into Iowa this evening.

It used to be that, around this time of year (and Christmas), we would pack up the car and drive west, crossing the border at the Bluewater Bridge, making it nearly as far as Chicago the first night, then continuing on to Des Moines the next day. For a week, we would head around the midwest, going to Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska, and heading up to Vermillion, South Dakota. This ritual, which put hundreds of clicks on our car, was so Erin and our children could see their American grandparents and the extended family.

That changed a few years ago. My mother-in-law and her husband immigrated to Canada, and my father-in-law and his wife moved out to Fresno, California. We have flown out to Fresno before, but airfare is a luxury we can't afford, so it has been a while since we've been to California -- or even out to Des Moines.

This year, Erin decided that we needed to visit her father Wendell and his wife Judy. The kids need to connect with all their grandparents. And thanks to the loan of my mother-in-law Rosemarie and her husband Michael's Prius, we can make the trip without boarding a plane. We just have to drive 4,500 kilometers.

In a Prius. With two pre-teen children.

The children, to form, have been troopers about this, and laugh over the statements that, if nothing else, the resulting adventure may be good fodder for a future book.

I write this today in Grinnell, Iowa. We left Kitchener fairly promptly yesterday afternoon, thanks to a lot of help from Michael and Rosemarie in getting the packing ready. We got as far as Kalamazoo before we stopped for the night. Today, we skipped past Chicago, had dinner with old friends of the family Mike and Alice, and continued on into Iowa. We've been through four states in one day, but now the states are going to get kind of long. Tomorrow, we'll take a short day that will get us to Omaha, and after that it's on to Denver. We will meet more friends along the way, see some national monuments, including the Grand Canyon, and we will be sleeping in a tugboat in San Francisco Bay once again. And I'll have some LRT time, as we pause in Salt Lake City, Utah, to gather our breath before we continue on our way. I'll keep you posted as the trip continues.

It has been a busy couple of weeks for me. Two non-fiction writing projects that had been due on July 15th got delayed as we waited on approval for my outlines, and then the approvals came, with the publishing house asking for both manuscripts to be turned around within the next two weeks -- a week per book. It was pedal to the metal for much of that time, but I handed in the second draft manuscript Friday at noon, and now I'm free. I've spent most of the past two days driving, but I've been thinking, and planning revisions for The Sun Runners. Long car rides do give you some time to think, when the kids finally get quiet in the back seat. Unfortunately, you can't stop the car to write down your ideas.

I am exhausted, but I am also excited. This will be an adventure, and it will be something I doubt the kids will ever forget.