All posts by Selim Ulug

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About Selim Ulug

Author of the short story collections Something Special and The Woman in Red. Author of the Big Finish Short Trips Landbound and Battle Scars.

Skating

Life,

Was there ever a more magical activity than skating? Ottawa is home to the longest outdoor skating rink the world, the Rideau Canal Skateway, boasting some 7.8 kilometers of uninterrupted ice. And this has been a banner year for the canal. The weather has been nearly perfect and much of the canal seems as smooth as an indoor rink. There’s just something about bright sunshine, blue skies, refreshing cold air in your lungs, and the look of happiness on everyone you skate by. The BeaverTails don’t hurt either. So far this year I’ve been good and refrained from indulging, but that might not last. In fact, it almost certainly won’t.  Few things are better for the soul than to skate a few kilometers, then stop for a steaming BeaverTail and cup of hot chocolate.

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Skating is a very welcoming sport. On the same ice surface you’ll see everyone from beginners, lacing up for the first time, to seasoned pros blasting down the ice on speed skates. On that spectrum, I tend to fall closer to the beginner, but just

advanced enough that I don’t often fall. Woo hoo! I learned to skate on the canal which was both good and bad. The fact that it’s so long forces you to practice, that’s the good. The challenge is right in front of you. You just have to skate the whole thing. Or as much of it as you can manage. The bad part is that since it’s so long and straight, you never learn to turn and seldom need to stop. In the beginning, my stopping strategy was to spot a snow bank and plow into it. My turning strategy was to first stop then aim myself in the desired direction. Simple, but effective.

Our Winterlude festival is in full force and my favourite event has always been the ice sculptures. I’ll post a photo of one them. How anyone can get so much detail carved into ablock of ice is a deep mystery. Hmmm. That sounds like a story waiting to be written, how an ancient enclave of magicians uses deep magic to carve runes and symbols into ice. The hero wields a sword of ice, hard as diamond, that never melts. Right. That’s my queue to put down the pen and think some more about winter wizards and swords of ice.

Whatever form winter takes where you are, I hope you’re able to make the most of it. ‘till next time…

First Post

Writing,

The first post! If you noticed the subtitle, “A writer’s ramblings”, then you’ll have gathered that there won’t be a single theme to this blog. I’ll be writing about, well, writing, as well as movies and–am I borrowing from John Scalzi when I say this?–whatever. As a developing writer after all, practice makes perfect.

Which begs the question, is there any writer who is not a developing writer? Consider Stephen King, who’s been writing professionally for decades. Compare the maturity of his recent books to Carrie, for example. He’s come a long way and by now is truly a literary Normal Rockwell, painting spot-on portraits of everyday people going about their lives and getting eaten by monsters. OK, well, monsters aside, the characters in his stories are so real you feel you know them.

Like many other things, writing is a journey, and along the way you learn to sharpen your pencil a little sharper, write prose that’s a little cleaner, and develop characters in a way that seems more believable to your readers. That’s a journey that I’m looking forward to.