Hello! My name is BillCo

Billco here; it's a pleasure to join this forum. After just an hour of scanning threads, I feel like tackling my MS again.

I'm an aspiring (sometimes perspiring) author. For ten years I operated a fishing lodge here in Ontario, and I'm in the process of trying to tell the stories about the Big Ordeal. I've found myself stalled - sidetracked while trying to become employed - and have avoided finishing the thing I started last summer. Presently hovering at 54,000 words, it will ultimately be only 20% of the complete tale, and the challenge has subsided into stasis.

I think I'll spend a little more time absorbing the wisdom you've all left lying around here, and then crank up the laptop again.

I'm looking forward to interacting with this community, and I wish you all well. I'll do my best to wait a month or two before offending you.

Taryn Blackthorne said:

Hi Billco! I'm up North in the next province over! We're practically neighbours!
Heeeelllllooooo

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I spent a second trying to decide if you need to be congratulated, or mourned. Still workin' on that one.

But hello, fellow... Canuckistanian!

I bet I'm in trouble now.

CACTUSWENDY said:

Welcome to AW. Hope you enjoy your stay with us.
How do you like your popcorn?

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Well, ideally... I like it popped. I hope this wasn't a test.

Smaddux said:

Welcome to this wonderful site. You will get a ton of help

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Amazingly, I still own a 12-ton yard crane. If push comes to shove, I can hoist my help. So - thanks!

JJ~ said:

Does Billco like Wilco? Damn, you are working on a long manuscript. Love the ambition.

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Remarkable how ambition is repaid, eh? It's like a theme, except it hasn't led me anywhere.

JJ~ said:

Does Billco like Wilco? Damn, you are working on a long manuscript. Love the ambition.

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Actually, it's not so much ambition as... therapy...?

We (family) bought a fishing lodge in 2000, and we got screwed. By the second year, the place should have slipped from our grasp; 9/11 and a litany of geopolitical and economic factors kept slamming us. But somehow - probably by virtue of sheer stubbornness - I managed to keep the place staggering along until last June, when the bank finally put us into receivership. We lost everything but a few scant personal articles, along with close to a million dollars.

Here's the thing, though: (as I said) we got screwed. The property was contaminated, and the guy we bought from AND the bank were aware of it all along. A furnace oil tank had leaked in the basement prior to our possession. The bank made us pay for an environmental assessment as a condition of funding, but they never revealed the contents of the report to us. So we are victims of fraud, and conspiracy. Seeking redress of this grievance sounds like a simple proposition, but the enemy is a bank owned by the Government of Canada. They can afford all the lawyers they want, and we can't afford one at all.

Amazingly, they have accused US of contributing the contamination - this in spite of the fact that they have provided us with clear evidence of its pre-existence. Not only that: we heated the place with wood. We can prove it, too. So the whole thing is not only unjust, it has an element of the surreal, too.

As you can probably imagine, the injustice of the whole thing was an emotional disaster for us; it isn't ONLY about money (though that's important) - we put our hearts and souls into this business and the property bears innumerable hand-crafted improvements.

So, last summer, reeling from the blow of receivership, I started to tell the whole story. A lot of things happened in ten years, and it's gonna be a big thing to read. As it turns out, it's a lot to write, too.

So there you go; you now know what has driven me to put pixel to screen, finger to keyboard, and so forth. I just wish I could get on with it. When I stopped working on the MS in September, resuming suddenly became a daunting obstacle. I still haven't got a handle on how to move forward.

Taryn Blackthorne said:

Mourned...definitely mourned...

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Could always be worse. For example, contemplate living in Brampton. <shudder>

Yer all SO nice. Hmmm.