And god said, "Give the bloody woman a grant."

Some say there's no such thing as coincidence.

If there's any truth to this at all, perhaps the gods are smiling upon me. Or laughing at me -- I'm not sure which. However, last night I was suddenly inspired to look up Toronto Arts Council grants for the first time in well over eight months. It had suddenly dawned on me that to be eligible for a writer's grant, you didn't need to have a zillion books published, and that grants were given to first-time writers as well as the familiar faces.

And such was indeed the case.

What I wasn't expecting was that applications were due today. Today. I'm working a number of little projects, but most of them are still in their starting phases. (Several books, a screenplay and even a kid's book, which I have completed but am still tweaking.) None of my rather decent stuff is far enough along. And the only project that is clearly set to go (and has had chapters written) is a sort of mainstream piece of fluff. Do arts councils give grants to fluff?

This, of course, led me to the realization that a) I'm busier than I thought I was; b) I'm a shittier writer than I thought I was; and c) I should really just pollute myself to death in Lake Ontario.

But to hell with it. I'm applying anyway.