I didn’t write yesterday. Le sigh. Today I’ll have to make up for that—finish two more scenes in other words. Good thing I have a list, even if it feels a little short at this point.

I’ve also been doing research on Inuit cultures, both past and present. I’ve decided that I don’t want to make the same mistake that various writers have committed in the past, which is cultural appropriation—in other words, remixing elements from another culture while ignoring the cohesiveness and people of that culture. This can range from stereotypes to getting names wrong (a sin I’ve been guilty of in the past) to inserting characters ostensibly from that culture but with white mindsets.

The Inuit are not my stepping stones to better writing—I need to get it right before I publish anything, whether through myself or through traditional channels.

To this end I’ve been buying quite a few books, fiction and non-fiction, while trying to get to either writers who are of the various Inuit peoples, or the qallunaat who’ve actually lived among them and/or seem to have a clue (no such thing as chicken soup in the microwave for White Heat, for instance; it’s seal blood soup).

My list of books thus far, some read, some not yet read:

• The Girl Who Dreamed Only Geese: And Other Tales of the Far North
• James Houston’s Treasury of Inuit Legends
• Kappianaqtut: Strange Creatures and Fantastic Beings From Inuit Myths and Legends
• Names And Nunavut: Culture And Identity In The Inuit Names And Nunavut: Culture And Identity In The Inuit
• On Thin Ice
• The Polar Bear Son
• Saqiyuq: Stories from the Lives of Three Inuit Women
• Thin Ice: Inuit Traditions within a Changing Environment
• Unikkaaqtuat: An Introduction to Inuit Myths and Legends
• White Heat: An Edie Kiglatuk Mystery
• White Lies About the Inuit

I also have DVDs to watch:

• Atanarjuat: Fast Runner
• Before Tomorrow

I’m really looking forwards to Stories in a New Skin: Approaches to Inuit Literature when it drops.