Deadline Day at the Toronto Arts Council

There was a time not so many years ago when I decided I would never apply for arts grants. I imagined myself nobly slaving away at my day job, counting down the minutes until I could race home and return to my "real" work. I was going to carry on this way for just a few years, then I would break out with some wonderfully successful novel/play/screenplay that would allow me to walk away from the nine-to-five with a flourish, like those people on the lottery commercials. These days, I'm feeling pretty good about myself if I actually have time to sleep the night before the grant applications are due.

So today Steve and I went by the Toronto Arts Council office with four hours to spare and me running on five hours sleep. Just inside the doors a nice receptionist was doing something on her computer when I stepped up to the desk with my fat envelope of brilliance. "Right there," she pointed, and I went to put the envelope on her desk. "No, no," she said, and I followed her eyes to a big easel with a handwritten sign. There was a whole room set aside for this day, with a large table ready to carry the weight of the last-minute onslaught.

I was disappointed at first - there were only about a half-dozen envelopes on the table, and I began to suspect my tendencies to procrastinate weren't as common as writers' blogs and discussion boards have led me to believe. But then I saw the sign-in sheet, with over forty names on it already. As I was filling in my own John Hancock a woman came in and collected the little pile of envelopes and added them to a very full box I hadn't noticed under the table.

When we'd been approaching the office, one guy was getting in his car to leave - he had the look of someone who was very happy to be done with something. As we were walking away from 141 Bathurst Street, someone else clutching a fat manila envelope was heading towards it. I can only assume their applications were brimming with brilliance as well, since as Steve said, "Only the pros procrastinate."