Please Standby & Thank You For Your Patience

We're working the kinks out.

Just checking in to let you know that yes, we’re still doing this.

My goal was to publish at least one chapter per month. The minute I slunk past that self-imposed deadline last week, the mental block set in. Mad at myself for being late on Chapter freaking 2, I avoided finishing the edit for publication even harder.

It’s a vicious cycle and I’m the worst for this.

That, plus a bunch of other things going on right now have zapped my time and energy.

But Chapter 2, which covers the latter half of 1990, will be with you by the time you’re digesting turkey this weekend, I promise.

To recap what we’re doing here:

This (Substack) is how I’ve chosen to publish a manuscript I wrote years ago on Saskatchewan politics in the 1990s. It is my attempt to answer the question of what really happened during that tumultuous decade in the Saskatchewan Legislature, as well as the province that stretched out forever around it.

The lore of that period of time has been freely appropriated and manipulated by politicians and parties of all stripes. I couldn’t trust it. Yet it was undeniably a pivotal and crucial era in Saskatchewan’s brief history.

Due to… life, I chose to shelve the manuscript instead of releasing it. I had amazing, supportive people around me who respected my decision, but it was probably the wrong one.

I couldn’t forget about it. When Substack came along, I realized it would make a decent vehicle for finally letting the work go.

I wrote the tale chronologically, drawing from key events in television, theatre, music - pop culture - across Saskatchewan and the planet, as they unfolded, right up until the night before Y2K. Against that backdrop we examine, in real time, the criminality that was unfolding behind the solid oak office doors lining the Saskatchewan Legislature’s cavernous hallways. Those stories quickly flow into almost inconceivable police investigations, prosecutions and convictions of former popular PC Party of Saskatchewan MLAs.

Today, it is jarring to witness high-ranking Cabinet Ministers ramble sternly and authoritatively into the giant 1990s microphones of a gaggle of Saskatchewan reporters in the Rotunda of the Saskatchewan Legislature. As earnest and serious as they portrayed themselves, those same elected officials were stealing truckloads of public money at that exact moment.

My intention was/is to edit and revise each chapter, which covers a period of six months, as I publish it. However, I’m finding that in just the few years since I wrote it, new political context has emerged, reframing how I feel about the material.

That’s how history tends to work, but in my very black and white mind, it means I must rewrite thousands of words. That’s dumb. My new challenge, clearly, is accepting I have to get on with it in a timely manner.

While this post is free to all subscribers, most of the manuscript has been and will be paywalled. There’s been a bit of confusion from those who subscribed via my other Substack, OurSask. I don’t blame you, it’s not a clear process and I’ve submitted that feedback to the good folks at Substack headquarters.

So just to clarify, this Substack and my other OurSask Substack are two seperate, paid products. Subscribers to OurSask are not privy to paid content on this Substack, nor vice versa.

Put another way, if OurSask was my first diner, this would be my second, new and totally different bar and grill.

That always works out fabulously, right? 😏

Now that I’ve said all that, I’m also keenly aware that everyone here, this early in the process, is a member of my most loyal audience. You’ve supported me a very long time. So here, if you haven’t yet signed up to join us as we travel back down this sordid road, please take this coupon as a token of my gratitude and join us:

Thanks and talk soon, T