Category: Uncategorized

Trouble with Transitions

Diane Ferguson Leave a comment
Image by Meghan O’Rourke

When I was raising my kids, they had a lot of tantrums. “The books” said to look for triggers, such as transitions. Does your child have trouble with transitions? Not only did my child have trouble with transitions, I realized I too had trouble with transitions. Certainly, not to the same extent, but “changing gears” for me took an extra push, an extra effort. And this showed up in my writing routine.

When I’m writing a first draft, there is a perpetual motion forward, of keeping the fire burning and just going. But now I’m editing and fine-tuning what is to be my final draft–except for some copy editing. I’m working on getting the rhythm and pacing of my plot, sub-plots and character arc, perfected. It’s an exciting time as I’m closer than I’ve ever thought to getting the story right, getting the rhythm right. I can go back and fix the prose, but getting the structure nailed down is vital.

Read more

Writing In The Time of Covid

Tracey Richardson 2 Comments

I’m not sure if I’ve spoken much about my “writing break” in this space, but like we hear with Covid-19 jargon, I think I flattened the curve of writers block-itis and am on the downside of the peak.

When I finished writing my last novel in the summer of 2019 (“Thursday Afternoons” by Bella Books), I hung up my keyboard for an indeterminate amount of time. The old “TBA” as to when I would start writing fiction again. I just…lost it. The drive, the inspiration, the energy. I felt like I still knew how to write; it was more a matter of feeling I had nothing to say. Read more

Romance novels — peoples’ favourite punching bag

Tracey Richardson 1 Comment

Do you roll your eyes when someone says they read or write romance novels? Do you find yourself thinking or saying that romance novels are second rate? That they’re nothing but fantasy, that they have nothing to do with the “real world”, that writers who write them are second rate and readers who read them have boring, unimaginative lives?

Unfortunately, those thoughts/judgments are all too common. And they’re rife with ignorance.

As a writer of lesbian romance novels, it bugs me when people don’t take my genre seriously. Insults me, to be specific. Because you know what? I’m not a second rate writer. I can and do write fiction other than lesbian romance. Nor do I have a boring, unimaginative life. And hey, why would a romance novel be any more unrealistic or predictable than a mystery or suspense novel, never mind fantasy or sci-fi? Read more

10 Reasons to Write Short Stories

Seana Moorhead 1 Comment

Confession: For many years, I didn’t like short stories. The concept conjured memories of high school English classes where we were required to create short stories, filling lines with sweet teenage angst like a Boston cream pie donut. I used to like those donuts when I was nine. I also adored the pink and blue bubble gum ice cream at that age. There are some things you grow out of and I had put short stories into that category.

Then I started taking my writing more seriously and I’ve come around to admiring the short story format. I especially like very short stories; those under 3000 words. And I discovered there’s a reason why many short stories don’t work well for me. It’s very hard to write a good short story. You have to pack everything you could put into a novel of 70,000 words and break it down to the essential and still write beautifully.  And make sense so you don’t lose your reader for lack of words.

When you find a good short story, it is like the scotch of writing.  There’s depth and multi layered flavours from the first sniff to the last lingering taste on your mouth. Like a good scotch, you don’t need a lot to appreciate its beauty.

Here’s my list for why every writer should strive to write a short story:

Read more

Writing what you don’t know? No problem!

Tracey Richardson Leave a comment

I’m a fan of reading medical romances, but for a long time, as a writer of romance novels, I was too scared to attempt to write one. Too intimidated, more like.

There are medical professionals with more than enough street cred out there writing successful medical romances. So why should I attempt writing them when I’m not a doctor, nurse, paramedic or even an employee at a hospital? I mean, isn’t it a bit “fraudulent” to write these kinds of novels when you’re not “one of them”?

Well, my answer is an emphatic no to that last question, since I’ve now written four medical romance novels (including two that were finalists for the Lambda Literary awards…the most prestigious award for LGBTQ books in the world). Read more

Story Tellers

Andrée Levie-Warrilow Leave a comment

A few days ago I attended an interview with Indigenous writer and CBC host of Up North, Waubgeshig Rice. I had recently read his latest novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, and was looking forward to hear the writer discuss his dystopian saga set in the Rez, after the sudden crash of electricity, internet, and all communications. By coincidence, my nonfiction Book Club’s selection for this month is Waub Kinew’s biographical work, The Reason You Walk. 

 Both books deal with what the writers term the native apocalypse. Kinew relates the effects the institution had on his own father and his ensuing inability to be a father to Waub and his siblings as a result.  Rice, meanwhile, has created an allegorical apocalypse, which, the way the climate crisis is progressing, has the chilling tinge of real possibility all through its narrative. 

Read more