There’s a vast difference between a failure to be able to communicate what is in your heart, and having writer’s block. Writer’s block seems to be the result of not really having your heart in Read more
You’ve heard that old saying, you are what you eat. In other words, you are a product of what you consume. Okay, so in its literal sense, it’s talking about food, but what about books? When we read a book, does it have the ability to shape how we think? How we feel? In other words, can it change us?
Of course books have that kind of power. Books can change lives. Books can save lives. Books can open eyes and minds. But what I want to talk about is how the books we read reflect our mood and feed our mood, and ultimately can change our mood.
Yes, books are a drug in that respect. They’re medicine. At least for me. The pandemic has taken a toll on most people’s mental health, and I’m no different. And not just the pandemic, but the Trump-inspired nonsense down south, the residential school saga, the racist mass killing in London, Ont. It’s been a tough fifteen months. No, make that a shitty fifteen months.
Some of my writing buddies have been struggling to find the words lately. I’m no different. There are days I sit at my desk and stare at a blank page and wonder why I am even bothering to get up. Seriously, I could be sleeping right now. I never get enough sleep.
However, there are also days that I plunge my mind into other things besides working for someone else and wrestling with the words on the page. Sometimes, I like to immerse myself in other creative activities such as sketching, painting, and photography. Sometimes, I create colourful quilts and blankets from scraps of material found in a material bin. Sometimes I spend hours designing a new baby blanket (because who wants to use someone else’s pattern). And, sometimes, I bake cookies, experiment without a recipe, and eat every last one of them.
The thing is, I have found a way to get my writing mojo back during these other creative moments in my life. I’ve been multi-tasking.
My writing mojo has disappeared. Again. After good progress with character development in recent months, the ever-elusive and serendipitous inspiration has evaporated.
Waiting to stumble upon inspiration or hoping it will somehow just show up is not working. The muse is not going to surprise me and strike like a thunderbolt.
Most writers already know this. Understanding the theory is one thing but now the reality is becoming all too clear.
This is me making excuses and I am tired of my own whining. Writing requires a commitment to work harder. Plain and simple.
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Life has certainly thrown us some hefty curve balls recently. We all have our stories about the misadventures, COVID-19 realities, home school nightmares, and working from home challenges on top of all our regular daily stressors.
Our family’s recent distraction has come in the form of two, yes TWO, not just one, but TWO puppies. This should and IS absolutely joyful and wondrous—our lives full of giggles and smiles and puppy breath and sleeping monsters, but there is also plenty of;
“Don’t chew that!”
“Stay back from the pool!
What does one do when a year of pandemic stretches on and on promising never to go away? What does one do when the faith one had in the ‘powers that be’ wanes to such an extent that one can no longer imagine a future of any predictability whatsoever? Well, if you are me, you have a “wake up” stroke.
The literal meaning of that phrase is that a stroke occurred very deep within my brain while I slept on April 21, 2021. Fortunately, the literal side of things are all on the mend and my rehabilitation will be complete on June 10th. The part that’s going to take substantially longer is the figurative side of that “wake-up” event.
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– Ok, in the Pandemic. We’re still here. But, things are moving along. As I write this, 60% of Canadians have received at least their first Covid vaccine shot. That brings hope for our future.
Like many writers, sometimes I’ve written fiction, sometimes I’ve written non-fiction.
And sometimes I write poetry.
I secretly love it when the power flicks off during a storm. There’s a click and then a silence as the background hum of the electronics stop. The absence of the sounds makes me realize how much noise a house holds: the refrigerator hum, the rattle of the furnace, and dance of the water pump. The quiet reminds me of summer nights when the cicadas rhythmic strumming abruptly stops and the resulting silence seems conversely loud.
It’s early spring and at 8:35 pm, my power is lost. The weather is predicting to drop to zero overnight but I’m not worried. I build a fire in the wood stove, cracking the door so that the initial wood burns hot and fast, clearing the chimney of the night’s dampness. Then I stack it tight and close the draft so it will simmer all night.
Now I hear the sound of the wind as it bends tree branches and swirls across the windowpanes. It sounds like the rustling of dragon wings. I fumble through the darkness for a candle and match. As the wick catches, a circle of light is cast but unlike our electric bulbs, light from a candle creates spaces between the shadows rather than illuminating them. It’s a perfect time to write about magic, love, and dragons!
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