The Love of the Challenge

Believe it or not, we are presently living in a significant historic moment. 

Eventually, generations to come (our grandchildren) will be learning about our lives in History class. The teacher will talk about a time period full of a coronavirus that spread like wildfire, borders closed to travellers, businesses closed to shoppers, schools closed to students, protests of police brutality on minority groups, the want and need for diverse literature, leaders struggling to keep their tweets politically correct and kind, people struggling with anxiety and depression… and novelists who could not write.

These are frightening and uncertain times for many of us, so novelists not being able to write is not the end of the world. If you are one of them, just relax. Instead, concentrate on trying to work from home, while teaching your kids new Math skills, while making supper, while doing dishes and laundry, while cancelling all your travel plans, while telling your aging parents you can’t visit just yet. Honestly, you don’t need the added pressure of trying to create a novel.

But, what if you are lost without your writing? You need to write, but can’t?

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Everything is Cancelled… Almost!

Everything is cancelled… ALMOST!

I know! I know! 

We all had some major plans and a detailed vision of how 2020 was going to go for us, but then everything we had planned exploded into tiny pixels and all we can see in the near future is the everlasting smoke clouds circling around us. We are impatiently waiting for the sunshine to break through.

Several of my plans for writing retreats and writing conferences have been cancelled for this entire year, as I isolate myself at home. This sounds like devastating news, however, there is a silver lining to all of this…

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Opportunity Knocks on a Holiday Monday

Seana Moorhead & Lori Twining writing short stories at a Writescape Writing Retreat

Today is not a national statutory holiday in Canada, but in Ontario, Family Day is celebrated on the 3rd Monday of February (and many of us have a holiday away from our daily jobs). This holiday was originally created for people to spend time with their families, however, it also allows a day off between New Years Day and Good Friday (which are three months apart). These three months are a loooooong stretch of time when the sunshine goes on vacation to Florida (to hang out with my parents). When this happens, the Canadians end up battling snowstorms every other day and need to deal with the extremely cold winds whipping through the land freezing our facial expressions of sadness until mid-April.

Family Day is great for people who have young kids that want to celebrate by playing board games all day in their jammies by the fireplace, or going snowshoeing, skating or skiing together in the -35 degree weather. But, if you don’t have children, or if you are like me, your kids have grown up and have moved out, Family Day becomes more of a “Catch-up-on-all-the-other-stuff-you-have-procrastinated-doing” Day.

If you are a writer, it also becomes a “Finish-My-Novel” kind of day or a “Let’s-Write-A-Short-Story” kind of day. After reading Seana Moorhead’s blog post on 10 Reasons to Write Short Stories on January 27th, I thought I should investigate all the possibilities of where to send these newly-created short stories. Then, I decided to share the information with you. There is no better feeling of sending out your work and having it be a finalist (or a winner) in a contest.

Okay, that was a little lie above…

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The End of a Decade: Glancing Back, Racing Forward

Lori Twining writing in Hotel Heaven

It is hard to believe, but another decade is ending in 16 sleeps!

Glancing back over the last 3, 650 days, I wonder what the hell I have been doing with my life? How did ten years just disappear in a blink?

Sure, as a mother, I’ve raised three wonderful children and sent them off to University: one is married and has a job, one is almost married and has a job, and my baby is currently wading through a whole bunch of biomedical science jargon that I can’t even begin to understand and always has a summer job. Obviously, education and jobs are important in this household. All three kids are smarter and more respectful than their mother and can handle the world without me. What more can a mom ask for? Seriously, that means I did my job as a mother.

But, as a writer… hmmm, that is a completely different story.

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Thankfulness of a Writer

A writer’s life is full of many solo hours of rolling around in doubt, heartache, heartbreak… and a few happy aha! moments, that ultimately make us smile and laugh as if we have been riding a standup rollercoaster for three hours straight, jumped off, puked and then screamed, “Let’s do that again!”

Thanksgiving is the perfect time to be reminded of just how thankful I am for being a writer with an active imagination, an anxious heart and a not-so-strong stomach. This kind of up and down rollercoaster feeling happens to me often. Daily, in fact. But without the puking. Mainly this happens because I struggle with the whole concept of “Do I know what I’m doing?” to “Of course, I know what I’m doing, I just sit down and write what I’m thinking, right?” Yeah, that doesn’t always work out as easily as it sounds.

Today is Thanksgiving, so as a writer I am thankful for many things…

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Truth About The Writer’s Million-Dollar Question

This week a writing friend of mine, Colleen Winter, who is publishing her debut Sci-Fi Thriller novel, THE GATHERER in November 2019, sent me a text message:

HELP! I have a million-dollar question for you today. How is it that you give the appearance of being on social media a lot, but you say that you actually aren’t on very much? I’m trying to organize my life and could use some tips.

I chuckled, but understood the panic of trying to write a novel with a deadline, plus manage your social media accounts, plus be a mom, feed the kids, show up for your job in body, mind and in good spirit, shop for groceries, cook, eat, clean up… and the list goes on and on and on.

Here are some real truths that may or may not answer her million-dollar question:

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Blurring the Lines Between Art and Literature

Tom Thomson – Huntsville, July 2013

Are you a writer? Are you an artist? Can you be both?

Of course you can!

Dating back to prehistoric times, visual art led the way to telling stories. Cave or rock paintings were etched or drawn on walls and ceilings using pictographs. So, the real storytellers were the ones who could draw. 

When I was growing up, our family played the classic board game, Pictionary during every long weekend gathering. It was one of our favourite games to play on family night. Basic rules: You pull a card from the pile, read the one-word on it (without telling anyone what it is) and then draw a picture of the word, so the other team can guess what you are drawing within one minute. Let’s just say, there were many hours of laughing our ass off at the people who could only draw stick figures. We had a hard time distinguishing a hat from a rocket ship, or a turtle from a car. These people were not storytellers or artists… they were considered the comic relief for the room, and I’m sure they had many other talents that just weren’t applicable to this particular game. Not to toot my own horn, but damn, I was the Queen of Pictionary and that is probably why I remember these flashbacks so easily compared to a few other family members who have erased these memories from our entire childhood.

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When Your Struggles Become Golden

As you get older, struggles become real and shit starts to happen to you (not just to writers, but to the entire population).

Without getting too personal—and grossing you right out—I can tell you that not every orifice in your body is made for bleeding. If it does happen (blood seeping out of a hole it’s not supposed to), that is NOT normal. Lucky for me, this started to happen to my body. You’ll see why I say lucky, instead of unlucky quite soon.

THEN:

I waited three weeks before calling the doctor’s office because seriously, I was just hoping it would stop or disappear. Silly? I know. 

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