Category: on inspiration

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

A Christmas Tradition

Bernice Connell Leave a comment

It’s Christmas Eve, 1957, so the story goes.

The pilot of a De Havilland Vampire experiences a complete electrical failure on his way home from Germany to England. He is lost in fog and low on fuel over the North Sea.

“It’s a very lonely place, the sky, even more so the sky on a winter’s night. A single-seater jet fighter is a lonely home, a tiny steel box held aloft on stubby wings, hurled through freezing emptiness by a blazing tube throwing out the strength of six thousand horses every second that it burns.” 

These words are from Fredrick Forsyth’s novella, The Shepherd, a story my family reads or listens to this time of year. 

Fans of CBC radio will be familiar with Alan Maitland’s narration of The Shepherd which has aired on, or close to, Christmas Eve for most of 40 years. Readers may also know that Forsyth has written twelve thriller novels including The Odessa File, The Day of the Jackal and Dogs of War. In recent years he has also written his memoir.

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Finding Lost Words

Seana Moorhead Leave a comment

A friend recently leant me a book called “The Lost Words”.  This book lists twenty words relating to the natural world that were taken out of the Oxford Junior Dictionary (OJD)—a reference book aimed at young children and contains about 10,000 words.  The book, beautifully illustrated by Jackie Morris and written by Robert Macfarlace, highlights twenty of the removed words, all connected to nature.  

Obviously, when deciding upon what 10,000 words to use in a dictionary, choices have to be made.  What would you pick?  What would you leave out?  Dictionaries have been doing this for years, adding in new words or new spellings, often to outraged critics.  The editors of OJD decided to drop certain words relating to nature and added in new “modern” words.  For example, “acorn”, “buttercup” and “starling” were all dropped. The words added were “blog” (ah, the irony in writing a blog about this) and “voice-mail” and “chatroom”.   

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A Writer’s Need for Exercises

Diane Ferguson Leave a comment

I’ve been doing a complete re-write of my novel. I’m not quite at the climax, but I can see it from here. I’ve been working with my novel for a long time, so I thought I knew my characters. But in the re-writes, they’ve become a little unfamiliar. And because I don’t know them well, they’re feeling a little flat.

In my doggedness to reach the end of my novel, I lose my sense of play and creativity. One of my wrong ideas is that I don’t need writing exercises, that I don’t need to generate new ideas.

Of course I couldn’t be more wrong. New ideas are exactly what I need to bring my characters to life.

I was working at my day job and looking for a new podcast to listen to. I found: Inside Creative Writing, by Brad Reed. In Episode 3, Sparking your Creativity, Brad gives us two different idea generators to use on a character, place, or plot. The one I tried went like this:

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Thankfulness of a Writer

Lori Twining 2 Comments

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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Why Write At All?

Joan McAndrew 1 Comment
Joan McAndrew

As the newest member of Ascribe Writers it is my turn (I was coerced) to write about writing. Apparently, I am allowed to focus on anything as long as my musings revolve around the fact that I am a writer. 

Well, if that’s true, why is all my written work locked up in legal files that were presented to the courts, insurance companies or employers? Oh right, that’s part of my day job. You know that job… it’s the one we all do so we can do the things we really want to do in our ‘spare time’. 

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Writer’s Block–Actually Procrastination?

Donna Judy Curtin Leave a comment

What am I going to write about?

What, What, What?

Open Twitter. Find a thread where an unknowing and naïve person says to a writer,

Writing a book must be so easy!

Bark out loud in shock! Cover mouth because I will wake the kids and the husband who is working nights and then they will invade my space and I will get absolutely nothing done. Revel in liking every single response from all the writers who responded back with hilarious, shocked, pissed off gifs. I love twitter. And there goes another half hour.

Not only do I have a novel to complete drafting—I am currently taking a course through the Writer’s Digest University and my next assignment is due in less than 24 hours, my author website needs updating, the bookkeeper is waiting for our farm books, I still haven’t unpacked the kids back packs from summer camp, there are half completed renovations in the back yard, the barn chores need completing, fur balls, laundry heaps and dirty dishes are threatening to mutiny all over my house, bills need paying, I promised myself I was going to submit a blog to Andy Rourke’s website and next weekend is the Muskoka Novel Marathon wrap up and I still haven’t read the books I bought from the other authors this summer and THIS BLOG IS DUE.

How?

How do I waste so much time? I know it’s a talent, but why do I have to be so darn good at it?

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Coming Back to the Page

Diane Ferguson Leave a comment

I’m not writing. I’ve been busy. (Aren’t we all?) I’ve taken on a new job of teaching two courses. Preparing to teach was a steep learning curve for me. And I’ve been travelling. Not far–all within a three-hour drive. But enough that it’s disturbed my regular writing practice. And we’ve had company. But that’s summer.

The only antidote to not-writing, is writing. I’m a firm believer in journals and morning pages. I’m a student of the Natalie Goldberg and Julia Cameron method of writing–just getting it on the page. Now that I’m back in my routine, I’ve gone back to my morning pages.

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