Mixing Solitude with the Camaraderie

Lori Twining ~ Coffee at Sunrise
Lori Twining ~ Coffee at Sunrise, Elmhirst’s Resort

What writer wouldn’t love to disappear from their life and spend an entire week hidden away at a remote location? With no other obligations other than to put fingers to keyboard or pen to paper and tell a story. Maybe, a story no one will ever read? That’s a possibility. But hey, if you are a writer, you will have a strong desire to write that story whether someone reads it or not, right? 

Disappearing to a remote location sounds fantastic, especially after the tough year or two we have experienced. My doctor said I was becoming a workaholic, even though I’m working from home now, and I should take a mental health break. She said something like, “Take a vacation.”

In my mind, I watched her scribble a prescription on her pad for me:

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Grab Hold Of Life

I'm all in for adventure
Life is an adventure, right down to swimming in Georgian Bay on Thanksgiving Monday.

I love to refer to myself as gainfully unemployed. It is both true, and untrue.

I work as an IT person for a local online news outlet, the owensoundhub.org, but I’m contracted to them. I end up spending less then ten hours a month at that. But I interact with the organization and I learn lots of things about my community.

I also still do the odd job for friends that need help with their renovations or their Read more

Low in Writing Inspiration? Hit a Meeting (or a Horse Movie)

Photo by Lucie Hošová on Unsplash

I was a horse nut as a child.

No doubt about it. I ate, slept and dreamt horses. I remember a junior school teacher asking me once if I might consider broadening my topics to complete a book report, story or project on anything other than the horse. I thought he was crazy. At the time, I took his comment as a personal slight, but looking back, he was probably just bored.

Do you remember those Participation videos; the ones with Hal Johnson and Joanne Macleod, sweating it up in their tights, encouraging us couch potato television viewers to get up and get going? As a little girl, my dream, my goal for participation, was to be able to catch my own pony and saddle it up all by myself and the day I achieved this feat brought me immense pride. Read more

REBOOT

Sometimes crap just happens.
Three weeks ago, I was happily enjoying my time in the Laurentians with people I had not been physically near to in two years. It was a beautiful day, I was striding along, possibly humming a happy tune to myself – until suddenly I wasn’t. Faster than it takes for you to read this, I flew off a ledge I hadn’t known was there, landed hard, and just like that, broke a bone in the middle of my foot. A spiral fracture. The first day of vacation! Read more

On The Rocks

The little boat
This is my little boat …

Have you ever been on the rocks? It’s a nautical term. Specifically it originated as a sailing term. It means that you can’t maneuver in any direction other than into peril. Specifically, the wind is such and the gear is such that you are heading for a reef or rocky shore and you do not have the time, skill, manpower and wind to save you from an assured wreck.

I’ve been there. Well, I mean, I’ve been in a situation where nothing I could do Read more

Letting Go

 

“The most exquisite paradox: as soon as you give it all up, you can have it all. As long as you want power, you can’t have it. The minute you don’t want power, you’ll have more than you ever dreamed possible.” ~Ram Dass


As writers, sometimes we want so badly to be published, that we will do just about anything to make that success happen. What ultimately happens is that we get stuck on a gerbil that’s spinning so fast, we can’t get off.

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Accountability Partners: Are They Beneficial?

Accountability Partners: Colleen Winter & Lori Twining

I have a simple goal: I want a writing career.

Unfortunately, it is not as simple as quitting my day job and writing the damn novel. Other things factor into a writing career, besides having money to pay the bills. In 2021, as a writer, it is essential to have a social media presence, network with others, be searchable on Google, be knowledgeable and experienced with the craft of writing, have an agent, have a publisher, and the list goes on and on. It is endless.

Is a writing career something I can do alone?

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Long Distance Writing

Long Distance Writing

A recent visit with a forever friend has resulted in a new collaboration; we are going to start writing together this fall. That is, come up with story ideas, contribute to writing and editing and hold each other accountable.

We had not seen each other for more than ten years, keeping in touch only sporadically through email and Christmas cards during that time. She returned to our hometown this summer to sell her family’s home so we got to hang out before her return to British Columbia.

It is one of those friendships where no matter the time lapsed between visits, we pick up where we left off; an example of the old adage, ‘Make new friends but keep the old. The new are sliver, the old are gold”. Sharing mistakes, adventures and naivete as teens and twenty-somethings provides lasting bonds.  

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