Category: on writing

Trail Making and the Creative Process

Connie Miller 1 Comment


Many times the simplest things in life bring us great joy. For me, sharing time with dogs does that, and in particular, off leash hikes. Their pure joy in running and exploring is palpable, if not contagious. 

We walk the perimeter of hayfields adjacent to our home property. I stay to the fields’ edge to avoid damaging the plants. Even in winter, my snowshoe trail is along the outer edges of the fields, the trail followed day after day. Making a nice trail makes the next days’ walk easier, and provides an easier path for a dog needing a rest from bashing through the snow. It’s in walking these trails I have come to realize… SSDD. Same step, different day. 

This phenomenon is particularly evident in winter. If I walk randomly, the snowshoe falls in the same step as the day before. I’ve tried walking the opposite direction. Roughly the same thing happens. In summer, if I’m not careful I step in the same hole where there’s an underground rivulet.  I’ve realized I’m experiencing the manifestation of “muscle memory”, and all the frustration it can produce. I’m sure on some level in an evolutionary sense, muscle memory ensured survival in that one could hone their spear throwing skills and become a successful hunter.

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Words! Marvelous Words

Bernice Connell Leave a comment

“A gorgeous, aching love letter to stories.”

I bought a book based solely on reading this brief, beautiful review on the back cover.

These words comprised Christina Henry’s review of a novel by Alix E. Harrow, The Ten Thousand Doors of January. The intriguing title was a bonus.

What a challenge it is for writers to hit just the right note, find the perfect word in the hopes of moving a reader the same way this phrase moved me.

At the beginning of my very first creative writing class, the instructor made a pronouncement that I remember to this day.

“Success,” he said, “requires either the ordinary use of extraordinary words or the extraordinary use of ordinary words.” 

An oversimplified statement to say the least but it sounded incredibly profound to my eighteen-year-old ears. I decided at that moment that the extraordinary use of ordinary words might be achievable for me. Probably because the reverse inferred sophistication, academia and eloquence, all of which was unfamiliar territory to me at the time. 

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Opportunity Knocks on a Holiday Monday

Lori Twining Leave a comment
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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Scheherazade’s Heirs

Andrée Levie-Warrilow Leave a comment

I sit here with my coffee, watching the snow outside my den window softly falling. The usual street noises are muffled by the downy blanket settling on everything, and there’s a sense of time standing still this quiet February morning.
It is a good day to hunker down inside and pass the time. And what are our favourite ways to pass the time? Stories. We like to follow as the stories unfold on TV, in theatres, in books, on our computers. Sometimes, we even still tell our stories orally. All humans do this. It is our way. Read more

Writing Goals; As Good as Words on Your Page

Donna Judy Curtin Leave a comment

At this summer’s Muskoka Novel Marathon, I placed a bid (all proceeds supporting adult literacy) for a package of support with a professional writing coach. And I won!

I’m a motivated person. I’ve set goals in my life and achieved great things; becoming a veterinarian, surrounding myself with wonderful family and friends and writing a novel… but now the time has come to get published.

So, with this goal in mind, I started the coaching services.

Wow.

I can’t tell you how great it is to have a skilled and supportive person push you to set your goals, to schedule your time and then to cheer you on.

Initially, we started with a conversation, where it was clearly identified how my greatest enemy was time. Specifically, time management. I needed to give myself permission to set aside the time to write and then to follow through.

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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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The End of a Decade: Glancing Back, Racing Forward

Lori Twining 4 Comments
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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