Black smoke billowed from the car as we sputtered to a stop on the side of the road directly under the Kirkfield lift lock east of Fenlon Falls, Ontario. Hubby and I managed to move the vehicle to a shady spot in a restaurant parking lot a hundred yards away but it clearly wasn’t getting us any further. Not the best way to start a vacation.
The breakdown was a distant memory though as, several days and sixteen hundred kilometers later, we turned on to Took Titch Road in the northwest part of the province, and wound our way down a narrow lane to our own little beach on Rainy Lake. An old log cabin with red shutters and cedar deck would be home for the next week. Read more
If you’re anything like me, you have a life that keeps getting in the way of your writing. I have a job, two kids, other hobbies, and a house and property to look after. I try to balance it all out, juggle all the balls, but sometimes you’re thrown a curve that can keep you pre-occupied for months. Or maybe you’re even thrown three curve balls, at the same time, plus all the other stuff that comes up like graduations and birthdays. There are at least two reasons to keep a writing practice going even when it seems like you’ll never have more than half an hour to write at a time. 
About to jump into a new writing project, I find myself developing brand new characters, and I realize I haven’t really done this in a while. I’ve been working on one large writing project for a long time and have grown very comfortable and familiar with my main characters. Yes, there are new characters that enter the scene from time to time and have their roles to play, but the main characters remain constant. They grow and change along the way, but I see them so clearly. While there is a lot to creating any character, there’s something about creating a new main character and the world around them, seeing them begin to take shape and take on a life of their own. Beginning hazy, you start to see their faces, their bodies, their mannerisms. Their passions, views, and the way they look at and interact with the world take shape. You see their relationships and the way they connect with people, and how these interactions make them feel. I find it a fun and exciting process.