I once asked a mountaineer if climbing a mountain was difficult. He said both yes and no. To climb a mountain, you only need to put one foot in front of the other and do that over and over again. Maybe a million times or more and that’s easy. What’s hard is to do that all day and sometimes, all night. To do that when you’re exhausted and you just want to sleep; to do that when your leg muscles are aching and your feet hurt; to do that when the wind and snow pound at your face and you dream of being home in your warm bed; to do that when the air gets thin and your lungs long for more oxygen. That’s when it gets hard but it’s still just about one foot in front of the next.

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This past weekend was a flurry of activity. A garage sale – and you all know how much work that is if you’ve ever held one! It’s like going shopping in your own house but finding what you don’t want anymore, hauling it to the garage no matter what size it is, then moving it all again out into the driveway when the big day arrives.

People pull up to your house – they’ve seen the signs you taped on the post at the end of the street.  Maybe you’re not even finished arranging those 1980’s coffee mugs or children’s t-shirts, but you need to say Good Morning! and welcome them.  That’s good sales, and also polite 🙂  They may be happy and pleasant, but they might be sour – staunch deal-makers and breakers, garage sale scavengers out early with the first sips of their Tim Horton’s coffees.

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Inspiration can come from many different places.  Often a scene, an object, a moment in reality will set forth a stream of ideas that takes the mind on a journey far far away from where it started.  Once, while lounging in a park on a beautiful summer’s day, minding my own business, a story decided to put itself into my head.

The story began in the very park I was sitting.  In my mind I was transported to a whole new land with a young girl character who accidentally opened a doorway between two worlds.  The beginnings of her adventures began to unravel as I sat there, playing through my head like a movie being played for only me to see.
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Most of us are all too familiar with the often dreaded deadline and frequent panic, anxiety and even nausea that can accompany a looming zero-hour.  The proverbial clock on the wall eventually strikes twelve and we have either triumphed in meeting our goal or are left with the sting of being late.

My deadlines are mostly work related and I usually find the pressure of a deadline extremely motivating, for obvious reasons.  Sometimes the work is rushed and often, when reviewing the final product after the fact, I see lots of improvements I’d have made given an extra day or two to see it through new eyes.  But the work gets done and items get ticked off the to-do list.

Recently I needed to prepare a fifteen minute presentation to a provincial political panel on violence against women.  This is an issue near and dear to me and I’ve spent all my working life in non-profit sector related services.  Colleagues were excited our organization had Read more

I had a book launch in Owen Sound recently for my newest Bella Books lesbian romance novel, “The Song In My Heart.”

And it was fun. My songwriter/collaborator, Elaine Dark, gave a spirited and talented performance. She sang five songs, including three or four of her own originals. We had cake, we had stuff to give away (what’s not to like about free stuff and cake!), I signed lots of books that people generously bought. Oh and I read part of a chapter too (excruciating as that part often is for me!).

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So. Writing, eh?

I have a curious relationship with writing. I can’t seem to stop. By that, I mean every day I have to write at least something here and there, days when the words just materialize by themselves. I like days like those. They help build up my novel. Because there are often the other days when I can’t seem to get the words to come at all, or the world conspires to keep me from the computer or the foolscap, and then I just find my fount of inspiration to be as dry as a Californian gully.

I have used the phrase, “I have to write.” Each day, I aim for a certain portion of time to be spent on writing my novel. I bet you have more discipline than me and actually spend part of yours like that. Your words flow out and the project you’re working on builds up each time. The sentences flow.  It’s great! Progress!

I have to write, but I don’t write for very long in one stretch. My poems are short, my episodes of working on my novel jags of writing with an eye on the word count. Sometimes the flow comes and I can get lost in writing for a time. But what if you couldn’t stop? Read more