The Love of the Challenge

Believe it or not, we are presently living in a significant historic moment. 

Eventually, generations to come (our grandchildren) will be learning about our lives in History class. The teacher will talk about a time period full of a coronavirus that spread like wildfire, borders closed to travellers, businesses closed to shoppers, schools closed to students, protests of police brutality on minority groups, the want and need for diverse literature, leaders struggling to keep their tweets politically correct and kind, people struggling with anxiety and depression… and novelists who could not write.

These are frightening and uncertain times for many of us, so novelists not being able to write is not the end of the world. If you are one of them, just relax. Instead, concentrate on trying to work from home, while teaching your kids new Math skills, while making supper, while doing dishes and laundry, while cancelling all your travel plans, while telling your aging parents you can’t visit just yet. Honestly, you don’t need the added pressure of trying to create a novel.

But, what if you are lost without your writing? You need to write, but can’t?

Read more

Opportunity Knocks on a Holiday Monday

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…

Read more