A few weeks back, I got a text,
“Coopers hurt. Can you check him out when you get home?”
Cooper had a deep and dangerous puncture, high up inside his back leg. It tracked into his groin and was only a breath away from puncturing his abdomen. It could have been life threatening. Considering our walking track and their playground is our zig-zagging forested trails through our maple sugar bush, I surmised Cooper must have snagged a branch in the wrong spot, at the wrong moment. Read more
I came across a random writing prompt the other day: ‘What memory do you wish you could remember better?’
Distant memories, especially, often come to us in mere snippets of images or emotions. They can be fleeting, blurry or vague, leaving us wishing for a bit more. The author of the writing prompt was encouraging writers to unearth deeper details of favourite memories through consistent practice. This would be essential when writing memoir or creative non-fiction.
The fun about writing fiction is that memory may provoke a spark but all the story details can unfold any which way the writer conjures.
Read more
Have you ever got caught up in a novel that seemed so rich in detail, so real, that you thought for certain the author must have lived that experience?
I mean, we know we’re reading a novel, which, by definition, is fiction. Yet how come a scene or a character will resonate so thoroughly that you find yourself wondering about the author’s real life? Surely an author who can write with such emotion, such clarity, must have experienced what his/her character is going through? Or at the very least, they must share a lot of the same traits as their character.
Read more
What comes to mind when you read the words “Iconic Friendship” in the title above?
For me, I think of the people in my life who would do anything for me, no matter what I asked of them (even if I requested help to make a body disappear). They would not question me because they know I would never ask for assistance unless it was absolutely necessary.
If I had a sister, I’m one hundred percent positive she would be the one I would call. She would kill someone for me without hesitation and tell no one about it, and I would do the same for her. Unfortunately, I was only blessed with one sibling, and my brother would not break the law for me, no matter how I repaid him. Yeah, he’s one of those no-rule-breaking-kind-of-guys who thinks committing a crime is wrong (unless our mother asks him to do it, then he might consider it).
Read more
I was listening to a podcast this morning while engaging in forced labour. By forced labour, I mean working on my husband’s half of our aspirational weekend job list—the list longer than we have the time, physical endurance, equipment, man power or complimentary weather complete.
My husband grumbled all this winter about how he wanted to cut down the creeping branches along the edge of his fields. Many of our fields are surrounded by bush and eventually, the trees stretch into the unencumbered space to steal sunlight from his crops and barricade his combine.
So, following my husband along the edge of the field as he sawed off pesky new growth, it was my job to drag the bud laden branches into the bush and away from his crops. On the podcast I was listening to, they said we writers need to lean into learning and be willing to grow… to adapt. And this got me to thinking about how, if mother nature can adapt to find the open spaces, surely, we as writers can as well. Read more
It’s been over a year since I’ve done a blog post. I was taking a break to focus on my ONE writing priority: FINISHING MY NOVEL. It’s been a long project since I was learning how to write while I raised a family, worked, and tried to keep up with our house. My struggle is every artist’s struggle: How to keep creating when life is overwhelming you. (Unless of course you have a fabulous patron and you’re living in some historic castle writing away while dragons play outside.) But for the rest of us, here’s my story on how I kept to my goals when life was super challenging. And the tips, techniques and resources I used to keep myself on track even when life was busy making other plans for me.
You’ve heard that old saying, you are what you eat. In other words, you are a product of what you consume. Okay, so in its literal sense, it’s talking about food, but what about books? When we read a book, does it have the ability to shape how we think? How we feel? In other words, can it change us?
Of course books have that kind of power. Books can change lives. Books can save lives. Books can open eyes and minds. But what I want to talk about is how the books we read reflect our mood and feed our mood, and ultimately can change our mood.
Yes, books are a drug in that respect. They’re medicine. At least for me. The pandemic has taken a toll on most people’s mental health, and I’m no different. And not just the pandemic, but the Trump-inspired nonsense down south, the residential school saga, the racist mass killing in London, Ont. It’s been a tough fifteen months. No, make that a shitty fifteen months.
I saw a Tweet the other day from Canadian author Andrew Pyper promoting a course he’s teaching on writing suspense and it reminded me of something.
Pyper
is a good writer. I’ve read some of his books before and he’s the kind of writer who has the skill and talent to write any genre he wants. Those are the kind of writers I like to read. But what his Tweet reminded me of is that for a romance writer such as myself, there are many little tricks in the suspense author’s bag that can be helpful to a writer like myself.
Currently I’m reading Don Winslow’s “Broken”, a collection of novellas based on his drug cartel fiction series that includes “The Power of The Dog”, “The Cartel” and “The Border”, all based on the Mexican drug war. I love Winslow’s books because they’re fast paced, very suspenseful and well written. He knows how to tell a good story, and that’s why I’m reading “Broken”. Read more