Tag: writing

A Writing Place of My Own

Donna Judy Curtin 1 Comment

     Before Covid-19 hit, one of my favourite writing spots was the local café. I loved seeing friends and neighbours, watching people chat and order their coffee, while I wrote. I have this unique skill, this ability to ignore everything around me and get fully engrossed in my own made up world. I took pride that some of my scenes were so engaging, I could disregard the rest of the world and fully immerse myself. I remember these times fondly.

Since March, with the cafés closed and my writing space stolen, I’ve been displaced. I’m nothing if not persistent and so I took to writing at home. The best time was early in the morning, before my family arose. I would claim the couch in the living room, coffee in hand, doing my best to shoo away the cats and dogs vying for my attention. This was heavenly, until my teenage children woke. Then they invaded, turning on the television, complaining about missing laundry and overall… just being their noisy selves, so I would stop writing.

This summer, my teenage son decided to move downstairs, leaving his bedroom upstairs empty. So… I’ve begun to dream of a writing space. Read more

One of the Secrets For Writing a Best Seller

Lori Twining 5 Comments

This summer, I have been learning “how to edit” my first thriller novel (Commercial Fiction) with the help of a professional editor. So far, it has been an enlightening experience. I had no idea there were so many different levels and layers to the editing process. If I did, I might have quit writing years ago. *Joking! I love the torture.*

Last week, I tackled the “Passive Voice” found within my novel. I am currently sitting between 2-3% Passive Voice. A score of less than 5% in your manuscript is acceptable. While educating myself on how to remove it, I stumbled upon something else. Before I tell you, I want to ask a question: 

Do you know why some novels only sell a handful of copies and other novels sell millions? 

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The Curve Ball

Joan McAndrew Leave a comment

I’ve heard about the Curve Ball being delivered by famous pitchers to equally famous sluggers. Some people watch baseball games just to see it thrown. Apparently, you have to be ‘really good’ to throw it and ‘even better’ to hit it. Why World Series Pennants have been won or lost because of it.

            Now each and every one of us get to check our own score at dealing with the Curve Ball that was thrown into our personal game of life. Mine arrived on March 10, 2020 when the Canadian Government said don’t leave the country. Poof, the vacation to Cuba vanished. Two weeks later I was told to shut down my private practice in psychology. Poof, done! Then my three times a week fitness routine ended. No more socializing with my friends and family. My arm and shoulder began aching from all the ‘woe is me’ commiseration phone calls. Traffic ground to a halt. Virtually everyone in my neighbourhood actually listened to the guidance and abided by the rules. Those that didn’t were easy enough to avoid. 

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The Love of the Challenge

Lori Twining 6 Comments

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?

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WRITING IN DANGEROUS TIMES

Joan McAndrew Leave a comment

I always thought I knew a lot about danger. Like what part of New York to avoid at night after the Theatre Production ended. How to be wise when traveling in a foreign country like Britain or France or Spain with a Canadian Flag on my back pack. How to recognize scam phone calls: especially the ones that begin “Don’t hang-up”.

I also believed I had experienced just about everything there was to experience; marriage and divorce times 2, childbirth times 2, and cancer (only once thank goodness). I had started over many times, moved into and out of a myriad of homes and apartments and always made the transition eventually. So just what made these last 12 weeks so damned hard?

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Trouble with Transitions

Diane Ferguson Leave a comment
Image by Meghan O’Rourke

When I was raising my kids, they had a lot of tantrums. “The books” said to look for triggers, such as transitions. Does your child have trouble with transitions? Not only did my child have trouble with transitions, I realized I too had trouble with transitions. Certainly, not to the same extent, but “changing gears” for me took an extra push, an extra effort. And this showed up in my writing routine.

When I’m writing a first draft, there is a perpetual motion forward, of keeping the fire burning and just going. But now I’m editing and fine-tuning what is to be my final draft–except for some copy editing. I’m working on getting the rhythm and pacing of my plot, sub-plots and character arc, perfected. It’s an exciting time as I’m closer than I’ve ever thought to getting the story right, getting the rhythm right. I can go back and fix the prose, but getting the structure nailed down is vital.

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Writing In The Time of Covid

Tracey Richardson 2 Comments

I’m not sure if I’ve spoken much about my “writing break” in this space, but like we hear with Covid-19 jargon, I think I flattened the curve of writers block-itis and am on the downside of the peak.

When I finished writing my last novel in the summer of 2019 (“Thursday Afternoons” by Bella Books), I hung up my keyboard for an indeterminate amount of time. The old “TBA” as to when I would start writing fiction again. I just…lost it. The drive, the inspiration, the energy. I felt like I still knew how to write; it was more a matter of feeling I had nothing to say. Read more