Five Years a Writer

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May. I realized with amazement the other day that this summer will mark our 20th anniversary of owning a cottage in Manitoba. Wow. I really should start believing that I know what I’m doing as a cottager.   I’ve lived in Manitoba for almost 30 years — essentially, that’s half my life — and 20 of those include the privilege and stress of owning a “leisure property”. Ha! Leisure. That’s a good one. Our cottages have always been working cottages — yes, there’s a lot of fun involved, but there’s also project after project that keeps the place standing and habitable.  Herewith, the owner's version of 'the cottage life':  "You should invite me to your cottage," a friend said to me a while back. I could see the image bubble over her head -- a deck, a dock, a drink and her children playing happily on the beach in the distance. Nice, but not...well, not real. At least, not in my cottage life.  Fo...

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May. Playing with form is not only fun but great discipline for me as a writer. What depth of feeling and breadth of story can I tell when constricted by the standards of a specific form? For example: review a book in 300 words, a documentary in 500 words, or a blog post in about 400. It’s always a challenge, with results that vary from good to abject failure. But there is always enjoyment and appreciation in the trying. It’s a bit like scales for a piano player, I think: Out of the discipline of practice comes confidence in performance.  Today, I offer some of that practice in the form of haiku. In its strictest most authentic version, “a traditional Japanese haiku is a three-line poem with seventeen syllables, written in a 5/7/5 syllable count. Often focusing on images from nature, haiku emphasizes simplicity, intensity, and directness of expression…” [Source: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/haiku-poetic-for...

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May. It’s easy to be generous, right? When you give a gift, you’re being generous, right?  Not necessarily so, say I.  Generosity is an interesting attribute. Defined as the ‘quality of being kind and generous’, where ‘generous’ means ‘giving more than necessary’ and ‘showing kindness towards others’, generosity is most usually understood as being demonstrated in the giving of it. But the other day, I was reminded by a colleague of how important it is to be generous when on the receiving end of a kindness . Be appreciative, sure. But be generous, too. Let me explain.  This colleague is new to my work group and, while we’ve not known each other long at all, we connected and got right down to productive collaboration. She’s smart, hardworking and fun. Which is why I should have been more generous when she paid me a compliment.  “You’re a leader, Amanda,” she said.  “Oh, pshaw,”...

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May. This is the second time I’ve committed to an intentional daily writing practice, with actual readers in mind, during the month of May; the first time was last year. That time, I emailed my daily writing to three selected readers - my partner, my mother and my writing collaborator. It was a great experience for me, as I developed a routine of daily writing that became both pleasurable and productive. Out of that commitment and routine came the public launching of this Five Years a Writer blog later that year.  This year, I’ll use this blog to share my pieces, which will be public (to the extent that anyone out there actually reads Five Years a Writer , of course). Regardless of the who and the size of my readership, I shall enjoy putting thoughts into coherent form and sending them out into cyberspace every day.   Just as ‘you cannot be what you cannot see’, so I believe that ‘you have to do the thi...