Five Years a Writer

I have really enjoyed the Post a Day challenge that I set myself for the month of May. Some days, I thought I would have to throw in the towel because coming up with the idea and then writing the post was just so difficult, but others I happily and easily rose to the challenge, and overall, it was terrific for me — a major booster shot in my writing arm.  It’s true what they say: If you want to be a writer, you have to write. Self-evident, of course, and proven time and time again by any number of wannabes who don’t do the work.  Thanks for coming along on the trip with me. It was comforting and inspiring to know you were out there, dear reader, waiting to see what the next post would bring, and your enthusiastic and thoughtful replies to my writing were wonderful to receive. Thank you.  My readers don’t number in the dozens yet (never mind the hundreds or thousands), but I am gaining confidence that, with time and persistence, I can get to where I’m going: To feel justified i

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  "Michelle had been setting her alarm five minutes earlier every day...She needed more time, there simply wasn't enough of it. This was the only way she could think of making it..." This character struck me when I first read Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories more than a decade ago, and her approach to time management has remained in the back of my brain ever since. Today, I realize that I suffer the same problem and have a similar solution: not enough time and getting up earlier — and earlier — to try to rectify it.   Photo by  Jon Tyson  on  Unsplash   I used to think that 6 a.m. was early. Ha! What did I know? Not much, until I experienced 4 a.m. Man, did I get a lot of marking done between 4:15 and 6:30 a.m. I was actually ahead of the game that (one) time. I hadn’t planned to wake up that early, but once I was awake I took advantage of the opportunity to get a jump on the day. Now, I purpos

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  Many summers ago, our friend Laurie was never in town. She seemed to be on a perpetual canoe trip — or returning from one or packing up for another. Her whole summer appeared to have been spent on the water. When I asked her about it, she said, indeed, she had been on many canoe trips, and loved every minute. Mind you, she said, nothing else got done. She had made the decision to spend the summer on the water and that’s what she did. The house suffered, the garden was neglected, the mail was ignored, and Laurie had the summer she wanted.   Photo by  Laura Lefurgey-Smith  on  Unsplash I often think of Laurie and her approach to that one summer, and I try to bring a bit of that single-minded focus into my life. For me, the challenge is two-fold: managing the mountain of priorities, obligations and chores that litter the everyday, and not letting the full-time job I have overshadow all else. Actually it’s a thr

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  They waited until after midnight. It would be good and dark by then. Two would do it, the third would drive the car. Nervous energy was high, but so were the stakes. It was time to make claim to public space. They met at the agreed-upon location. They drove in silence to the spot they had decided made sense for disembarking and for approaching the target. Two descended, walked quickly, with purpose, to the chosen building. They pulled out their tools and put them to work. The deed was completed quickly. No mistake was made in the moment, despite the nerves and anxiety. This was illegal, after all. The two regrouped quickly, walked swiftly to the waiting car. All three drove away in silence. Until the one shrieked, We did it!   Sleep came swiftly, but so did morning.  When the one picked her glasses from the bedside table to put them on her face, she was shocked to see speckles of yellow and orange paint on t

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  I learned recently about the concept of the “third place” in our lives. Some expert on the radio was talking about how our first place is home and our second place is work. He went on to explain how the third place in our lives is where we like to spend time when neither at home nor at work; it can be programmed (i.e., formal, organized, defined) or organic.   Ray Oldenburg wrote about this in his book The Great Good Place (1989). He argues third places are important for civil society and democracy, and he names as examples cafes, clubs, libraries, parks and churches. “Anchors” of community life, these places foster “broad and creative interaction” as people relax in public and encounter old friends and make new ones.  The interview got me wondering just where my third place is, and I have come to realize that I don’t have one — unless I can count the sidewalks in my neighbourhood when I’m walking to my bus

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  Edmonton, February 2015: I made Val carry the bag through airport security, and she was stopped. The young man behind the scanner questioned the contents of the small but heavy carry-on bag. I stepped in to explain that it contained my father’s ashes. Oh, he said. I’ll just have to scan that again. He did, then he let us through. Grindstone , May 26, 2019: I dug the hole, poured the ashes into the remnant of an old cream-coloured cotton sheet and, with Val and our friend Deborah watching, I put Dad’s ashes into the earth. Deborah placed a similar but smaller bundle of her husband Mendel’s ashes into the hole along side, and we, together, covered the hole, first with earth and then with limestone rocks gathered from the shores of Lake Winnipeg just below our cottage.  It is fitting that Dad’s ashes lie at Clifftop Cottage in Grindstone Park, because he loved visiting us here and was enthusiastic about co

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  “You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” the top sales rep told me years ago, and I could see from his numbers that he knew of what he spoke. He set goals, had targets and met them by systematically doing the work to achieve them. It was impressive. And he got to attend some pretty fabulous rewards conferences in exotic locations for his efforts.   Exotic locations and rewards conferences are not my objectives. For my efforts with words and writing, I want to grow my readership and have my writing published beyond my blog. To achieve this, I need to write regularly. To do that, I need ideas to write about. And to come up with ideas, I need to be alert to the riches and the vagaries that daily life offers as springboards to those ideas.  To help me keep even vaguely on top of any of these needs, I began to keep a daily log last year. I use a hard-cover sketchbook and, every day, I write something in it. I k