Five Years a Writer

Source  Kirsty Kelly  took this picture of her daughter Rebecca  in Kelvingrove Art Gallery (Scotland) on September 29, 2012. THOUGHT 1: I love the unselfconscious abandon with which the little girl is dancing in front of John Lavery’s 1911 painting of the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova. She clearly saw something in the painting and responded to it with her whole body, literally throwing herself into her response. It is a glorious response. DESIRE 1: I want this in my life, this open joyful response to something that someone has created. Or, indeed, to have someone respond to my own creative endeavours in this way. THOUGHT 2: “Sometimes the future changes quickly and completely … and we are left only with the choice of what to do next … We can choose to be afraid of it, to stand there, trembling, not moving, assuming the worst that can happen or we can step forward into the unknown and assume it will be brilliant.” Dr. Cristina Yang’s exit speech, Grey’s Anatomy...

When someone asked me the other day what I write, I answered with confidence, “I write short-form creative nonfiction.” It tripped off my tongue as if I knew what I was talking about and, after the past 28 months or so of writing, sharing, submitting and experiencing both rejections and acceptances, I guess that I do. That’s the beauty of experiential learning: Do it (whatever ‘it’ is), put yourself out there, and learn from the results. It ’ s more fun to succeed (i n my case, be published) than to not succeed (I hesitate to use the word “fail”), but I have probably learned more from the pieces that have been rejected than I have from those that have been accepted. My style is uncomplicated. I aim to inform, to enlighten or to inspire. I sometimes play with the form in which I present my writing, but usually it’s straightforward (beginning, middle, end). Short is beautiful: There is so much to read in this world of ours; more words are being pumped out into the universe virtually eve...

I dislike house painting. Inside or outside, I find the process tedious. And big. It’s a big job to cover all those walls. I like the results, of course, but, in my view, the process itself is a bore. So, the last time our walls needed painting, we called in the professionals. They arrived with an enormous number of tools, gizmos and gadgets to do the work. The result was sharp lines between the walls and ceiling and no messes on the floor. How did they manage it? It’s in the prep work, of course. The painting itself went quite quickly, but the two guys didn’t pick up a paintbrush until all the meticulous prep had been done first — the taping, the floor covering, the paint choosing, the cutting in. Then it was “simply” a matter of covering the walls and ceiling in broad brushstrokes. Done!  In one way, it is not unlike writing: Get the idea, map the structure, do the research, find the images, only then start putting words on the screen. But unlike the house-painting project, once...

My collage / vision board for 2024 New Year's Day 2024 365 days coming  so many starts  with so many intentions with so much wanting planning languishing  avoiding restarting and petering out. . .  so let's just stop right here right now   and focus F-O-C-U-S  on what we do -- actually do  each day every day all the time we breathe in and out live as best we can  in each moment we have because one day, we will run out of moments and plan no more so while we have these moments let us live each one to the fullest  plans be damned goals unlisted Focus  on what we do -- actually do  and be satisfied in that  It's the NEW YEAR  and I am choosing  to focus  on the moments, one after the next, and I will do what I do There will be writing and more writing  and teaching and other things, too, and this will be my year the NEW YEAR not unlike the old year Moment by moment  breathing in  and breathing out I w...

Do you see it rushing past, out, through the door? That’s 2023 gathering momentum to leave us in its dust, while we gather our own selves and get ready to step into the next year, the New Year, into 2024. But hang on. First, let’s take a moment or two to look back on 2023 and consider the highlights, the challenges and the learnings of the past 52 weeks. The idea comes from mental health podcaster Mel Robbins ’ (hyperbolically titled) workbook “Make 2024 your BEST year” and, while the title left me cool cold, I like that her first step in looking ahead is looking back to consider those three things — highlights, challenges, and learnings. So, at Robbins’ suggestion, I took out my (old fashioned) paper calendar and flipped through it to remind myself of webinars attended, writing deadlines met, essays published, and also of personal highlights like trips to visit my mum, buying the new car, and booking the front yard refurbishment. It was a good exercise which I completed as a collage ...

This Thursday, December 21st, is the shortest day of the year, and thank goodness for that because these short winter days with the dark early mornings and early dark evenings have been sapping my creative energy. I need the glimmer of more light to rekindle my spark for the new year coming.  Maybe you feel the same, or maybe the changing seasons and the greater or lesser amount of daylight makes no difference to you. No matter how your internal clocks chimes, we in the Northern hemisphere will all soon be enjoying increased daylight in incremental measures — and, if you are like me, we will revel in every single second of that renewed light. For it brings us closer to warmer temperatures and longer days outside and, thus, greater internal energy to enjoy what those days can offer.  In the meantime, I will hunker down, burrow into the current longer dark hours, and embrace what creative e...

  Photo by  Boston Public Library  on  Unsplash I had submitted the article about a year ago, so didn’t immediately compute the import of the email’s subject line: “Beyond 9 to 5 story submission”. The title rang no bell in my cluttered mind and the sender’s name had me reaching for the delete key, as it was unknown to me. Thank goodness cautious reason kicked in and I opened the message: It was informing me that my piece on the six lessons I had learned during my first year of retire ment would be published. Yay! Which, after some extensive editing by me to make it the appropriate length, it was. This past November. In the subscriber- and print-only magazine  More of Our Canada  (a Reader’s Digest publication). The issue landed in my snail-mail mailbox in late October. Holding the issue in my hands was novel, as everything else I’ve had published in the last while has been online only, which is equally lovely but far easier to share. How could I circu...