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Monday Morning
J. and I have this thing we do. We move through the (sometimes) long months of the school year by breaking them down into days of the week. May and June are Friday. January and February are Wednesday....
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Last year, when Liz Howard won the Griffin Poetry Prize, she told the audience that writing saved her life. “[F]or me, poetry made life possible,” she said. I get this. I understand this a lot....
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10, 9, 8…
I’m pretty pumped about Sunday – and I hope you are too. Normally my offline day, this Sunday I will be launching my first online course. Called Nine Simple Steps to a Solid Writing Practice, it’s one...
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Breaking Rules
Lately, I’ve been breaking rules. And not in a good way. I’ve been starting the day with my cellphone, looking at my email, scrolling through Facebook, clicking over to CBC or the Guardian to check...
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Lucky
Birthday sunrise, from our second story window I woke up this morning feeling lucky. J. brought me coffee in the gorgeous bird-bedecked mug he gave me a couple years ago and told me, Happy birthday....
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Riding Lessons: Look Where You’re Headed
Last night, I got on a horse. A beautiful white mare named Rosie with grey speckles scattered across her coat. Step by step, I got her ready: laid the blanket on her wide back, set the saddle, cinched...
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Can We Chat?
The other day I was talking to a client about fantasy. How easy it is to write the first sentence of a story, that beginning scene, then sit back, dream the whole thing, and watch it fizzle when you...
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Learning To Finish
I’ve had a lot of wonderful conversations with writers over the past couple of weeks. Good conversations, and sometimes sad ones. Some of the writers I’ve spoken with – maybe even you – have been...
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What I Had To Lose
When I was in my mid-20s, tired of toiling seemingly aimlessly at 6 a.m. timed writings every morning before leaving for my 9 to 5 job, I took a creative writing course. I’d published a bit of poetry...
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Motherly Advice
I’m back where I started. Staring down the bumpy road of an unfinished draft. My next novel – the big, fat manuscript that my agent says doesn’t work (which, by the way, I didn’t update you on, dear...
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Spelunking
I’m gearing up to read the draft of what’ll likely be my third novel. I put the beast aside over a year ago when I returned to the second (now done, and its news will be told as soooon as possible, I...
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On Showing Up
The other day, I was talking with a friend about showing up. Just past blue Monday, in a frigid winter that’s kept us inside for days, some mornings the best that you can do is stumble over to your...
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Just Knit
Swatch Seven skeins of Malabrigo Rios, luxurious merino yarn, in shifting shades of indigo, copper, violet and deep greens. That’s what I bought myself for Christmas last year, with a gift certificate...
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Ordinary Life
Coffee in a blue and orange pottery mug. The indigo sky pushing at the cold window glass. J. emptying the dishwasher. The dog dozing at the top of the stairs, waiting for his first walk. A dream...
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Genuine Choice: Why I Quit Twitter and Facebook
The ground is under my feet. Snow turning soft, ridged snowmobile trails collapsing into black earth in the fields where we run our dog. In the early morning, the blue jays show up to eat the...
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Write With Me In the Woods!
A few weeks ago, J. and I went to the boreal. We traveled east, out of the Prairies, until we hit shield country, then drove north to Black Lake in Nopiming Provincial Park. The landscape was perfect:...
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Collage
My brain has been a free-wheeling swirl of colour and ideas lately. Not sure why. Seems, though, like I’m constantly jotting ideas into my notebook – for visual art, fabric art (I’m learning how to...
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Deep Dive
Me, diving (well, snorkelling). In the Whiteshell last weekend, at the gorgeous and oh-so-welcoming Falcon Trails Resort, I wrote with eleven other women during the Wild Writing in the Boreal retreat...
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Putting Down Roots
When J. and I first moved into this house, as autumn crept into winter, we started feeding the birds and thinking about gardens. As soon as the weather cooperated, we carved out a small area of grass,...
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Christmas Town!
In honour of the vaulted ceiling in our newish-to-us house (we were away for Christmas last year so didn’t have a tree), J. and I put up an 11-foot pine bought at the nearly tree lot. I’ve been...
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