A room of her own

 It's December 1st as I write this - to be posted on December 4th for 

The Insecure Writer's Support Group

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

The awesome co-hosts for the December 4 posting of the IWSG are Ronel, Deniz, Pat Garcia, Olga Godim, and Cathrina Constantine!

Warning : I will be writing about the responsibility of a writer during trying times. And by trying I mean when every woman, refugee, LGBTQIA2S, BIPOC, thinker, reader, and child's freedoms and rights are in peril. If this is not your cup of tea - then head to one of the other bloggers. No hard feelings. 

I have been dealing with an accelerated level of stress of late. My best friend since 1976 is in the hospital. She is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's and will not be coming home again. This is not a new thing in my life but no matter that they call it the long goodbye - every part of it is torturous. I have another very close friend who is in physical peril (not my story to share). I have been spending time with each of them and trying to work with my grief around it all. Under that pain is the fear and grief that arose after the election down south. The casual regard people seem to hold for freedom, for democracy, is truly horrendous. Do not think this is a Canadian academically regarding another country's folly. It is the folly gaining ascendency in the world right now. Canada is poised to elect our own mobster soon. 

So what is my role as a writer in any of this? First of all - I think it is to not be flattened, to continue to be a witness to what is really occurring and not give up in hopelessness. The journalists will be and are being shut up now. If the regime follows the usual procedure, which was laid out for all by the sock puppet himself, then after the press will come the quashing of the intelligentsia. Education will suffer. Books are and will continue to be burned. Populations will be fed what the mobsters think if good for us (ie - good for them) to consume. And so I think as someone who uses words it is important to keep writing what I witness and what I think and feel about it.  

Secondly - writing is how I find out what I'm thinking and feeling. It is how I make sense of the world the best I can. I write to heal as well. I write to show others how they might consider what is happening. Yes, I write fiction, plays and poetry - but that is what they are made of. And more and more I'm turning to other forms of writing - this kind right here - the small personal essay. I write weekly on Substack - my newsletter is called Dispatches and in it I write about the personal and political - which are one taste to me. 

I've heard some 'content providers' - bloggers, substackers, youtube channel folk - say that they don't write about what is happening because they want their space (which might be about making miniature houses, crocheting tea cosies, writing poetry, learning how to salsa and so on) to be a safe place, free from contention. That's a choice people have to make for themselves, but if I go to my regular places - food writers or artists or makers - and they have failed to make even one statement about what has happened - even if it is just "I'm worried" or "I'm gutted" or whatever, then I'm quietly closing down my subscription or stopping my status as 'follower' because I do not feel 'safe' with people who fiddle while Rome burns. I feel like that is madness. 

My published novel The Crooked Knife was born of rage and frustration with our government and its implication in the environmental disaster in Labrador, and the continued discounting of our First Nation's peoples. My second one in the same series is about the rise of human trafficking, and the co-opting of the police force to support corporate interests over citizens. I use the medium of the mystery novel because it is an effective one to showcase the sort of issues that consume my interest. They aren't heavily didactic but they do involve real current ethics or lack of. I think I write with a good measure of equanimity and humour but they aren't books for people who want to cocoon in their own safe nests. 

Elie Wiesel

"We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented"

Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people"

Benjamin Franklin

"Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are".

Cross-training and the IWSG

November! Who could have thought it would show up. I write this on the first so don't know how I'll be feeling on the morning of the sixth. I hope all is well and good in the world. It is another meeting of the IWSG - my favourite day of the month! So pour a cup of coffee, tea or scotch and let's have our meeting. 

Insecure Writer's Support Group

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

The awesome co-hosts for the November 6 posting of the IWSG are Diedre Knight, Lisa Buie Collard , Kim Lajevardi, and JQ Rose!

The optional question for this month: - What creative activity do you engage in when you're not writing?

Wowza! What a great question. I think of all the creative activities I get up to as a form of cross-training. I think I wrote a post on that many many years ago - I'll see if I can find it. My card says Writer & Artist on it. So I guess that means my main other outlet is my oil painting. I've just dived into to it big time in the last two years (although I've played with it forever) and am now starting to actually sell the odd painting. A friend of mine is an established painter who wants to be an author and as I'm an author who wants to be an established painter we have been working with each other. It is wonderful and one of the best things about it is seeing how we can find translatable practices in each. For instance if you are working on a novel and spend an inordinate amount of time on one section (usually the opening) your novel as a whole will be unbalanced. Likewise when painting you must move around the canvas, not just focusing on one aspect. In all artistic endeavors we try to find our voice or style, and must trust that it will emerge, like our signature it cannot be imposed. Something we can see clearly in one discipline will help us with another - we develop different muscles and all add up to being as authentic and free as possible. I'm quite excited as I will be taking a three-day painting workshop this month in a town a few hours away. I will stay there (in a motel probably) and be able to immerse myself fully in the world of painting. I'm hoping as well to get into a two week residence for playwrights in the spring. Nurturing the artist within is essential for my well being.

Besides the writing and painting I quilt, make dolls, direct plays, cook elaborate dishes, garden, and knit. In this time of intense social media I want to be a creator not a consumer. All of them speak to a part of me that adds up to the whole of me.

I think that I do not consider creativity as separate from my life as a whole. I think we were made to be makers all of us - whether it is the art of parenting, negotiating a truce, drawing a flower, or singing a song - we were born to express ourselves - to see beauty and delight and bring it to the attention of others.

October Light, a writer expressing doubts (IWSG), and ghosts

There is something about the long low light in the autumn that completely seduces me. It makes me feel like cozying up under my plaid with the wood stove going and a good book to read. The crisper mornings lead me to grand ideas of what I might accomplish in a day. These two ideas may seem at odds but truly if I can keep them in balance life is perfection.

It is the first today and I have a 'good luck with that' to do list full of hopes and dreams. There are the garden and produce things - more tomato sauce to make and freeze and I went apple picking yesterday so we probably have about seven bushels to process somehow. The fella is in the kitchen now juicing up a bunch with our new juicer. I need to clean up a few garden beds and the fridge and two freezers need sorting as well.

October first means the first day of one of my favourite challenges - Inktober. Every day I will make a sketch, drawing, wee painting or something in that line. This will be my fifth or sixth year of doing it and so far I've been faithful. I have a big idea this year which may be my undoing - I want to do versions of retro travel posters as the prompts seem to be wandering themed. I like to have one month where I know I'll be making art every day although lately I've been painting quite a bit.

And of course, as you read this, it is another meeting of the 

Insecure Writer's Support Group! 

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

I haven't a whole lot positive to say about my writing practice but I'll jump in anyway. I write a piece for my Substack newsletter called Dispatches every week and I'm up to 32 I think. It is a good practice and I like the short essay format. I'm working away on my play Oh Well and truly trying not to think too much about my three finished novel manuscripts as I'm a bit depressed about them. I can share that with you because you are mostly all writers and you know what I mean. The submission process is such a frustrating one of hurry up and wait and I'm not sure I've got the cojones to keep on with it. I'm sure I'll rally someday, but right now I'm satisfied with my essays and play. I want to write not wait. I'm a writer not a waiter. 

As to my favourite ghostly tale ... hmm... well the one that springs to mind isn't scary. It's kind of nice. My fella and I lived in Labrador for five years in his mother's house. She died the year after we moved there and every so often I'd be in bed before the fella when I'd feel someone get into bed beside me. I knew right away it was Ruby. Our bed was right where hers had been and besides I just knew. I'd just say softly to her, "It's okay Ruby. You can rest now." and that'd be that. 

Here's my first Inktober post - the prompt was 'backpack'.

Fresh Notebooks and the Insecure Writer's Support Group

 First though...I missed last month's post for IWSG. I'm not mad at myself but rather mystified. I did have a lot going on - my newly discovered half-sister came out to stay and so did my regular full-sister - they had not met. It was kind of wild and great. My new sister had never been to Nova Scotia so we took her to Peggy's Cove and Lunenburg and for a million fish & chips or lobster rolls. We played a lot of cards, looked at lots of old photo albums and talked. So I forgot to write my post and truly didn't even think of it until about the middle of the month. Strange.

But now I'm back. I'm back to all my routines - back to my meditation practice, doing yoga daily and hopefully writing and painting a lot more. I lost my writing painting studio for two weeks so there was that too. 

Ahem...cough...ahem. Come to order please! It is time for the monthly meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group. (sign up here for all the fun)

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

I'm not going to address this month's question, which is what did you learn in school that messed up your writing or something like that. Wait, I'll go look - 

September 4 question - Since it's back to school time, let's talk English class. What's a writing rule you learned in school that messed you up as a writer?

The reason I'm not going to answer that perfectly acceptable question is that I cannot remember. I sort of think I just didn't pay any attention or let any rules bother me in any way. In university (where I went when I was forty) a professor told me that I had three comma splices in one paper and she usually would fail a paper with those errors but my writing was compelling and she gave me an A. Commas have been my downfall and I think I have some sort of comma aphasia as no matter how many times I look at how to use them correctly I forget. 

So I'm going to make up my own question. Here it is:

September 4 question - Since it's back to school time, let's talk fresh notebooks. What are you going to do to succeed this year in your school writing projects?

Hmm...I do have that wonderful fresh start feeling and I have several projects to work on. I think I will just make small doable goals and stick to them. I have decided to send our my newest ms Butter and Snow to three different agents or publishers a month. I know that isn't a lot but there is one I'm really after and I'm waiting until they are taking submissions again. I'm hoping that will be tomorrow as I think they just held up for the summer.  At any rate that is the first project. The second is to work on this play I started, the working title is Oh Well. My plan is to finish twenty-five pages by the end of September. A workable size for a two act play is about 50 pages so I could finish a rough draft by the end of October. Oh Well is inspired by one of my favourite plays, Waiting for Godot. I wanted to direct that play with an all women cast but apparently I can't until 2055 and I plan on being dead then so...  This is something writers need to consider - Beckett said his plays are to be played by the gender he specified in the plays. I believe he wouldn't do that today, but the trust taking care of his plays has no choice but to keep to it.  I have a producer and theatre in mind and I will work with the producer to kick up some start-up dough. All fun. Unlike novels playwriting quickly becomes such a collaborative art form. In that way it can be frustrating but also deeply fun. I am not starting another novel until one of the three I have that are completely finished sells. I just don't want to and I'm the boss of me (unlike when I was in English class and Mr. Bird was the boss of me). The third and ongoing project is writing an essay weekly for my substack Dispatches. I've written about 27 of them so far and I really like the format. I write whatever strikes my fancy and it keeps my writing muscles in some sort of shape. 

So there it is - my nice clean notebook. Will I sully it? Undoubtedly, but until I do I'm going to enjoy this delicious September feeling.

And what are you my dear writer pals up to, as the garden continues to ripen and produce in this part of the world, and the swimming is still lovely, and all those pesky kids are chained to their desks?

Oh Canada and Wilderness and the Insecure Writers Support Group meeting

As I write this it is July 1st or Canada Day as we call it here in uh...Canada. So I'm going to post early this week. Because I secretly love Canada Day. I am not sure why - it really wasn't a big deal when we were kids. Probably because we had just gotten free from school and it just blended into that general bliss. I don't want to be too jingoistic but I do love our country. And mostly I love it for the countryness of it. The thing is we aren't so populated as our neighbours to the south and certainly not as populated as European countries or well anywhere I don't think. We have a lot of big vistas, rolling hills, mountains - for yes we too have the Rockies only our part of that range is quite a bit more rugged. I can say that with complete conviction having lived in the mountains on both sides of the border. The Canadian Rockies really rock. And the prairies are truly waves of gold and the north is awesome in the original meaning. I have lived in these provinces - Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia, British Columbia and Labrador (now called Newfoundland & Labrador but that is just silly - I didn't live in Newfoundland).  So coast to coast to coast (Labrador being on the Labrador Sea). I have been to many National Parks and many Provincial Parks. If you ask me a favourite wild place in Canada I will not answer you - it depends on what I'm looking for. I love all of Nova Scotia - it's variety and beauty from stunning Peggy's Cove (near where I live) to the highlands of Cape Breton. Being the daughter of Manitobans I completely think the prairies are fantastic - the big sky, the space! I feel so at home in the countryside of the Ottawa Valley in Ontario, the stone farmhouses and jumbly fields. The foothills in Alberta (where I was born) bring out my inner cowgirl and British Columbia is so wildly beautiful with its towering trees, mountains and the Pacific Ocean lapping at its edges. Labrador is a different beast altogether - tundra, rivers, it's crazy beauty in winter, its quiet powerful presence at all times.

I love the art inspired by this wildness, Emily Carr, the Group of Seven, Maude Lewis, Tom Thompson. As a budding landscape painter I am thrilled in just the attempt to bring the beauty I see to others. The land of Labrador inspired my first novel The Crooked Knife which focused on some of the ecocide that is happening in that part of the world.

                                    Into the forest by Emily Carr

                          mine - coming into Canmore, Alberta

Today, had it not been pouring with rain, the fella and I were going to take out the canoe he's been rebuilding all winter for its maiden voyage. We were just going to cross the road and go in from our lovely neighbours beach. We wanted to do it today because it is the anniversary of our second date when we went canoeing in Prospect Bay, 22 years ago. We don't mind a rainy day though. Last year we had terrible forest fires and we are happy to see the small brooks rise up again in our part of paradise. 

So happy birthday to this land - which of course was already here in 1867 when Confederation occurred. If we can remember why this is a countryside worth preserving, that held peoples both First Nation and Inuit that are worth honouring, well then that would be truly wonderful. 

And now for something not completely different...

The monthly meeting of the Insecure Writers Support Group is now in session.

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

The awesome co-hosts for the July 3 posting of the IWSG are JS Pailly, Rebecca Douglass, Pat Garcia, Louise-Fundy Blue, and Natalie Aguirre!

In keeping with my theme of landscape I am happy to post an article I wrote for Kate Juniper's  site  Juniper Editing & Creative in which I wrote a piece on writing and place.

Place as Character

Whether I’m writing a novel, a memoir, a poem, or a play, the very first thing I do is situate the story in a time and place, metaphorically giving the reader some ground to stand on. To me place is so much more than a location’s physical features: it holds a unique and particular culture, right down to the mannerisms of its inhabitants. Place is in the way an Inuk lifts his eyebrows for yes and scrunches them down for no. It is the slump in the shoulders of a group of old men looking out as they watch the ice on the bay breaking up in March when it shouldn’t break up until May. It is how one neighbourhood has persnickety front gardens and another is strewn with the corpses of trucks and piles of garbage next to front doors.

In most of what I’ve written, the place is a character in its own right, and so it needs the full treatment I would give to any other person inhabiting my story. What is the place’s history? How do its people treat it? What challenges does it face, and how does it respond? What story does it want, or even need, told?

The latest works I’ve been writing—mystery novels, poems, and essays—are all located in Labrador: a place my partner’s family came from and that he knows very well. We lived there for five years, during which time I grew to love and despair of the place in equal measure. It can be a very challenging environment—long cold winters, isolated communities, and a history of being misunderstood and pillaged for its natural resources. It is wild and beautiful and frightening. It intrigued me and infuriated me. Writing it into my work was a way that I could begin to come to understand it, or at the very least understand its impact on me.

Because I treat my location as yet another character, I look at what I imagine the place wants, just as I do my protagonists, my villains, and anyone else inhabiting the world I’m creating. Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia, where I set an early mystery, seemed to want to be respected for its wild and dangerous side, instead of always being reduced to the single note of its view. Annapolis Royal, also in Nova Scotia, has an old and curious history that demanded I allow for a certain atmospheric quality given to it by its long history as a habitat. Where both Labrador and Peggy’s Cove are primarily their physical environment – the land and ocean itself, Annapolis Royal must include the buildings, the imprint of the humans who lived on that spot over the centuries.

Labrador struggles with being dismissed as the land God gave to Cain, a description of Labrador by explorer Jacques Cartier. He was alluding to Genesis 4, in which Cain, having killed his brother, is condemned to till land that is barren. Labrador is at once dismissed by outsiders as being an inhospitable place, unfriendly, and plundered by the same for its natural resources. Meanwhile, the people who live there—the Innu, Inuit and settler communities—try their best to protect it from large-scale exploitation.

Place, in my mind, is the very best way to evoke atmosphere, and is also so effective as a means to evoke emotion. Within a place are many locations: frightening (a dark wood on a moonless night); transcendent (a wild beach below the Northern Lights); comforting (a roaring fire, a chair, a lamp within a home the protagonist loves). It can help the reader understand a character by what they can ‘see’ of their surroundings (do they live like an ascetic monk, or a bohemian collector of oddities?) and how they respond to their surroundings.

Most importantly, setting the story in a tangible place that evokes the senses embodies the reading experience: it transports your reader to that different world, where they can sink into the story entirely, feeling safe enough to get lost. And I believe most readers would tell you being lost in a story is the very best place to be.