Posts from the “Modern life” Category

Through the peephole

Posted on December 2, 2019

I was fiddling around with myRogers.com, checking out all of the supposedly ground-breaking programs that paying way too much money brings us every month. 230 channels and counting, except that Hub watches only about 3 or 4. One of the listings stopped me in my tracks and I had to ask myself if I was turning into a grumpy old fart…or fartess. The tagline for Little Women, LA, read: “Chronicles the adventures of a unique group of smart, sexy and funny girlfriends with big hearts, big personalities and even bigger drama…who all happen to be little people.” Honestly, I felt sick. Has reality television reached the end of it’s creative rope? I know, I know – the ‘stars’ of the show have to audition…

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Categories: Modern life

Original Thinkers – Stand up & Wave!

Posted on November 25, 2019

TED Talks always inform and engage. It just goes to show there re so many interesting, unique people willing to stand up and have their say – and we all benefit from listening. How do creative people come up with great ideas? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant studies “originals”: thinkers who dream up new ideas and take action to put them into the world. In this talk, learn three unexpected habits of originals — including embracing failure. “The greatest originals are the ones who fail the most, because they’re the ones who try the most,” Grant says. “You need a lot of bad ideas in order to get a few good ones.” I’m not wild about the idea of frequently failing but I do admit…

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Categories: Creativity, Modern life

Attraction Distraction

Posted on September 25, 2019

Over the years, I’ve attended scores of conferences and workshops. Some were for my work in another field but in recent years, most have been writing related. One of my favourites is When Words Collide, held every August in Calgary, Alberta – https://www.whenwordscollide.org/. WWC bills itself as a “festival for readers, writers, artists and publishers of commercial and literary fiction, including genre, YA, children’s books, and poetry.” It completely volunteer run and the registration fee for an adult is $40. That’s the cost of a mid-range dinner entrée. And the jam-packed agenda of sessions serves up full value. It’s no wonder over six hundred eager folks from North America attend every year. One workshop I attended—can’t remember the topic—included this interesting couple. He looked…

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Categories: Modern life

I finally did it…

Posted on September 13, 2019

I pressed the ‘publish button’ for my ebook on Draft2Digital and Amazon (my apologies for the fuzzy screenshot – I was so excited I used my phone instead of the Clip feature). And of course, right away I found things I didn’t like, but unlike writing my own draft, the book has been cast out into the wilds, and I’ll have to live with the extra comma, the spacing I’m not wild about, etc. The experience was terrifying, exhilarating, humbling and a relief. It’s been so long a journey from the original concept. I remember–probably ten years ago–having Barry Dempster review my early, early story when he was Writer-in-Residence at the Richmond Hill Public Library. I attended several workshops with Barbara Kyle, who is…

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Categories: Modern life

Tagged: #amwriting, #crimeandsuspense, #seasonedromance, #startingover

The Things we Tell Ourselves…

Posted on September 2, 2019

It’s been months since I blogged regularly. Why? I’ve been working on my novel, Kenora Reinvented. I’d planned to blog. I’d thought about some topics. But it was summer and there was so much gardening to do. Family time. Entertaining. Working out. I didn’t put fingers to keyboard and let the words out. Sure, I concentrated on my consulting project, sitting so long in front of my giant monitor that my butt went numb – and that’s not a pretty thing, my friends. That isn’t the creativity I should – see, there’s that damned word ‘should’ – be focusing on. I’m a writer. I have too many projects to count in the developmental projects hopper. My recent word count isn’t worth mentioning. My productivity…

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Categories: Argument, Modern life