I had an elaborate dream about a little girl who was kidnapped, in the UK I think. She was raised and lived her life with an Englishman in France starting around the time of World War II. Later on the story was narrated in her voice, revealing she was lured away but happy to go. The day she left she had to pretend nothing was happening and went ( Read more... )

Some elements of routine come back more easily than others.

My mind still wants a holiday from daily writing, so today I had to come home and work like mad to produce something because tonight it's my turn get critiqued at Writers' Circle. I tackled a scene from Pilgrim's Cross, so that was good. Recently I began approaching it mostly as a first- ( Read more... )

I just finished reading A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews, winner of the 2004 Governor General's Award for fiction. It takes the form of a 16-year-old girl's memoir in a small Mennonite town in southern Manitoba. While reliving memories of her older sister's and mother's disappearances, she stumbles toward her own inevitable collision with the ( Read more... )

For 100 Words in December I wrote a rambling, descriptive piece of fiction, for a change. This marks a year of creative writing every day. I never missed writing an entry on 100 Words and wrote 36,500 in total. In my other writing journal (which began as an attempt to resume work on the novel, but essentially turned into an all-purpose scratch pad ( Read more... )

This morning I passed the 20,000 word mark in my 200-words-a-day exercise begun on January 14. Today is the 101st day. Although I've skipped the writing a handful of times, other days I wrote more than the quota, so it turns out I've kept pace pretty well. At this rate I could write a substantial novel in 500 days.

The problem would be staying ( Read more... )

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Danny came down for the weekend. He had to bring homework for his spinning course. He spent more than six hours yesterday at the wheel. At least he is here.

I like working on my own projects when somebody is around. I hadn't specifically planned this as a work weekend, but yesterday I tinkered at Pilgrim's Cross for about 90 minutes, pulling a long ( Read more... )

I took yesterday off work. In the morning I had an appointment in Hillsburgh to look at a friend's house that needs renovations. Unfortunately some of the problems are not as simple as anticipated, and busy as I am with organ work I don't feel confident about taking on the job. I'm going to ask Brenda and Judy, who I worked for in 2008, whether ( Read more... )

I have planned to set Thursday evenings aside for research, review and revision of the written material. Tonight is the first night. I plan to reread as much of NaNoWriMo 2005 as possible. At 7:00 I have a meeting with my writing partner. I'll also grab supper while I am out, so I don't have to worry about food and can concentrate on the task at ( Read more... )

It seems like forever since I began this new writing practice, but in reality it has only been six days. On the weekend I didn't have any trouble getting up quickly to avoid disturbing Danny. The only hard day was yesterday; I felt sluggish, almost sick. I did not want to get up or go to work, but managed to go through the motions of the routine, ( Read more... )