There is nothing quite like receiving that email confirming your flight is booked. In this case, the series of emails (Calgary to Paris via Montreal, Paris to Madrid and then various bits and pieces of the return trip plus information about trains within Spain) have triggered a crazy […]
After three months of being a writer in Paris (oh, it was fun to just write that phrase!), I am back in the Rocky Mountains with a list of To-Do lists!
I didn’t know it was possible to fall in love with a city. I mean, a city is crowded, smelly, full of strangers, polluted, confusing, and complicated. Who can you trust? Every time I take the Metro, disembodied voices over the PA system remind me to beware of […]
At this very moment, I’m sitting on a Via Rail train speeding along the tracks between Montreal and Toronto (I should maybe have saved ‘V’ for tomorrow… ‘Via’ – but hey why start planning ahead now? The alphabet is almost over!) I’m feeling a tad jet-lagged, but am […]
I should know better. You can’t live a whole week and not make an effort to write some stuff down. Like, details. In the moment when life is actually happening. The problem is, the mind is designed to forget. And, rightly so. I mean, there’s just way too […]
I was trolling the internet in search of good cafés in which to write while in Paris (you would think there would be a lot of them around, but it seems that not all cafés appreciate broke writers hanging out for hours, sipping their café au […]
It always surprises me when students say they don’t like to read in a genre similar to their current work in progress. I’m the opposite. Writing a memoir about walking the Camino? Step one is to read every memoir I can get my hands on written […]
It’s been a while since I wrote a good old-fashioned query letter. But here I am in Paris and it seems a bit silly not to take advantage of my time here. I’ve been wanting to write a few more travel articles (it’s been a while since I […]
Well, sometimes things don’t go exactly as planned. Hence my jump from E to P in the AtoZ Blogging Challenge. When I started this challenge back at the beginning of April I didn’t expect to be hopping on a plane to Paris, but that’s what happened. And, sometimes, […]
“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” ― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia PlathO Oh, Sylvia – thanks for saying it. Yes, […]
“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” ― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt Ah, deadlines. Love ’em. Hate ’em. I’m great at tackling projects I know I can deal with fast. I get them over and done with waaaaaay ahead […]
“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” ― Madeleine L’Engle “No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often […]
With apologies to anyone emetophobic who may be reading There are some writers who agonize over their first drafts. As I understand it, their process goes something like this: 1. Write an opening clause 2. Reconsider 3. Rework the opening clause, add a comma and consider how to continue. […]
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings As writers, we choose our subjects in many ways. As a working author (I don’t have another job other than putting words to paper) sometimes my […]
It’s time for this year’s A to Z Blogging Challenge! Tune in each day for a new post about writing.
What wonderful news to start the day!! Deep Roots has been nominated for a BC Book Prize (Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize). Here’s a link to the full list of nominees: BC Book Prizes 2017 One of the sections that didn’t make it into the book was […]
For as long as I can remember, I have loved to watch my father draw. It has always seemed to be somewhat miraculous the way images somehow seep out of the tip of his pencil (or flow from the brushes) and onto the page (or canvas). Because Dad […]
I recently decided to set up a Patreon account as a way to help smooth out the fiscal bumps and hollows of a life spent writing. Patreon guides you through the steps of setting up an account and as part of that process they encourage creators to make a […]
Want to know what’s going on in my head during the course of a book’s lifetime? Scroll down for Fifteen Painful Phases of Writing a Book. Imagine my delight when Orca Book Publishers let me know that Deep Roots: How Trees Sustain Our Planet has been long-listed for […]
Yes… there’s a book in all this somewhere… It’s safe to say I have never felt quite this way about a trip before. When Dani first mentioned that she was thinking of taking Dad on the last 120 or so kilometres of the Camino de Santiago, I thought […]
Nikki Tate - Author 