Open Forum

Good morning everyone and Happy Friday!

This is where I would really like to be marooned today. And now I understand why I have been watching the Pirates of the Caribbean movies over and over and over again.

Maybe I'm just torturing myself, but it gives me hope. And hope is good. It's -20 degrees Celsius here, I mean, I've gotta throw myself a bone.

So, there it is for all to see. I'm lying on the beach completely alone with the sound of the waves gently lapping at my feet. I have a big soft towel, a hammock, a cooler of my favourite food and beverage (in this case Heineken) and my journal next to me. I turn when I feel sufficiently warmed on one side, just like a cat taking a luxurious nap. Ahhh...it's a pirate's life for me!

The Journey

Good morning to you all!

Today's journey day. I just took a journey (literally) to my favourite country-breakfast spot in Hudson. The sunny, horse-tail sky inspired me to leave my home office and journey into the country. It was absolutely worth it.

The Cafe Campagne is a picturesque stone house that is now a breakfast and lunch spot. It's open from 7am to 3pm (though there are some exceptions, it can be open for parties at other times, for example) and it is the ideal place to settle in, drink tea and eat a hearty homemade breakfast. I love going out for breakfast and I have spent many a morning there writing and reading.

I hadn't been there for over a year and the waitress still remembered my usual order and the owner welcomed me as if I'd only been away for a month or so. You've gotta love the West Island. Once they accept you as one of them they never forget you. A very welcoming community!

The journey wasn't only physical however. Driving into open spaces frees the mind as well. It just feels as if there's more air, more space and more freedom somehow. I guess the rat race seems far, far away when you are surrounded by fields and water. ( I always drive back along the lake road.)

It is possibilities that I feel when I am out in the country. The pace of the country always reminds me that creating takes time. You can't make things 'grow' any faster than they will.

The lake is still frozen over and the little fishing houses sit on it as houses of fortune.

Soon the little houses will be towed away and stored for another summer leaving room for the cranes and geese and ducks that will be returning from the south.

My pace always slows when I come back from Hudson.

Being in Hudson and the surrounding countryside helps me focus, not on the results, but on the process.

Writing is all about process. Process is a journey in and of itself. And it gets you where you eventually want to go. So, I am going to focus more on the process and less on the result. Why?

Because I think the process will always take you to the result on an unconscious level. I think being one with the process makes the result uniquely you every time. I think about the process the way I think about life.

I don't have a plan about where I am going to be in my life, but I do have a plan for where I am.

I am here, in the now. Tomorrow will come and yesterday is gone, but now is real. If you experience the process in the now then the result will unfold.

Writers' Union of Canada Workshop

Good morning one and all.

I am going to skip 'The Mechanics' today because I want to talk about my experience at the writers' workshop yesterday.

The Writers' Union of Canada is hosting workshops in most of the major Canadian cities over the next two weeks.

The workshop yesterday was one of the most valuable seminars I have ever been to (and also one of the most affordable). Two very well-established writers spoke, Genni Gunn and Wayne Grady, and the executive director of the union, Deborah Windsor, spoke as well.

The whole workshop was very well organized. It was never boring and the information being shared was current and valuable.

There were two things that made this workshop different in my mind: one writer was non-fiction-based and the other fiction-based and it was extremely inspiring because of the enthusiasm the speakers and executive director brought to the discussions.

I write fiction and poetry and I know more about those genres and the standard requirements for submitting work and so on. I really didn't know much about writing non-fiction novels, however, and realized from yesterday's discussion that I'd really like to send off some proposals.

We were all free to ask questions, the site was very comfortable and well-organized (and that really does make a difference) and at the end of the day we had a round of informal chat sessions with each presenter, which made the presenters seem very real and accessible. In other words, just like the rest of us!

That's important when you are a writer because writing is so solitary. It's easy to forget that other writers have gone through exactly what you have and made it.

That is why I love these kinds of venues, they inspire me so much!

I always get little gems of ideas from other writers, things I may not have thought of or tried or even knew existed. And being surrounded by other writers helps me feel connected to another whole.

As Deborah Windsor reminded us yesterday, we, as writers, are the substance behind the publishing industry and we should never forget that! Without us the newspapers, book and poetry publishers, literary journals, networks and film makers would be out of business.

I thank the Writers' Union of Canada for organizing such a great event.

I will see you all tomorrow. Enjoy your writing!

Writers' Union of Canada Workshop

Hi all. I was at a workshop all day--it was amazing--I will see you all tomorrow for The Mechanics.

Have a great evening!

The Voice

Good morning to you all. Welcome to The Voice!

My voice has been developing quite rapidly recently. I don't know why there are periods in our writing careers where we feel stuck in a rut and other periods where we can feel change flowing from our finger tips.

I guess we couldn't possible handle rapid changes constantly. It would throw off our equilibrium too much.

The evolution of the writer's voice is important. As I have said before if you don't learn more about your world and your feelings in that world your work just won't evolve. Fair enough.

So I guess I'm evolving.

I know myself well enough to realize that I have sudden bursts of insight before periods of relative calm. I try to let the new voice emerge and nurture it until I know it better. I have to sit next to the new voice, listen to it, talk with it and just be.

It is a good time for me to learn new information from other writers. It is a time where I am open to new input and points of view.

I like that.

Soon enough I will understand what this new voice wants me to say and I will buckle down and let it out in earnest. Stories, poems, queries, all sorts of creative projects will emerge from this knowing.

I always welcome that (even if it makes me feel a little vulnerable at first).

I have chosen to be kind with myself for the next couple of months and see where this new voice takes me. It is changing in rhythm to other awakenings in my life and so there are lots of elements coming together.

I don't think this world will ever fail to amaze me.

As Alexander Woolcott says, "There's no such thing in anyone's life as an unimportant day."

Open Forum

Good morning. It's Friday! Wow, and the week flew by, as usual.

Today I want to talk about shopping.

I am not a big shopper. I don't get thrills from looking for the current trends or going to the mall or looking through fashion magazines. I've just never been that sort of person. LouLou magazine doesn't do anything for me whatsoever.

Today, however, I am on the appliance trail. Now that I find exciting!

My stove deserves to be laid to rest. It's done its duty (and I have put up with it long enough) so I will give it a fitting send off and replace it with a blissfully functional model.

The same for my TV. When I went to buy my existing TV years ago the salesman said, "This is a nice size TV for your bedroom." It wasn't for my bedroom--you can imagine how small it is.

While watching 'Pirates of the Caribbean 3' with my son last weekend I was struck by how inadequate my current TV was for the job. So, it will be replaced with a flat screen job that's both beautiful and functional. I've got to jump into the 2000s sometime, right?

Both of these purchases have been a long time coming. I don't replace things quickly. I think about it, I weigh the pros and cons, I work out the cost, I debate until I suddenly realize waiting any longer would be ridiculous.

So now that I've hit beyond-ridiculous on the ridiculous scale I am off to Brault & Martineau to indulge my appliance appetite.

I love the monthly payments spread over as many years as you'd like. There's no interest (as long as you pay the bill on time every month, which I do) and eventually you own what takes you off the beyond-ridiculous position on the scale. Painless!

So I wish you all a great shopping weekend.

Until Monday, enjoy!

The Journey

Good morning one and all, it's journey day.

I have been graced with a few months to indulge my writing whims without the burden of financial concerns. Soon I will have to get serious however, which kinda sucks.

After working in-house for a high tech company for seven months I was suddenly free to write whatever I wanted. This opportunity hadn't come before so I decided to really use the time for my personal creative projects. I have written poetry and fiction and I have sent it all off to literary journals and contests, just to get it all out there.

The experience has been, oddly enough, an extension of what I learned while working in-house.

Everything I wrote and edited in-house was 'micromanaged.' I developed a very thick skin indeed. It was a fantastic learning experience and also taught me that I had to finish everything I started. No excuses were acceptable. It was work, work, work...I was a writing and editing machine.

The experience taught me never to give up and also how to evaluate my own work. I learned where all my little writing and editing quirks existed, but also what I was really good at naturally.

The in-house experience also taught me that writing and editing are very subjective products. We were three editors and three writers and we almost never agreed on anything. Each person had their own style and I could tell by the work who'd written what.

It was great to be free of that atmosphere, however. Why?

Well, I think in any company there are limitations to how much you can learn, I'd hit mine. I could tell I was starting to get restless with my position and it was very timely when I was free to go.

I still keep in touch with two of the women I worked with there and we share our professional and personal experiences regularly.

The process of moving from one working environment to another is profound. I was deeply ready to be working in my home office again and certain work needed to be born and it has been.

I will never forget the skills I learned in-house, but I feel like I'm dancing on air when I settle in front of my own computer and create.

I raise my glass to the forward motion and optimism of the future.

Being exactly where you should be when you should be is powerful.

I am liberated!

The Mechanics

Good morning all.

I want to elaborate on my discussion from last week on compound adjectives. Anne referred me to an interesting article by Charles McGrath titled Death-Knell. Or Death Knell. In his article McGrath made an interesting point that I didn't mention last week.

Not only are compound adjectives more economical as far as space is concerned, but they also give the reader a clarification that is sometimes very necessary indeed.

For example, a slippery-eel salesman sells slippery eels, but a slippery eel salesman is just a 'slippery' eel salesman, in other words he takes your money and slips away. This is a very good point.

As I have said before I am a punctuation minimalist (most of the time) and think less is more. In a case such as the next sentence I would opt for a hyphen-free sentence. 'A high school student went to the prom.' It is unlikely that anyone would assume that the student was smoking a joint in this sentence. Some people would be more comfortable with 'high-school student' I realize, but in the above example I really think that would be overkill. (I'm sure some people would disagree.)

McGrath discusses the fact that the trend is towards removing a lot of hyphens in words that have commonly been hyphenated. The words are either then split in two, such as ice cream and water bed, or have been combined into one word, such as bumblebee, for example.

This is a trend that makes sense to me. Again less is more and, though hyphens can be economical, they could also become ridiculous if an article was littered with them.

I know that many editors have to follow their company style guides, but a style guide should be just that 'a guide,' not the law! Some common sense should always be added to any editorial debate and if there is no ambiguity in meaning I say leave the hyphen out!

Have a great day everyone! A demain.

The Writer's Weekly

Good morning one and all!

The writers' strike is now over and all the programs have changed on TV. It certainly didn't take the networks long to spring into action.

Now that the writers have a contract regarding the Web streaming of TV shows after their initial broadcast there's not much more to say about the whole issue at this point. Hopefully the networks have learned the value of professional writers. (And I read that Jay Leno is thrilled that his writers are back. He had something like 11 animal spots over the last 6 weeks!)

So what should I talk about now? Well, I've been pondering that very question. Let me think...hmm...well, what about the importance of proofreading in media publications?

While I was reading The Montreal Gazette this morning I came across an inordinate number of typos and it was really irksome. I will e-mail the head editor about this and offer my services because it was outrageous.

Here are two examples from the opening section:

• An random survey of almost 3,000 women across Canada... (Page A6 in the article Most women think they're overweight, survey finds)
• ...slid off the runway but caused to injuries. (Page A13 in the caption for the photo titled No injuries after plane skids off runway)

These examples are pretty bad because they aren't just repeated words they are the wrong words. And 't' isn't even close to 'n' on the keyboard!

I saw many others when I was reading this morning and it concerns me. This is the Montreal paper that most people read. It really doesn't say much for our city or the English community.

I am not blaming any one person here. The writers aren't to blame because an editor should be reviewing every piece before it goes to print. And I know the editors often don't have enough time to check pieces the way they should, but these recurring errors are a clear sign that The Gazette's editorial process is failing!

The Gazette needs to address this problem immediately and find out why the editorial process isn't working and fix it!

The Voice

Good Monday morning all and welcome to The Voice.

To continue my dialogue on the writer's voice I thought I would discuss the following question:

Where does the mature voice come from?

A good question that many young writers may ask others and themselves.

The answer is deceptively simple: It comes from knowing your self.

One of my favourite quotes by Erica Jong expresses what I mean, "Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow talent to the dark place where it leads."

This is not as ominous a quote as I first thought. The dark place is not necessarily negative or dangerous, but more likely undiscovered--at least for some.

I am not suggesting that all writers, if they keep at it, know their inner-self. But, when you work in an industry that is artistic in nature I think for your work to continue to mature and grow you must look within and discover yourself and your motivations.

Stephanie Dowrick in her book Intimacy & Solitude discusses the fact that it is impossible to really listen to and know someone else without being able to listen to and know yourself. She is absolutely right. This is something I have found out for myself in my travels through my world and this applies to writing directly.

How can a writer accurately portray their characters if they can't be themselves?

I'm sure we've all met people who seem to be perpetually acting. Nothing they do or say seems to ring true and after a bit of paying attention you realize they act as if they are reading from cue cards. They say what seems to suit the situation or will help them get what they want.

These 'actors' may interest us briefly, but they quickly lose their charm.

Writers that cannot be comfortable with themselves will end up creating characters that are flat. The characters aren't defined and seem unemotional to the reader. (I have certainly read books like that.)

I have also read books where the writer really wasn't that great, but the characters came alive.

I guess my point in all this is that the mature voice comes with being with yourself.

It comes from those days you agonize over what to write and how to approach it. It comes from those days that the words just flow out of you. And it comes from those moments when you realize that a writer is what you are, not just what you do.

But, most importantly, it comes from being able to sit down with yourself and listen to what your mind and body are telling you.

If you can't listen to what you are trying to tell yourself, your relationship with your words is going to be at arm's length.

I don't want to live my life at arm's length from anything, especially not my self.

Open Forum

Good morning to all and Happy Friday!

Maybe we should start making Fridays a 'Happy' holiday just like our birthdays and Valentine's Day.

I'm sure we can all use some more 'Happy' days in our lives--especially in February.

I suggest an extension on the present 'dress-down' day idea that a lot of companies have adopted.

How about not only denim (because a lot of people opt to wear jeans on their dress-down days), but how about whatever we usually traipse around the house in during our off-off time.

For me it would be track pants and a hoodie, maybe for you PJs, maybe for someone else boxers and socks. Why not? That would certainly add to my 'Happy' day.

Then we would need our favourite animals because where would we be without them on our 'Happy' day? Cats to curl up with allowing their purrs to lower our blood pressure (I'm sure lots of people could benefit from that at work) and doggies to keep us walkin' and smiling with their waggy tails.

And of course our most favourite food, whether it be chocolate (for Andrew) or tea and a muffin (for me) or a nip of brandy for Anne (just guessing). I mean why not? It would be just so much more civilized!

And our productivity does not hinge on wearing monkey suits, dreaded tights, uncomfortably fashionable shoes or the company t-shirt.

And for all of you that work from home, well you're already there. You've got the off-off attire, the animals and the food you love around you 24/7.

Nonetheless, everyone office bound our home-office bound deserve another 'Happy' day.

So here's to 'Happy Fridays' as I raise my green tea and salute you!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Good morning one and all and Happy Valentine's Day!

It's the day of red hearts and flowers and gentle kisses.

I hope you all have a wonderful day.

Enjoy your loved ones and give them extra hugs and kisses just because.

I will see you all tomorrow for Open Forum (and hopefully my flu will be almost gone by then).

The Mechanics

Good morning all. It's Wednesday and mechanics day.

Today I am going to talk about compound adjectives. When I work with high tech documents there are a lot of compound adjectives used to make the sentences tighter and less wordy. (Every character counts if you are uploading an abstract for a white paper, for example.)

Compound adjectives can economize your adjectival use in great ways, for example "Patricia came to the party wearing a hand-embroidered dress."

This above example is preferable to "Patricia came to the party wearing a dress that was embroidered by hand."

The second sentence isn't wrong, but the first sentence is leaner with the meaning quickly available to the reader.

I sometimes miss compound adjectives.

They are kind of sneaky sometimes and depending on the type of material you are working with they come up more or less often.

Here are some examples of compound adjectives I have used in abstracts:

• cost-effectively eliminate
• on-time fulfillment
• high-quality products
• in-season buys
• enterprise-class networks
• carrier-class networks

That's high tech speak, but compound adjectives do help eliminate words.

And simple language and clear sentences are the way to go in any type of document you're working on.

Have a great one (I think I might be getting my son's flu! Yuck!!!).

Hopefully I will be up and running tomorrow with The Journey.

The Writer's Weekly

Good morning one and all, it's Tuesday and the day I talk about writers in the media.

The last couple weeks I've been discussing the writers' strike and it sounds like that's pretty much over so I will move on to another topic.

One of the topics I've been reading a lot about recently is agents.

In the current issue of Poets & Writers Magazine they have a large section on agents-to-know in NYC. I also listened to a podcast in their newsletter with editors from various high-profile publishers, such as The New Yorker, The Paris Review, One Story Magazine and Open City.

It seems that some editors (the decision makers) care about agents and some don't. When I read The Write Track by Betty Jane Wylie she seemed kind of split on the idea. She has agents of her own, but still felt that she was the best promoter of her own work.

The only conclusion I could come to is that you have to be published (or at least it's preferable) to find an agent in the first place.

I have been a publishers' agent before myself and I know what it's like. You have to find someone honest and that fits with who you are and your work. In Canada, the book business is fairly honest. I don't have much experience with the US, however.

I don't really have an opinion one way or the other. Right now I am focusing on getting paid for work that I like. I will continue pondering the agent idea and keep you posted on my further thoughts.

I guess whenever you have to give someone a cut of your profits you'd better think long and hard about who that someone is and why they should get that 20-30% instead of you.

The Voice

Good morning one and all. It's Monday morning and normally I would be talking about the writer's voice today.

However, I spent my night looking after my flu-ridden son so I can't say that my brain is too dynamic or creative this morning.

In fact, I feel like an odd version of myself that is not quite of this world (lack of REM sleep) and I really think I am just on the boundary of reality as I usually know it.

For this reason I will wait to say something meaningful tomorrow.

The writer's voice is, unfortunately, temporarily out of order.

A demain.

Open Forum

Good morning everyone. It's Friday and open forum day.

What am I going to talk about today? Hmmm...how about chocolate.

Valentine's Day is coming up next week and it's a big time of year for chocolate creators.

Everyone hits the stores in search of chocolate hearts and it's big business.

I love chocolate.

My favourite chocolate is dark Belgian chocolate. I like truffles and cherries and white chocolate too.

I go to a little spot called Le Chocolat Belge.

It's in the West Island and always a good spot for indulging your desires for that sweet, rich, luscious confection.

I wish you all a wonderful weekend and enjoy your Valentine's shopping. See you all on Monday.

The Journey

Good afternoon everyone.

In my blog from last Thursday I talked about learning how to accept criticism and never giving up.

I can use some of my own advice today.

There are just some days that are harder than others, as far as staying motivated and positive. Nonetheless, I refuse to give up!

The journey to becoming an artist of any kind is a vulnerable one. It is a job that is also a calling or a calling that becomes a job, depending on how you want to look at it.

It is the job part of it that is getting me a little down today.

January and February are slower months in the industry, in general, but I'd really like to sink my teeth into a paying writing job today. I'm just really in the mood for it.

There aren't a lot of jobs that require your heart and soul. That's where the vulnerability comes into it. However, I had an interesting conversation with a publisher friend of mine this morning that boosted my spirits.

An illustrator had sent her samples of his work three years ago and she had not responded. She knew she could not afford his fee at that time. Two years ago he again sent her his work and again she did not respond for the same reason. A week ago he sent her samples of his work again and now she has the money and a book in mind. They have already signed an agreement.

This story inspired me for a few different reasons. First of all, the illustrator never gave up. He did not assume she didn't like his work, he just kept on trying year after year after year! Imagine if he hadn't sent his samples out last week? It doesn't bear thinking about! My friend also said that she had always liked his work, but just couldn't afford it until now. This is a great example of how things work at the right time for the right reason.

I like that. Proof that the universe brings opportunities at the right time is always inspiring to me. So after my great and enlightening breakfast with my friend I have renewed faith in serendipity.

Have a great afternoon one and all. See you tomorrow!

The Mechanics

Good morning to you all.

It's Wednesday and the day I talk about the mechanics of writing. So far I have talked about the comma, the em dash and the active and passive voice.

Today I thought I would delve into the world of prepositions.

Prepositions are those little words that are used as joining words. Prepositions are similar to conjunctions in this way, however prepositions add meaning to the sentence as well as joining the words.

For example, 'We went to the beach." The word 'to' in this sentence is a preposition and joins the words 'We went' and 'the beach,' but it also gives significant meaning to the sentence by clearly stating where they went.

Prepositions unite two elements in terms of space (to), time (at) and reason (for).

We have already seen the example with to. Here are a couple more: "He rose at dawn," and "She shopped for some shoes."

I wanted to highlight some words we don't often think of as prepositions but they are: apropos, bar, circa, cum, minus, notwithstanding, per, plus, pro, qua, re, via and vis-a-vis. (I am using Collins Good Grammar by Graham King as a reference here.)

Prepositions help create phrases that function adverbially and adjectivally, such as "The farmer drove through the gate," and "He drove along the road to the barn."

An interesting thing about using prepositions in a sentence is that a preposition can only be replaced by another preposition.

For example, "She found a mouse in the house," She found a mouse near the house," and "She found a mouse under the house," and so on.

Prepositions are usually followed by their linked nouns or noun phrases.

Sometimes I use a suboptimal preposition when I am writing. Also when I am editing those sneaky little prepositions sometimes cause me grief.

I have found this especially true when I write and edit high tech documents that are highly technical. A lot of the concepts that in plain English would be verbs are then switched to nouns in high tech speak and it can cause interesting dilemmas. I have learned to be very careful with prepositions.

Here are some suboptimal uses of prepositions: identical with, inferior than, brood about, consequent to, to die from (something) and different than.

It is preferred if we say: identical to, inferior to, brood over, consequent on, to die of (something) and different from.

So it's good to keep your eyes open. I started this weekly mechanics day to keep myself up-to-speed as well. It's easy to forget those rules and optimal uses of prepositions over time. (Grammar class with Mrs. Brown was quite a while ago.) So I do regular review of grammar issues to keep me on my toes.

Have a great day everyone and enjoy your prepositions!

The Writer's Weekly

Good morning to everyone.

It's Tuesday and the day I like to talk about pertinent news items related to writers.

Two weeks ago I talked about the writers' strike and how the media didn't seem to cover the writers' side of the story. I then came across an article in the Montreal Gazette shortly thereafter and would like to thank Brendan Kelly for his article.

Kelly highlights Jeff Abugov, an LA-based TV writer, who was born and raised in Montreal. Apparently Abugov was just about to pitch a pilot when the strike began. Abugov says that "this pilot season is pretty much dead, and that means there won't be new shows in the fall."

However, there is hope if the writers' strike ends soon. And I have read recently that they are getting close to an agreement. So the studios may be able to rush a few pilots through by the fall.

Apparently the strike began because the writers are being hit hard in the pocketbook, according to Abugov. They simply had no other choice but to strike.

That doesn't surprise me at all. I find writers (myself included) are often expected to work for very little. Even editors aren't expected to work for as little as writers and editors aren't the ones coming up with the original ideas, they are only cleaning them up (remember I'm an editor too).

The writers are trying to protect their work that goes into new media forms, such as the Internet and mobile phones. Fair enough. With new technology comes new challenges.

But the writers don't want to be on strike. Abugov says "No one likes this. It seems to me that a lot of what (the studios) do is to try to make us look bad." And that was one of my points two weeks ago. If the studios are trying to make the writers look bad then it's going to make the negotiations more emotional and therefore longer. Hurt feelings never made a compromise easier to come by.

Abugov says that their demands are reasonable and I believe that. The Internet is the way a lot of people get their entertainment at home so it must be covered in their contract, just like anything else.

I want to thank Brendan Kelly for running the piece and I stand behind the writers.

The Voice

Good morning one and all.

The weekend seemed to fly by and here we are again on Monday and The Voice.

Last Monday I talked about how we find our voice through experience, and I mentioned that we should look after it well. It's a very important part of who we are.

I was reading the article, "To Make Me Who I Am," in the current issue of Poets & Writers Magazine and I found some very important comments by Reginald Shepherd that I feel apply to how we develop our writer's and poet's voice.

For Shepherd, poetry was a way out. You may think a way out of his environment and I think it was that as well, but for Shepherd it was a way "to get out from under, to somehow get over, around, anything" his self. He did not want to affirm that self and this comment, among others in his article, really made me think.

I can relate to what Shepherd meant because he didn't ever feel as if he fit in as a child. He found the inside of a book and a blank sheet of paper the only space he could claim as his, and I can definitely relate to what he means.

I think our childhood influences what we write and also what drives us to the need to write. Adversity and feeling like an outsider can come in many forms. It is not only related to background and skin colour and gender and sexual orientation, there are many more subtle forms of alienation as well.

Sometimes no one is really listening to who we are as we grow up. And there is an intense need in everyone, I think, to be heard. As we grow older we realize that no one else can ever really understand all of who we are. Shepherd goes on to comment on this as well and when he enters the workforce he finds that his poetry sustained his sense of self while he was scooping ice cream and working at other mind-numbing jobs.

Writers must write. I have no doubt that it is not a choice. Somewhere, somehow our past has forced us to express ourselves. Maybe we felt like outsiders, I'm sure everyone has their own unique story, but, for whatever reason, that drive is there pushing us to keep going.

Exploring where our voice originated can give us some very important insight into why we write what we do. His culture, as Shepherd says, "means something to me--it means everything to me." And so it should.

Where we came from has made us who we are, maybe not entirely, but it's been a huge influence. And speaking of it, writing it down in stories and poems, is a form of victory. Whether we were heard or not then, we will not be silenced now.

Open Forum

Good morning all and Happy Friday.

We are supposed to get a serious snowstorm today. The sky is starting to look a little ominous. It is also a day off for some schools so, in my world, it isn't destined to be a very productive day work-wise.

On the family front the bonding potential is considerable, however.

It is interesting wearing all these different hats. One moment writer, the next moment mom, the next daughter, the next woman, and so on. I have to admit that sometimes I mix up the hats. And there are definitely times when I refuse to wear one and just retire for the day.

Sometimes the different hats kind of pull me apart. I have pretty much got the balance of them all now, but there are still moments when I have to just go to the spa and shed the bulk of them for two or three days.

The mother hat is the most demanding. I am responsible not only for my own actions but how they will impact another innocent human being. So I have to rethink everything I do to make sure it's a good example for my son. And then of course I am responsible for his welfare in every way at the same time. None of my other hats requires this much careful consideration.

I love all my hats because they represent who I am as a whole person.

I will leave you with this parting quote by John Ruskin, "What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do."

Have a great weekend! See you on Monday.