Blog - September 2011

Learning to write like I run

26 September, 2011

Pull on the shorts, the t-shirt and the runners. Head out the door. Put one foot in front of the other. Again and again.

At its core, running has an attractive simplicity to it. If only writing were so simple.
 
abandoneddesk.jpgThere is a school of thought that writing is – or can be – that simple. The idea is that writing is a process, a practice, a method for getting at clear thought. Not a way of communicating thoughts that are already clear.
 
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Journals and their backstory

21 September, 2011

journals.jpg

A stack of journals sits on my desk. Hilroy notebooks, perfect-bound journals with elastic ties, a big black drawing book with many blank white pages, a couple notebooks with section tabs, and one with a hard cover.

Some have pages torn out. Most have empty sections. Some have logs of my attempts at healthy living and other habits that seemed a good idea at a particular point in my life.

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Writing Home: a workshop

20 September, 2011

Writing Home. That's the theme I look forward to exploring with fellow writer and writing instructor Judith Williams at our workshop on Saturday October 1.

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Flowers, trust and community

9 September, 2011

One of the things I love about my new neighbourhood of Fairfield, in Victoria (BC, Canada) is the variety of "faces" presented by homes in the community. Each house, condo or apartment has a different look (no cookie cutter concepts here) but most importantly every yard reflects an individual personality.

Some yards are manicured like English gardens. Others are a charming tangle of wildflowers. Some walkways are concrete, others stone or brick. There are little picket fences and tall hedges.

flowers1.jpgWalking home the other day from an amble down to the waterfront, I passed this home. It offers even more to the neighbourhood than most - it offers flowers and trust.

The front yard sports an impressive array of carefully pruned flowers. I'll never know my flowers by name - but I'm no less impressed by the wafts of scents and the spray of colours.

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Interiors: you and your home

3 September, 2011

What is the personality of your home? What do the little-seen spaces in your house or apartment say about you?

Because houses are inanimate, we think them unworthy of psychological analysis. “But homes are primarily about people and relationships,” says P.J. Wade, a specialist in helping individuals and organizations manage change. 
 
4880455861_74df8fb9b5.jpgJust as the people in our lives influence our personal development, living spaces shape our living.
 
As a society, we consume and adopt designers’ ideas about who we are and how we should live. Yet the reality of our interior spaces say a lot about who we really are.
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