The Real World of Writing Drew Hayden Taylor is a renowned Canadian Indigenous author known for his humour and sharp insight. I taught his novels and plays in my high school English classes, so I was excited when I got … Continue reading →

Writing is Like Life My grocery store is undergoing renovations. It’s frustrating! Every week, products are scattered in different places. If I were an optimist, I’d feel like I was on an exciting new treasure hunt, but dammit, I have … Continue reading →

Why We Don’t Walk Away Do you ever just want to give up on your writing? Throw in the towel? Walk away?  Yeah, me too.  A lot.  Welcome to the writing world! I’m not sure why we put ourselves through … Continue reading →

YOUR Way Many, many moons ago, I met a YA author who also happen to be a teacher in my school board. I was enthralled with her success, and, I admit, vehemently jealous. How had she managed to find time to teach and write, … Continue reading →

Someone Who Writes Are we writers if we don’t have readers? It takes both to create a memorable story, so if we haven’t yet gotten our work published—or we don’t even want to publish it, not in the mainstream market anyway—are we … Continue reading →

No Formula You know the expression “know the rules before you break the rules”? Yeah, well, in writing there are no rules. There are best practices and methods to follow. There are suggestions to get better and ways to improve, but there are … Continue reading →

Sharing Ourselves There’s a line in my YA fantasy, Evangeline’s Heaven, when Michael, Evangeline’s enemy-love interest expresses his admiration for her. My kids chuckled “Didn’t Dad tell you that when you started dating?” No one else would catch that detail, though, … Continue reading →

Old Habits Die Hard I’ve learned a lot over the many years I’ve been writing, both self-taught lessons (often the hard way!) as well as from professionals. I have a much better idea of what works and what doesn’t. But … Continue reading →

Writing Hope What do you do when you’ve tried everything you can? You’ve tried to carve out enough time to write, but it’s not working. You’ve tried to rewrite your outline dozens of times, but it’s not working. You’ve tried … Continue reading →

Writing and Confidence Sometimes it’s not just life that gets in the way of our writing. Sometimes it’s us. I’m not just talking about the Inner Critic (who, you may remember, I try to call the Outer Critic as a reminder … Continue reading →