It was a National Book Award finalist but it’s written in free verse! Gosh I hate free verse novels. They feel like the writer cheated. They’res kind of artsy fartsy. I think the first one I read was Kiss the Dust. It was good but I think the format is annoying. I mean why couldn’t […]

Just finished reading it, even though my head’s all plugged up and my eyes are watering. First of all, the good stuff: it’s kind of well written. A bit wooden, but not bad. I thought some of the imagery, her wanting to fly away like the bird Abdo was a bit nice. There seem to […]

Can’t figure out the right consonants and vowel mix that perfectly imitates the groans coming out of me. Woke up with a sore throat. Took my Cold Fx but sometimes you just have to be sick I guess. Got through the day without sneezing too much, it hit hardest when I got home. Bought three […]

I pressed some strange button when I was opening up the game of hearts (which I am definitely NOT addicted to!) and up popped a list of files which included both my nemeses Freecell and Spider Solitaire, and like a junkie fresh out of rehab, I have been indulging far too much! I did get […]

Got two chapters revised today when I thought I’d only, at most, get one. But somehow, after I finished putting this chapter into the eyes of the other character, I still had some stamina left, and I got started in on the next. It wasn’t that hard. Just really changing tenses, first person present into third […]

Sometimes, when I dwell on it, I can’t help cringing about the way I behaved when I was first starting out. And sometimes, when I’m feeling generous, I don’t even blame that instructor for asking me to leave that writing workshop I’d paid to join. I made all the typical newbie mistakes. Probably every single […]

It’s funny how different connections come up in life. I’m getting to the end of REBECCA by Daphne Du Maurier and I came across an oblique reference to Singapore. It’s when Colonel Julyan, the inspector in charge of the inquest into the death of Rebecca, is sitting down to lunch at Manderley. The servants are […]

To serve your turn long after they are gone And so hold on, when there is nothing in you, Except the will which says to them “Hold on!”  This is the second half of third stanza of Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘If” and somehow it always reminds me of an obstacle course race I ran when […]

nothing annoys them more” That was one of the first ‘sayings’ in a little chap book I purchased, I think it was in the souvenir shop at the home of Stephen Leacock. It was many years ago, on one of our many family outings. He used to have an estate up in Orillia and they’ve turned […]

One thing I can’t seem to comprehend is why people suddenly jump on the bandwagon to help one country and not another. On the one  hand you have Gaza which is slowly being strangled to death because they had the chutzpah to elect people we didn’t approve of, nobody makes a peep out of that, […]