Yesterday I did the Wanting Mor presentation again. To a disparate group of grade 4 – 8’s in an Islamic school. Islamic schools are always iffy. The kids are quite sheltered. You see a sweetness and innocence in them that just isn’t there in their more hardened, jaded public school counterparts. But really there’s no […]

Maybe Friday afternoon on a super hot day in a stuffy auditorium would test the listening capacity of any grade seven and eight students. Maybe it’s too much to expect that the kids would be engaged in my presentation when they haven’t heard anything about me, haven’t read the book, or been prepared in any […]

I saw Life last night with Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence. Even with shades of Shawshank redemption, it’s a gem of a little movie. And even with Murphy doing his old fast-talking-bad-mouthing schtick that’s getting pretty old, I really enjoyed it. But I couldn’t help wondering why I’d never heard of it. Was it because […]

We had the last two parties on Saturday, I’m still tired! And then this morning I did a presentation. I always feel a bit rusty after the summer, and I was a bit concerned, since Telling Tales was a festival that I’d never presented at. It was just down the road from my parent’s house, and […]

I learned that today. Seems I was writing a serial. A serial is where the order of the episodes is important, where it’s a story continued. Think like a soap opera. A series is where each episode can stand on its own. Still learning, still working, and just when things look depressing, you get a […]

Okay, I sent off the first instalment of the BIG project and I’ve got time now to catch my breath. Not much time, mind you, but a little bit of time in order to catch up on emails, bake some pineapple tarts, clean the house, get it ready for my niece who’s planning to come […]

I am just so filled with happiness right now, and a touch of nostalgia, ironically. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that just before Ramadan comes about, there is a slight feeling of trepidation. It is a trial, a challenge, to fast every day from dawn to dusk for a lunar month. And […]

And extra heavy on that action! Apparently we literary writers tend to let our characters just stand around and talk too much. Boring! That’s what I mean when I said in an earlier post that part of the learning curve when it comes to screen writing has been thinking in three and even four dimensions. […]