Writers on WritingTag

Writing from Pictures

I use photographs as a starting point for writing. Maybe that’s because my writing is historically based. But it’s also because I am interested in starting from a real person and spinning off into ...

The Many Faces of Writer's Block

Despite the fact that I don’t really believe in it, the words Writers’ Block always conjure up a dark, amorphous cloud in my mind.  Which is ironic, because the part I don’t believe is that there’s ...

Writing/Not Writing

Some language cracks the shell of a thing open, so we can newly see what’s being described. And some language forms a perfect egg shell around what it aims to describe, obscuring more than it reveals. ...

Permission to dream

When I started writing, I didn’t understand the invisible work. The models of labour I was most familiar with—whether in a coffee shop, at a hotel, in a firehall, or at a construction site—were, ...

Writing Time

When it comes to writing, I have a hard time wrapping my head around some of the basics—namely space and time. I find it easy to imagine myself into a character’s head—to project myself into a character’s ...

Writing violence (again)

On violence and trauma and repetition...When I was nineteen, I went to dinner at a friend’s, and afterwards, her father invited us all upstairs to see his attic art studio.There were so many canvasses ...

LOVE IN THE TIME OF COVID: The writing process Part 9 of 9

One thing about the pandemic is that it has changed how we socialize and interact with other humans. Even before the pandemic people seemed to be becoming more engaged online and less actually connected. ...

LOVE IN THE TIME OF COVID: The writing process Part 8 of 9

What happens when the unexpected occurs. As a writer, I like to throw unexpected elements in when things seem to be progressing smoothly. The same way I don’t conceive of a beginning or middle before ...

LOVE IN THE TIME OF COVID: The writing process Part 6 of 9

I am a true romantic, one that loves love and I particularly enjoy writing about love. From the onset of the story, I knew that it was some sort of romance, but I didn’t know if the outcome would be ...

LOVE IN THE TIME OF COVID: The writing process Part 5 of 9

In the isolation of lockdowns and social distancing where does romance go? For those who are romantically involve it could intensify the bond but for many the opposite has been true since there has been ...