About Writing
I love this picture. There's a story behind it and it's real. I spent six weeks in Africa in 2018, finding myself and finding the writer inside me. To be honest, at one point in my life, I failed English Lit in high school. The way I look at it is simple: Einstein failed grade nine math, and he seems to have done okay. So, despite what your grade nine teacher might have told you, writing isn't English Lit; it's story telling in a written form; otherwise, he or she would have been an author, not a teacher. Yes, good writing needs structure. However, people don't read books because they're grammatically correct. No, they read them because they find themselves in them, or they find an escape or a story that pulls an emotional thread that perhaps even the reader themselves didn't realize was buried in them. All they know is that after they turned the last page, they felt something they had not felt in a long time. I write those stories.
I don't follow any standard models and have no expectations of writing the great novel. What I do is craft stories that readers find entertaining and enthralling.
Creativity is a gift. Publishers have buildings full of English Lit grads. Perfect grammatically, but imperfect at storytelling. What they don't have is creativity. Creativity isn't taught, it isn't learned. It’s a gift, and only so many of these gifts are given out, in my opinion.
Regarding this picture, it has to do with my youngest daughter, Sahara. She is half Indian and half Irish; a beautiful girl with a wonderful spirit. I knew I was going to miss her birthday that year, and I felt she deserved something reflective of her. So while in Egypt, I had two custom vases made of Egyptian porcelain. I collected sand for both of them. The first one, from the valley of the kings, and the second one, from the great pyramids; both Sahara Desert sand. I wanted to return with something unique and respectful for my daughter. What I had to do to get the sand through six more countries in Africa and Canadian customs - well I could write a book about that. This picture reminds me of commitment, which is what writing is also about.
What really matters is that when heart is behind an endeavor, one can accomplish anything and life finds a way. Chase your dreams....
I don't follow any standard models and have no expectations of writing the great novel. What I do is craft stories that readers find entertaining and enthralling.
Creativity is a gift. Publishers have buildings full of English Lit grads. Perfect grammatically, but imperfect at storytelling. What they don't have is creativity. Creativity isn't taught, it isn't learned. It’s a gift, and only so many of these gifts are given out, in my opinion.
Regarding this picture, it has to do with my youngest daughter, Sahara. She is half Indian and half Irish; a beautiful girl with a wonderful spirit. I knew I was going to miss her birthday that year, and I felt she deserved something reflective of her. So while in Egypt, I had two custom vases made of Egyptian porcelain. I collected sand for both of them. The first one, from the valley of the kings, and the second one, from the great pyramids; both Sahara Desert sand. I wanted to return with something unique and respectful for my daughter. What I had to do to get the sand through six more countries in Africa and Canadian customs - well I could write a book about that. This picture reminds me of commitment, which is what writing is also about.
What really matters is that when heart is behind an endeavor, one can accomplish anything and life finds a way. Chase your dreams....