I’m in unfamiliar territory …

At the risk of jinxing myself, it’s not often I find myself with nothing, or very little to say. But here I am. No words. It’s not writer’s block. Thank God, I’m not having any trouble with client work. Those words and ideas are flowing. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Same with my book. As I told you last week, it is going really well. If anything, I’m having trouble typing fast enough to keep up with the thoughts and memories and sentences and words screaming at me, inside my head,

Day 316. Poetic Justice?

A blogging friend had an interesting post on her Facebook timeline yesterday.  You type in several paragraphs of something you’ve written.  It can be a blog, a letter, a book, it doesn’t matter.  An “analyzer” then compares your word choices and writing style to those of famous writers.  Then it tells you who you most write like.  In fact, that’s what it’s called:  “I Write Like“.

Rather than going through tons of documents, I used the first few paragraphs of my blog post from yesterday.  Lo and behold, who did it tell me I write like?  Whose style is similar to mine?  Let me rephrase that.  I doubt she’d like to know she writes like me.

Whose style does my style most resemble?  At least as far as “I Write Like” is concerned.

None other than one of the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history.  Margaret Atwood.  A Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist and environmental activist.  Drawing a blank?  “The Handmaid’s Tale”.  “Cat’s Eye”.  “The Blind Assassin”, to name a few of her books.

If it’s not enough that she’s won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Prince of Asturias award for Literature, has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times (won once) and has been a finalist for the Governor General’s Award several

Day 113. What’s Next?

Seems like only yesterday that I started the whole alphabet thing, but it’s already over.  Twenty-six letters.  Twenty-six days.  Twenty-six blog posts.  And it’s done.  Went from A to Z.  Just like that!  Poof!

Who knew, when I first started to learn my A, B, C’s at my mother’s knee, all those years ago (never mind, how many), I’d end up going right back, at this tender age, to where I started.  To “A”.  I hope it’s been as much fun for you, as it has been for me.

Back then it led to learning how to read.  This time I did it as a lark.  It seemed like an interesting idea.  Gave me a ‘brief’ to work with.  A playground I had to play in.  And for any of you who follow me regularly, you know that when it comes to writing, there’s nothing I like better than the freedom of a tight brief.

So for a little over three weeks I knew every morning, when I got up, what I’d be writing about.  The next letter.  You’d be amazed to know what a relief that was.  To me that meant I didn’t have to come up with an ‘idea’.  Of course, I still did, because there were hundreds and hundreds of objects, names, feelings, emotions, places,

Day 60. A Milestone

It’s been two months, since I first had the crazy idea of attempting to write something new, every day, for a year.  Sixty days.  Sixty stories.  Sixty different topics.  Six hundred and twenty-one tags.  Forty-four thousand, seven hundred nineteen words.

And sixty grande Pike’s to keep me going.

Damn!  That’s half a novel’s worth of work.  That’s one mother load of a blog.  And I’m not even close to being done.  Done in, occasionally.  But not done.  I’ve written on more subjects I could ever have imagined, from aging to atoning.  From beauty to books.  The Caribbean to cycles.  Distractions.  Entertainment.  And fantasies.

On googling.  Health and history.  From ignorance to intentions.  Joy and love.  From mischief to  music and naturopathy.  Politics and prejudice.  Refining to rituals.