One Of Those Days

It's like that sometimes for a writer. You sit down to write and nothing comes. Oh, it's not that you're not eager, it's not that there isn't work to do. It's just that you can't figure out what to change and where to go. Today was that day for me.

I got my computer all ready but nothing would come and I felt like I'd been let down by myself. I worried about it all day and then after supper got back to it...and was able to write a bit. At least I realize now what direction I must go in for my story.

So I'm happy now and planning to write again (I'm writing out a synopsis) and I  plan to have at least a third of my story written out by the time I go to bed. I also find it funny how you never really know what part of the knowledge that you gather in life is going to be of use when you write. I read all sorts of history and animal and such, just because I have a craving for knowing.

I have found a great site, manybooks.com which has all free e-books. Most or all of these are out of print in regular books and are part of the Gutenberg project. Sarah Bernhardts autobiography along with the memoir of Vizetelly document the war of 1977 and the siege of Paris. Before I read them I never even knew of this part of history. The only thing I don't like about my e-reader is that I have to re-charge it.

But back to my writing, I didn't mean to stray, I have hopes to have one book finished by end of April, at least the first write and the synopsis in the same amount of time.

Just a day in the life of a writer, and I'm sure everybody has those days. Just think of a day at the office where you can't get started because someone is sick or there is a file missing. It's like when I was in school and for some reason, some days went past so fast and other days dragged and it was always the same for everybody. I don't really know, but I suspect these things are biological and react with the weather or maybe the magnetic lines of the earth. You just have to know how to react yourself to bring out the work that you need to do. In my case, I left it for a couple of hours and then came back, some work right through it or go to the phone book and pick a name and write about that name.

It's all good. Cheers.

Early Spring

Well, it's only March and for the last week we've had temperatures near to 90 Fahrenheit or about 30 Celsius. Personally, this has made me quite happy as I can walk around without my coat and feel the breezes. It's so much easier to get around on my chores when I'm not encumbered by long, thick sleeves.

This weather is here to stay and for the first time ever, the beaches will be open in April. I know some people have already been but just to sit on the sand. Once in a long while I go to the beach in Ottawa because I grew up by the Pacific Ocean and miss the waves and such. Of course, the beaches in Ottawa cannot compare to BC beaches where there is so much life going on right under your feet.

I remember the fun of turning over rocks and finding 'baby' crabs and picking them up so they would scurry over your palm. Some kids would see how tough they were by picking up bigger crabs, believe me, they can really hurt you with their claws. Or digging clams. I never ate them, but would dig them up and then just touch the tip of the shovel to the sand. I never could believe how fast they were able to disappear back into the sand.

To get back to Ottawa, the grass is becoming green at a time where years past it has been smothered in snow. I find myself getting out  more to walk. Another fun thing is the Roll Up To Win contest that Tim Hortons has on, they have it at least twice a year. You buy a coffee and when you've drunk it, you roll up the rim of the cup and if it says Win/Coffee you win a free coffee, they also have cameras and sometimes bikes and always about 40 cars that you can win. I've never won a car and I was actually hoping to this time because my room mate needs a new car. He's getting the money to buy one but a free one is better.

I've just signed up to Author's Den:                            http://www.authorsden.com/madeleineamclaughlin
You can go to the above link if you want and check out my page and you can also buy my book, The Mountain City Bronzes from there.


So, I'll let you all go and go outside in the sun and hope you all have good weather coming.

Slavery, The Human Evil

Recently I overheard a man in a coffee shop say to his friend that a woman kept as a sex slave would make a good wife. I was shocked at this and wondered if this man thought that marrying a woman who was broken into complying with every demand, was a favor to her. It seems cruel and unthinking that this man would want this kind of suffering around him. Yet I find, for a lot of people in Ottawa, the idea of one person being kept by another is not repugnant, but fit punishment for stupidity.

I have heard many people talk of opening up work camps up north for welfare recipients. So that they can work instead of sitting around. There is no thought that this would be slave labor and a step backwards in progress.

I remember one guy at the library complaining about human rights people because they supported the mentally ill being out and about.

All these things are, in my opinion, the result of people being spoiled and not even knowing what it's like to suffer. It seems the more people have, the less they want to be generous to people. I think in the Depression, in the 30s, people would help when they could, they knew about suffering and they knew what it was like to go without something they needed.

People today think concert tickets are a necessity.

I'm a bit worried about the benign evil I see everywhere growing in Canada. From remarks that the Jews were stupid (relating to concentration camps) to the fun men have fighting with whores, it's like we've become a race of the fallen. I, for one, worry about this and hope that with education and a little less, maybe people can learn how to feel again for others. It IS time we brought back the Golden Rule.

Remember The Questions

My favorite hobby is genealogy. I have been doing it for years and it has all been a positive experience. One thing I love most is that people you have never met will help you find info and pass along all their own hard-earned facts, usually for free.

Another thing is, when you meet with the old people, who after all, will know the most about the family, you will meet some of the most fascinating people ever. For me, having grown up in the sixties, with older people thought of as those who hold things back, it was quite a revelation to find that all those old people were marvelous and not that much different than us younger folks.

I mean, the sixties was anti-war. Well, there weren't any more anti-war people than the women who lived through WWI and WWII. Who would have thought it? They were marvelous people and I came away with a deep respect for them and their experiences and knowledge. They remembered everything. I even met people who had known my great-grandmother. They told me so many things about them. Of course, all these people are dead now but I'm proud to have known them.

I considered for a while writing the story of my grandparents. But the problem with old people is that they die and so my main source of information passed away before I had a chance to ask him to help me. His 88 year-old heart just stopped. He is fondly remembered.

So for a while I still was determined to write of my grandparents. So I thought I'd ask the only daughter left, my Aunt Nancy for help. She agreed to help. I wrote some questions. Where did they meet? and other things. I wrote out the questions and then mailed them off and awaited. The letter came back. 1. Yes 2. No 3. Don't remember... I had forgot to copy the questions down! Yes to what? No? What was the question? I didn't feel as if I could write to her again and ask them all over.

I haven't quite given up. Maybe I could go to BC with a tape recorder and tape her story, that would give me a lot of valuable history. But I did learn something...copy down the questions.

Have a good spring forward. Cheers.

Spring Forward

Well, this weekend our clocks go forward. I'm always happy at the end of winter, I like the sunlight to stay in the sky for a long while. sometimes I wish I lived in the Arctic so that I could have sunlight all day in the summer.

It is a pain to go to all the clocks in the apartment and change them, ever afterward they have their own times which do not agree. I plan to go out and walk more, possibly down by the river. I did not go there for a few years because men were attacking women on the path but it seems to have stopped.

What I do miss and will always miss, is the ocean, and not just any ocean but the Pacific ocean. The one I grew up by and swam in. One of my cousins lives in Ottawa now and he reminded me of the day when they were visiting us in White Rock. He'd never swum in an ocean. We led him in. Something swam by. "What's that?" he asked. "Oh, that's a shark." He ran for his life with us all laughing at him. Kids are brats.

I'm a guest a Kathy Riggs blog for the week. If you want to read it, here is the link:


http://ksrwriter.blogspot.com/2012/03/meet-museitup-author-madeleine.html 

Have a good spring guys. Cheers.