Overall, I consider writing the most solitary of the arts. Not only does writing a novel involve spending months, if not longer, alone inside one’s head trying to reproduce the drama unfolding therein, the interim stages of an unfinished novel hold next to no interest.
Photo by Jez Elliott
(Continued from Part 1)
Specifically, the fact that, during three key periods of my life, one of my favourite recording artists—if not the favourite—was a woman with red hair.
This is something of a trend for me when it comes to my writing. I’m constantly overlooking my memorable achievements.
(What few memorable achievements I have as an unpublished, unconnected writer.)
TV sitcom Home Improvement characters Al (left) and Tim (right)
One post is nowhere near enough words to cover my insights on this process, which is still in progress.
One particular insight has taken me all the way back to the 1990s.
Three weeks ago, I was at the hairdresser, and the woman in the chair next to me had red hair. She was also reading a book about the history of red hair and red-headedness throughout the world, from which she shared a few interesting facts.
A writing birthday is something I commemorate to mark the day I decided to take a professional attitude toward my writing, in pursuit of eventual publication.
To my knowledge, the writing birthday is something I invented. I’m not 100% clear on the actual date, but most years observe it on February 12.
The anniversary of the day of your arrival into this world.
And that of the day you actually became a writer.
Are you a plotter…
(outliner)
(architect)
…or a pantser
(discovery writer)
(gardener)?
The world at large has always been a tumultuous place, particularly with the advent of new online media entities, social media, and the 24-hour news cycle of network news making us more aware than at any other time in history of the shit going down across the globe.
Lately, however, it seems it’s not just greater access to the news that’s making the world seem so untenable, but rather the quality of the news as well.
(When a bruise actually shows up on a black person, you know it must be bad.)
Anyone who’s read my blog for while knows that I ride my bicycle a lot.
I’m a cycle-commuter – I ride 8km roundtrip to work every day, as well as on various errands and social outings in and around Vancouver, where I live. With the proper outer layers, Vancouver weather is rideable 95% of the year.
A Frame Around Infinity 