Monthly Archives: July 2008

Organic Writing is My Hump Day Hmm


Damyanti wrote recently about the difficulty of tapping that deep well of creativity that supposedly flows like a well-stocked lake inside all writers. Simply cast a line and reel in the idea and the words to express them will follow along behind like obedient children.

Anyone who has ever fished, or had children, knows that submission of this sort is a fantasy. Fish fight and children have minds of their own. And so it is with writing.

Sometimes the ideas are not as plain as the nose on our faces. Though for me, my nose is only plainly apparent when I search out my image in a mirror.

Words and phrases do not also flow out my fingertips either. Just in case you were wondering.

Writing is something that I do. Have done. Ever since I was a child, the ability to spin a tale or bring life to an idea or simply arouse emotional response via words on the page has been mine. But I can’t say that it came any more easily to me than the ability to hit, catch and throw. Some of the aptitude was gifted but the rest was practice.

There is a quote cited from Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert ( a book I find trite and a cheat, given the privileged circumstances surrounding its writing) that exhorts us to:

“let go and sit still and allow contentment to come to you”

The parallel to writing is clear. There are times in the creative process a writer, or any other type of artist, can’t force or hurry up. But I am beginning to realize that this doesn’t mean one quits working all together while the muse goes wool gathering.

I am not a big fan of free writing. That stream of consciousness crap of which those who buy into the Artist’s Way nonsense are so fond. Meandering is just that and though occasionally a writer will stumble out of the maze and back onto the path this way, it isn’t a productive way to achieve much except by accident which is apparently okay with a lot of writers.

Blocks are agonizing. Knowing you are sitting on a great story while it refuses to hatch is frustrating. But who ever said that writing wasn’t work?

Okay, people who don’t write reference the idea a lot.

It reminds me of the Dire Straits song, Money for Nothing. The attitude that art is somehow a cheat and artists are cleverly dodging “real” work.

Thing about writing, being a real writer, is that it isn’t glamourous. It’s not living in Italy. Or traveling to an ashram to find the enlightenment that has always eluded you.

Enlightenment, like the muse, is within and it’s only through hard work that both are revealed.

Skinny Bitch


On our night out at the Barnes and Noble over our U.S. holiday, Rob discovered a diet book that he thought was a must read.

That’s right.

My husband picked up, read a bit and decided we should own a diet book entitled Skinny Bitch, which was written by two women who had been in the modeling industry.

What sold him on the book was not the chapter on the horrors of the meat industry, designed to convince the unconvinced to give up their fattening, carcass gorging ways, or the chapter on the evils of sugar and sugar subsitutes. No, it was the chapter on pooping. There is a whole chapter devoted to elimination and the foods that promote properly satisfying bowel movements. But I had some of you worried there, didn’t I? 

Rob has yet to read the book.

I read it though on and off on our first day on the road back to Canada. It’s a very quick read. And it’s not your average diet book.

Most of what is in it is very common sense and boils down to the old adage – you are what you eat.

Since many of us live on a steady diet of animal in one form or another and refined carbs with little to no interaction with veggies or fruit that is what we are. And that’s not good.

Basically the book is heavy on the vegan. Hold the meat, the dairy, the refined and highly processed. Bring on the veggies, the fruit, the whole grains the unrefined. 

Throw in movement. Not Olympic preparation stuff but walking, climbing and carrying on a regular basis.

And voila. 

You too can be a skinny bitch.

The writing style is harsh and bossy but the research is sound and the idea that eating crap leads to looking like crap is in evidence all around.

More and more I realize that I can’t avoid going completely vegan. Not from a weight standpoint but from a health one. Once I eliminate a food, my body refuses to re-admit it without consequences and that is telling. 

If you are interested at all in veganism or simply want to know more about the meat and dairy industries and how truly unsafe our food supply is courtesy of the FDA, read the book.

There is always that chapter on bowel movements, you know.

Where do you Blog? is the Monday Meme


Again from surfing the WordPress tags, I came across another idea for meming our Monday’s away.

Today’s topic is the space from which you blog. Mainly I blog from the office in our home, a rather unkempt room converted from a guest bedroom or the dining room table. Both places are not terribly well lit or ergonomic in any way and the chairs make my bum ache.

Me at my desk Christmas Morning 2007

Me at my desk Christmas Morning 2007

I also write and blog from the public library in The Fort before yoga or at Starbucks over in the Safeway. And of course on my travels it has been from various hotel rooms with my absolute favorite being The Hampton Inn.

So where do you blog? Show it. Describe it. Link it.