I’ve finished the first round of serious line editing on the Witch Novel and now I need to buckle down and make the more serious changes needed. And maybe think of a name for the damned thing. In poking around my folder of miscellaneous writing advice, I came across some exercises I did from WONDERBOOK […]

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I’m very excited to announce that all my novels (currently out of print) will be issued in new ebook editions in 2024 by Open Road Media. Now I’m in the middle of rights clearances (the process has changed a wee bit from the early 1990s when I sent a fax to the music publishing company) […]

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Where we left our heroine, she was recovering from Covid and a bad fall. May was promising, with a visit from a sibling, a road trip, and a long-delayed trip to Nova Scotia coming up in June. Work on the witch novel was proceeding, flamenco class had been resumed, I’d had my first writing date […]

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Last Monday, sitting in Balzac’s Coffee Shop on Market Street across from Gemma Files, I finished the shitty first draft of the the Witch Novel. Cue the celebratory noisemakers and confetti. (Sadly, there was no champagne for me as I’m doing dry January.) I know shitty first drafts are the thing but I struggle with […]

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Just before Christmas, I worked on a second video with two other students from the Arte Flamenco school. They both look fabulous and me, well, I did ok. It’s nerve-wracking in a different way than live performance is, especially if you’re going after two other performers. We’re aiming to get a third one done by […]

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Filmed our second flamenco video last night. I feel as if I made a different mistake on each take but that’s dancing, I guess. I’ll post the video once the best take (i.e. the one each of us made the minimum of mistakes in) is chosen and edited. In the meantime, here is the obligatory […]

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“What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a constant state of inelegance.” Jane Austen called it. I hate the heat and humidity of Toronto summer weather. I’m only grateful I’m not in B.C., where heat records are falling like nine pins. It’s not the time to be reading a book about climate […]

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This post has been on my ‘to do’ list for a while but I just kept pushing it out, because my level of productivity has rapidly declined since my working days. These days, if I manage to go for a walk, meditate, and knock one thing off my list, I consider it a good day. […]

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Just put the (almost) finishing touches on the new material being added to the upcoming reissue of my Discovering Japan short story collection, due out in December. This new version features a new cover, one additional unpublished short story, and THREE (count ’em, three!) sections from the Work In Progress, aka “The Witch Novel”. Stay […]

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What is there to say on any of this anymore? The days come and go, I write a bit or I don’t, I practice flamenco or I don’t, I garden or I don’t. None of it is very interesting. This is not to say there haven’t been good moments. Socially distanced picnics and cocktails have […]

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