Category Archives: Random thoughts

Get It Right

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As a beginning writer, you are still feeling your way around words, sentences, stories. You might struggle with finding the right words or the best way to say something. You might even struggle with keeping your story together or even just putting it all together. Even experienced writers who have published multiple books and garnered prestigious awards need to work on their manuscripts, sometimes multiple times before it is worthy of sharing or showing to the rest of the world. One continuing debate is whether to check mechanics and grammar before content. As an editor and language teacher, I find it necessary to work on all aspects that need correcting before making another pass to work on improving. What’s the difference? Things that need correcting involve spelling, grammar, and punctuation. If a manuscript contains so many errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation that it is unreadable, it is too difficult to overlook that and focus on more intricate details involving content, consistency, plot, and language. Blatant errors in spelling and grammar prevent our minds from making sense of what is being read. It’s like wading through a stream littered with all sizes of stones and rocks. Rather than wade through the stream, it would be much easier to walk on the banks—which is the literary equivalent of not reading the work—not what any writer would want readers to do.

Misplaced or missing punctuation can change meaning and convey an idea completely different from what was originally meant. A look around you shows signs and other communication lacking punctuation and conveying confusing messages as a result. One of the most common is SLOW MEN WORKING. Literally, this means the men working are slow, which is often the case with government road work. I saw another similar sign, SLOW CHILDREN PLAYING. Now, this could mean the children move slowly as they play, or the children playing in this area are developmentally slow—something that could also apply to the men working. I imagine it could be frustrating for drivers to encounter the sign SLOW PEOPLE CROSSING. If I were the driver, I might think, “How slow are they? Will they take forever? I’m going to be late if I have to wait for all those slow people to finish crossing!” I don’t think any writing mentor, teacher, or editor can ever say this enough: clean up your writing as best you can before you share it with anyone, your editor, included.

Slow Down and Live!

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It’s June! How is it time flies so fast? Is it a sign of age, perhaps? Once we are out of school and start working, maybe have a family, the time just seems to go by in a flash. It’s not like the days are really any shorter, no matter how much it may seem that way. It’s a sign of how busy we’ve become, how much we’ve filled our lives so that there is no time for anything else but work, work, work. For people in the creative fields like writing and art, we actually take time to enjoy the little things in life. We have the capacity to expand each moment, extend the experience, so that we are able to explore and absorb the minutest detail, savor the tiniest nuances of sound, shape, color, flavor, and feel. Rather than whisk through a day, we saunter and flow from one minute to another. It is the very time we choose to take that gives us the details that spice our creations. Indeed, how else would we be able to describe the exquisite beauty of a flower tenderly unfurling its silky petals, releasing its gentle scent to waft on the breeze and float lazily about us, permeating our pores, almost suffocating us with sweetness that lingers for but a moment but lasts in our memories forever? In people’s mad rush to amass as much material wealth and possessions as they can, to maintain classy lifestyles touted by fashionable magazines, to constantly outdo, outbid, outshine the next person, they have forgotten how much beauty, fulfillment, pleasure, and satisfaction they can get from simply slowing down and savoring the little things, the details, the nuances of life. That is where true meaning and meaningfulness is–in the simple, innocuous pleasures of life.

Jaunty Jovial June

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“I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

One of the delights of living on Prince Edward Island is the experience of June. Although associated with summer and one of the hottest months of the year in most countries, June in Prince Edward Island is, to say the least, pleasurable. The temperature in June ranges in the teens with occasional spikes to the low and mid 20s and nights hovering around the low double digits. If you come from a tropical country like I did, that might sound chilly, since the coolest temperatures in the coldest days of January might drop to 18. Here on the Island, that would be the perfect June day sans rain. We do have the occasional sprinkle or thunderstorm, especially at the cusp of May and June, when temperatures might still drop to single digits overnight or in the early morning. The atmosphere does border on muggy when the higher teens climb to the 20s. The best days are when the temperature remains above 16 and below 23 and the sky is the purest blue from one horizon to another, perhaps a dotting of fluff or even a thin blanket of shredded cotton spread across and over the countryside, a whisper of air ruffling the uppermost leaves and branches of the trees. On such a day, you can go anywhere on the Island, be it the beach, a park, a pond, river, or trail—or even just your porch, deck, or balcony—and bask in its luscious glory.

It’s All About Weather

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Without a doubt, the weather is probably the most common and most frequently used conversation starter in the world, and certainly on Prince Edward Island. Consider how often the weather is used in a greeting: “Nice day!” “Lovely weather we’re having!” “Lovely day for a walk!” “How’s the weather up there?” “Hello, sunshine!” “Enough rain for you?” In most parts of the world, the weather might be fairly constant. In the Philippines, for instance, there are only two seasons: wet and dry. The dry season is hot and—you guessed it—dry! Wet weather, on the other hand, can be anything from a drizzle to a downpour to an honest-to-goodness typhoon, which occurs approximately 20 times between June and December. As a result, the weather really isn’t a common conversational starter unless it’s to ask during a storm how many inches of water your house went under.

One of the first things I learned when I arrived on PEI is how changeable the weather is. Especially on a bad-weather day, I have heard time and again that if you don’t like the weather, you only have to wait 15 minutes and the weather is likely to change. In reality, it doesn’t always happen that way. I have seen gloriously sunny days stretch on forever and I have seen winter storms trapping people at home for nearly a week.

The one constant, which is probably responsible for the frequent changes in weather, is the wind. In winter and spring, it can be wild and wicked, taking scarves, whipping your coat about, pushing you ahead or knocking you down. For someone with long hair like me, it doesn’t make sense to brush it in this weather because the wind constantly blows it into my face and tosses it in every direction. The good thing about that is, on a dreary day, it also blows the storm clouds away. Unless a downpour is promised, there isn’t any point to carrying an umbrella about because a light drizzle from a blanket of gray clouds quickly disappears as the wind sweeps clouds away and clears the sky. In summer and autumn, the wind is a gentle whisper, cooling down any burning the sun might bring, keeping you fresh whether at the beach enjoying the sun and surf, hiking through a natural park or the confederation trail, reading a book on a city park bench, or traipsing in and out of shops in the city. It’s one of the perks of living on a small island in a temperate climate sheltered within a cove.

Another fairly constant feature of PEI weather is the sunshine. We have lots of sunshine all year round, except on those cloudy days when a storm is brewing and the sky is pelting down precipitation in various forms. Even then, it never stays dark and dreary for days on end and by spring and all throughout summer and fall, we enjoy sunlight anywhere from as little as 8-10 hours a day to as much as 14 hours through the June and July. What can beat that? No wonder people like to talk about the weather so much, half the time, it has to do with trying to guess what the day will bring.

On another note, May is when spring comes into full bloom with temperatures staying above zero and more often hitting double digits at the hottest time of the day. We’ve had our first day of 26 degrees, which was warm and muggy because of the rains, but I don’t hear any complaints because we’ve also had several wonderful sunshiney days, even if the temperature remains at single digits. It’s getting there for sure. While it’s nice and sunny, it might be a little too cool for some people to spend at the beach or out walking, especially if you’re a sedentary writer who prefers to stay indoors and write or read. That and the fact that spring is the prettiest and dressiest season certainly contribute to its being (possibly) the most written-about season of the year in poetry. I imagine spring inspires a lot of positive emotions, hope, light-heartedness, and, of course, love and romance, hence the outpouring of such emotions in poetry throughout the centuries. And because the weather in spring can be as changeable as a young heart’s fancies, it should elicit a more spontaneous outpouring of poesy in writers. So, if you are feeling somewhat uninspired and looking for something to write about, don’t underestimate the weather. Thousands of poems have been written about it and thousands of more will be written. If you can say a great deal about the weather, you certainly will have a lot to write about it as well!

Thoughts on Mother’s Day

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Happy Mother’s Day!

When a woman bears children is she ever truly prepared to be a mother? I really don’t think anything will prepare any woman for motherhood. It’s often one of those roles we assume because it has to be done and like real troopers, we go out and do it as best we can. Granted, many women march into that battlefield with no idea what the outcome will be, no idea how long the battle might drag on, no idea what it’s really about, or if it even is a battle at all. Motherhood is an adventure into the great unknown, a new land with borders undefined, where you have no idea who or what you will encounter. No matter how much you prepare yourself, you are never really prepared for everything that will come your way. No amount of wisdom from the mothers that were and the mothers that be is enough to deal with the strangers who push themselves into your life kicking and screaming, or the strangers they pull into your life as they make their way through this world. In the end, although we think we know them more than anyone else in the world, we are sometimes the most surprised to learn we know very little about them and still we leave our arms and hearts open to them regardless of what they bring to us. When we have reached that stage, we know without a shred of doubt that we are mothers.

In a lighter mood, mothers are a favorite subject in many a verse and their virtues are extolled by their literary progeny. When we are faced with all the twists and turns and surprises of mothering, it helps to smile, no matter how wry the reason. As Emily Dickinson puts it:

If Nature smiles — the Mother must
If Nature smiles — the Mother must
I’m sure, at many a whim
Of Her eccentric Family —
Is She so much to blame?

 

This is not to say mothers are paragons of virtue. We all carry an image of the ideal mother in the backs of our minds yet it is no guarantee that any woman who bears a child lives up to that ideal. More often than not women become the mothers they are exposed to, based on the mother-daughter relationships they experience or strive to achieve. Sometimes, women try to compensate for a relationship they never had, try to be the mother they wanted rather than the mother they had. More often, though, women end up becoming their mothers. I think this is true mostly when girls have no other mother-figures in their lives as they grow up and decide how to live their lives. This brings me to wonder how many women actually decided what kind of mother they would be when they did become mothers. I suspect most women simply grow up, bear children, and default to whatever practices they learned from their mothers, whatever practices they experienced. This is all well and good if they grew up in a healthy relationship with their mothers if their mothers were the ideal mothers they believe in. What happens if their mothers were not at all ideal? In the same way nobody is perfect, we will be sorely challenged to find the perfect mother. I would argue, however, that what is ideal is not necessarily perfect. What is ideal is what is best for a specific situation. In that way, your ideal mother might not be the same as my ideal mother, even if they might have several similar traits. It is those traits we probably all seek, and those same traits women who want to be good mothers should strive towards. I don’t imagine the traits I believe the ideal mother should have are any different from most people: nurturing, loving unconditionally, supportive, encouraging, enabling, patient, kind, open-minded, warm, generous. If all mothers possessed these traits, I imagine we would have a lot fewer problems in this world.

 

Learning Through Writing

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“It’s the writing that teaches you.”
― Isaac Asimov

Writers are among the most fortunate of people because they have the unlimited opportunity to learn at their fingertips. Literally. Writers who think they already know everything and write so they can share that knowledge with readers or teach readers what they know are not true dedicated writers. Dedicated writers have an insatiable need to learn more, whether by serendipity, discovery, or deliberate research. When you write, you are driven by questions you seek to answer. Those questions could begin with something as simple as, “What happens next?” and progress to “How did it happen?” and “Why did it happen?” If you want to write in great detail about a family living in Saskatchewan and you want it to seem as realistic as possible, you have no excuse but to learn as much as you can about Saskatchewan, even going as far as visiting the place and spending hours where you want your story to happen. If you want to set your story in medieval France, while you can’t visit medieval France itself, you can certainly dig up as much information as you can about it. You’ll read historical accounts, maybe dig up some historical fiction as well; you’ll research names, costume, culture, politics. You’ll visit museums, talk to historians, look at photographs. In the process, guess what’s happening? You’re learning from your writing process. If you were to write a courtroom drama, you would have to learn the procedures, the protocol, the people involved, the jargon, even specific cases and the laws and statutes involved. Guess what? You’re learning from your writing. Writers who write only what they already know limit their repertoire and, consequently, their readership. If they aren’t learning new things from their writing, neither are their readers.

Writing doesn’t just teach writers new ideas. It doesn’t just expand our perspective. We don’t just learn about people, places, procedures, or things. We’re not just creating new characters; we are exploring the human psyche, the intricacies of life, the depths and heights of emotions. We’re not just passing through places; we are exploring the nooks and crannies and alleys and backstreets of villages, towns, cities, and nations; we are living in a dozen houses and learning how they have become homes or not. We’re not just describing steps or actions; we’re investigating procedures and, more than that, we’re uncovering motives and purposes. We’re not just bandying objects about; we’re learning how objects can take on meanings and become central to actions, to relationships, to life.

Over and beyond all that learning, we are constantly learning more about writing. We learn how to be concise in our language. We learn to choose the exact words to mean something. We learn the nuances of thousands of words along with idiomatic expressions the change word meanings depending on prepositions combined with them or their local color. We learn to hone our sentences to perfection so every single word has a purpose. We learn to become lean mean writing machines. We learn to check our facts and investigate new facts. We learn to make notes, plan plots, design characters. All this from simply writing over and over and over again. What other pursuit can constantly improve us while entertaining us and giving us new adventures with each writing? Need I say why else I want to be a writer?

A Writer’s Vocabulary & Tips for Improving Yours

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Have you ever read a literary work and wondered at the range of vocabulary used within the work? Sometimes, the hardest thing for writers is finding the exact word, that perfect turn of phrase that conveys precisely what is meant. Sometimes, the exact word is elusive and understandably so because we do not always have that word in our vocabularies. Ideally, as writers, we should expand our vocabularies so we have suitable words at our fingertips, ready to convey the slightest nuance of meaning to our readers. Unfortunately, we might not all be equipped with encyclopedic memory or dictionary-like vocabularies. Lexicographer and dictionary expert Susan Dent posits the active vocabulary of an average English speaker is about 20,000 words, with a passive vocabulary of about 40,000 more words. The Oxford English Dictionary contains 171,476 words in current use, 47,156 obsolete words, and 615,100 definitions. This suggests that each word, on the average, might have up to three definitions and we know, sometimes, those definitions are not always related. Research also reveals reading fiction widens our vocabularies more than non-fiction, simply because fiction uses wider vocabularies than non-fiction. It’s highly likely, therefore, you have a larger vocabulary if you are a wide reader of fiction. If you want to expand your vocabulary, I always recommend reading fiction. Not only is it enjoyable, it’s highly educational as well.

My penultimate session in writing courses always includes tips on how to improve writing style and formatting your work. One way to improve your writing is to review your word choices, identify weak, imprecise, or indefinite words and phrases and replace those with more picturesque and exact language.

The vocabulary of younger generations seems to be narrower than it ever was, with colloquial usage and catch-all words replacing more exact language. What is more appalling, yet, is how mass media has picked up on the use of weak language, settling for imprecise expressions rather than looking for the best word. As writers, there is no excuse for you to settle for the most common, most innocuous words that pop into your head. Some of those words involve adjectives modified with qualifiers or quantifiers. Nearly every adjective modified by “very” can be replaced by a more precise word. For example, “very small” = tiny, minute, minuscule, diminutive, petite, microscopic; “very big” = large, huge, humongous, gigantic, massive, colossal, vast, tremendous, monumental; “very dry” = arid, parched, dehydrated, withered, shriveled; “very tasty” = delicious, delectable, flavorful, mouthwatering, ambrosiac, luscious. These examples are, by no means, exhaustive. That is why a dictionary and a thesaurus are a writer’s best friends.

Prepositional idioms are often redundant and don’t deliver the same effect as a singular word. For example, “get up” can mean stand, rise, arise, awaken, advance; to “lie down on a bed” means exactly the same things as to “lie on the bed”–there is just no way to “lie up”; “go forward” = advance, proceed; “climb up” = ascend; “climb down” = descend; “shut down” = shut, close, terminate, end. I could go on and on with lists of words that can be replaced with more precise and more picturesque language. In fact, I could probably write a book or two or three filled with such replaceable words. In the meantime, check your friendly dictionary and thesaurus. If you don’t have a print copy handy, there’s always the Internet. A simple word search will give you multiple sites giving you not only synonyms and antonyms but usage as well. Who said writing was easy?

Valentine’s Day Again, or Love and Other Emotions

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You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or rather you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love.
~ Ernest Hemingway

Valentine’s Day is around again and, while that might not mean much to some people, it certainly means something to the masses victimized by commercialism. At the very least, it’s a good time to reflect on love and its accompanying emotions. Yes, love afflicts people with various emotions, depending on the situation. When we fall in love we are elated, feel joy, happiness. Sometimes we become obsessed with the object of our attentions and we end up despairing,  miserable, insecure, and uncertain if the attention is unreciprocated. If the one we love loves someone else, we become jealous or envious, which can lead to anger and rage. When we lose love, we go through sorrow, grief, despair, and misery all over again. When our love is reciprocated, we become excited and exuberant. Clearly, love is one powerful emotion that floats us up to cloud 9 or has our heads in a tizzy. No wonder people celebrate Valentine’s Day. It brings the promise of so much more than just chocolates and roses. It reminds us what it is to be alive.

Imagination is enhanced by inspiration and, usually, the best inspiration comes from being in love. That’s probably why literature is littered with so many love poems, songs, and love stories. Love and courtship have certainly been the motivation for countless historical events, giving rise to a couple of eras when the subject of literature revolved around the themes of courtly romance, chivalry, love, and beauty. Even outside those eras, there has been no shortage of literature dwelling on similar themes. However, I believe imagination is likewise enhanced by any other powerful emotion. A great deal of writing has emerged from anger and rage, fear, despair, grief, depression, and joy. Inspiration certainly is not limited to what only those emotions evoke—humans are afflicted with myriad emotions in varying intensities and writers take advantage of that. Writers are moved to express the infinite nuances of each emotion in countless ways and fill millions of shelves with the whole gamut of emotions pouring out of millions of characters that entertain and—yes—inspire the reading world.

What writers do for the holidays

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If you’re like me, you’ll probably be taking advantage of the holiday season to write because it’s a nice chunk off work. Of course, since I’m completely off a regular job, I have all the time in the world to write and paint now, until I find another job. That also means I have all the time in the world to procrastinate. I could make up several excuses not to write or paint: my apartment is a mess, thanks to soon-to-be-gone neighbors; I haven’t decorated for Christmas, although considering it’s two days away, what’s the point in decorating; I’ll be cooking up a storm for Christmas dinner, although considering my apartment is a mess, there’s not much room to debone a turkey, and since all I do is end up eating the same meal every day for the rest of the week until New Year’s, when I’ll probably roast another turkey that’ll feed me until Valentine’s day, so what’s the point, really, of making a huge meal for one person; there are new castle puzzles online and completing them with 500 pieces makes a satisfying couple of hours; I could catch up on tv series and movies I’ve missed and binge watch Fibe On Demand or Netflix; I could try out my brand new Amazon Prime video and catch up on shows that aren’t on Fibe On Demand or Netflix; I could catch up on my reading, finally; I need to finish prepping for my winter courses; I need to clean up my apartment since it’s been a mess for the last three weeks, thanks again to my inconsiderate neighbors; I need to catch up on my advanced courses–and since I haven’t been signing in every week, I’ll need to start all over again just to refresh my memory; I need to resume my French lessons–and since I haven’t touched those books for the longest time, I’ll need to review everything again; I need to update a lot of things on my websites, including adding new content, etc.; I need to continue making and posting online content for sale; I need to make more new crafts for sale; and the list goes on. There are some things I can do at the same time, of course, such as my laundry and anything else; or keep the TV on as I work on my computer–it’s pretty much how I keep abreast with all the shows I want to see; then I’ll watch them all over again because I won’t remember seeing a thing or will forget the stories because I was engrossed with writing or painting. My point is, we writers are probably the most creative people when it comes to thinking of ways to put off writing. Thank goodness for a weekly newsletter that keeps me writing something. It would be just as easy to set it aside, but we don’t want to disappoint.

Whatever it is you decide to do throughout the holidays, may you have the best of the holiday season and wishing you find some time to get a bit of writing in!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and the Best of the Season to you all!

On my son Justin’s 21st birthday

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Twenty-one years ago today, my youngest son, Justin Alexander was born. It wasn’t an easy pregnancy. Miscarriage threatened when I was about 5 months pregnant along with pneumonia, for which I was confided to hospital for several days. When I was released, my doctor ordered bed rest and prohibited me from work and stress. Thankfully, my boss at the time let me do my work from home–he sent a computer and desk for me to work on and I would visit the office once a week to check on things. Following two previous classical Caesarian sections, my doctor had no choice but to operate along the previous scar to prevent further weakening of my uterus.

When Justin was finally separated from my womb, I sensed something was wrong. I heard something about his being bluish and not wanting to breathe. As after my first two babies were born, I was deeply depressed, although I never told anyone about it and never saw a mental health professional. It was only when I was living on my own for the first time after three babies and two failed marriages that I had experienced severe post-partum depression after each pregnancy. It was no better after Justin was born. He was immediately confined to the neonatal ICU within an incubator so the only way anyone could touch him was through those holes in the sides of the plexiglass panels. I don’t even remember the nurses bringing him to my room to hold or nurse after he was born. The neonatologist also determined he had high bilirubin levels, causing his skin to yellow, so he was put under a light to counter that. I was unable to get out of bed for a couple of days and only started to walk on the second day and when I finally could go to visit him, I could only watch him lying in the incubator, a skinny dark bluish yellowish waif under 6 lbs. I was discharged after the fifth day and refused to leave home, not wanting to be jolted around by a drive to the hospital just 10 minutes away. The next time I saw him, it was Christmas–that was the first time I got to really hold him in my arms for a short while. I couldn’t tell if I was happy to hold him or depressed that he was at risk. Needless to say, I couldn’t hold him long enough because I was choking back tears the whole time and he couldn’t stay out of the incubator too long, either. That was how I spent the Christmas of 95–in the hospital, watching Justin through the glass, getting to hold him a few minutes at a time, until I was just too tired and too choked up. I couldn’t get myself to visit him again. His neonatologist was a little worried as well because he didn’t seem to want to breathe on his own and needed help. She said if he didn’t breathe on day 10, they would have to intubate him. I was terrified. I could not imagine his tiny body being invaded by a tube. I could only think of my daughter when she was an infant and had to be intubated. I was more distressed than she was, I think. Ten days after Justin was born, the specialist gave him something–sodium bicarb, I think–to see if it would help him breathe, otherwise, they would need to intubate, which could cost us about 1K a day–an amount I couldn’t fathom or imagine I would ever be able to pay. Thankfully, Justin responded and by some miracle–possibly the fear of being intubated as well–decided to breathe on his own. They removed him from the incubator after a day and, two days later, he was cleared to go home in time for New Year’s Eve. He slept through all the fireworks.

Today, he is 21 and officially a man. This Christmas, I will not be able to visit him or hold him in my arms, not even for the briefest moment because eight Christmases ago, he was wrenched away from me and there was no way I could get him back.

We have not spoken since 2009 and not because it was my choice. I tried to reach out to him several times but he has avoided me. The most painful moments now are when I see him–walking, on the bus, performing–and each time, my heart sinks to the pit of my belly reminding me how empty I feel inside for the bottomless hole left inside me. The only way I get through is by trying not to think about him, how he is, how he does in university–I hear many good things about him. I wonder what he tells his girlfriend when she asks about his mom. Does she believe him? Does she even question him? I wonder what lies his father has added to the venom he fed him since I had to return to work when Justin was six until I was dragged away from my home and him just after his 13th Christmas. I try not to spend time wondering when he will realize how manipulative his father is or how he fits the bill of psychopath perfectly. I try not to hope he will one day understand what happened and realize I could no longer live in a marriage that had died a lingering death and should have been buried 10 years before it was officially ended.

How long does post-partum depression last? Or maybe, it’s still an extension of childhood depression. All my life, I must have been reacting to the depression. Granted, it has made me more creative, so should I be thankful for it? Should I blame depression for my choices? I know I chose to have Justin–I wanted to have him so much it hurt; maybe I wanted him for all the wrong reasons, because I could not get my other babies back. But I wanted him and loved him and I know I passed on a lot to him. I have been told by people who’ve met him, spoken lengthily with him, and known him, that he is so much more like me than he is or ever will be like his father and, for that, I say a silent prayer of thanks.

Today, Justin, you are a man. I can only pray that you will be your own man. I will always be your mum and I will always love you, no matter what you think; no matter what your father has made you think. I hope you always remember things I’ve taught you: to always respect others for who they are, to always treat them right, to always do your best, to always be open to new things, to think carefully before you speak, not to say anything if you can’t be nice or polite to others, to always look for answers, to always find something to keep you busy, to appreciate people, art, books, culture, to think for yourself. I hope somewhere along the way between the last time you listened to me and now, you have learned to always respect women, treat them well, and always, always remember that all relationships have two sides and both sides must share the responsibility of keeping the relationship healthy, well-balanced, and whole.

Be well, my son. May you find happiness, peace, and success in your adult life. I love you.