Image use purchased from Adobe Stock About First Drafts In the earlier days of becoming a writer, I’d panic at any lack of fresh ideas. A lot of the advice I read said to keep going no matter what, that first drafts were all a mess, and the trick was to continue. Good or bad,…… Continue reading Ideas That Stick
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Laughter and Truth
Image use purchased from Adobe Stock How It Began When people suggested Your Body Was Made for This might be funny, I was surprised. Middle-aged women going through perimenopause? I guess there are things about that which touch upon the absurd and ridiculous. Okay. But of all the things I am generally accused of being,…… Continue reading Laughter and Truth
Why I Write Now
Image use purchased from Adobe Stock Learning to Learn, Otherwise Called Unlearning Practically twenty years ago, I took a course about Writing by Aboriginal Women at the University of Calgary. It’d been added to the curriculum because of student protest. They’d noticed the absence of these important voices and insisted they be added. Yeah for…… Continue reading Why I Write Now
Freshening the Mind
Image use purchased from Adobe Stock An Innocent Start It started innocently enough as a habit formed on sound advice from Stella Leventoyannis Harvey. Early in The Writer’s Studio program I completed a few years ago, she suggested to the workshop group that it can be helpful to retype a story as a final act…… Continue reading Freshening the Mind
The Productive Pause
Image use purchased from Adobe Stock Empty Moments I’m a person who is uncomfortable with inaction. Ask me to work hard all day and I’ll be happier than I might be if you told me to sit down and be still for ten minutes. The empty moments can fill with shadows, the unexpected creeping around…… Continue reading The Productive Pause
Do You Believe in Writer’s Block?
Image use purchased from Adobe stock Smarty Pants Not so long ago, I responded to a general author question on Goodreads asking for my thoughts on writer’s block. Thinking myself smart, I immediately declared that I no longer believe it exists. I scoffed at the very suggestion that a writer could be blocked. A few…… Continue reading Do You Believe in Writer’s Block?
The Starting Line
by Debbie Bateman Image use purchased from Adobe stock. Once upon a klutz In a former life, before hip pain encouraged me to seek an alternative, I devoted myself to long-distance running. Okay, the truth? It was my religion. I liked how my mind would untether from its troubles, how my body became its truest…… Continue reading The Starting Line
Where Stories Are Born
by Debbie Bateman Image use purchased from Adobe Stock A body in repose I have an art photo on the wall above my printer taken by my friend, the talented photographer named Matt Kubitza. In black and white, the photo shows an unclothed woman on her back with her legs crossed over a tall stack…… Continue reading Where Stories Are Born
Unwriting: What It Is and Why I Love It
Image use purchased from Adobe Stock Word hoarding and other illnesses Upon hearing about how I’d spent half a day working on a manuscript only to throw out 3,000 words, a clever friend giggled at me and said it might be better to call what I do unwriting. There is more truth in that than…… Continue reading Unwriting: What It Is and Why I Love It
We Have Ways of Making You Talk
Image use purchased from Adobe Stock. “Secret Workings” goes through revision As I sat with mauve foolscap, puzzling out the first story in my collection, I returned to the title. Oh my, oh goodness, that’s it, I thought. The story is about secrets. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? Except secrets are secrets precisely because they…… Continue reading We Have Ways of Making You Talk
Debbie Bateman 