Boots in Winter

I watched three people launch kayaks early yesterday morning, and one said, as she stepped into the water, “If we’re going to do this in winter, we’re going to need booties.” To me, that defines the difference between Calgary and San Diego.

I left a land cursed by the snow queen, the ground covered in a blanket of snow, and every tree encased in a thick layer of frost. Here, they need booties to kayak in winter.

I comfort myself with, “At least we’ll have a white Christmas.”

Maureen

San Diego

On Friday, I’m off to San Diego for a meditation retreat. I’m also bringing my laptop, loaded with my current project and all the other projects I’d like to work on. This is a grand experiment for me: can I add a writing retreat to a meditation retreat, and be satisfied with both?

Maureen

NaNoWrMo

I’ve been thinking about NaNoWrMo, November Novel Writing Month, in which participants strive to write a 50,000 novel in the month of November. It seems absurd to me, as I take about a year to write much shorter children’s novels. But I’ve been told it’s just a first draft, and for some people, it’s a really good way to motivate themselves to whack out a lot of words.

It still doesn’t interest me, but when I heard about the equivalent for picture books, an idea a day through November, I thought ‘Hmmm, I could do that.’ And I have been. I have a long list of ideas in a notebook. Some are too small to stand on their own, and a few are developing into something I might play with. When I’m not immersed in a novel. That’s the fundamental problem right now: I’m focused on a long project, and I have a growing list of smaller projects I’d like to spend time on (including editing some stories that aren’t working yet, that I have hope for). Somehow, there’s never enough time for all the things I want to accomplish. And that, perhaps, is the appeal of NaNoWrMo – to simply dive in and go for it.

Maureen