Marion Agnew

A writer friend recently read Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird . She's also doing Morning Pages from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way . Another writer-friend is recruiting "bunkmates" for Camp NaNoWriMo, which is apparently the summer version of NaNoWriMo. She suggested creating your own project--not necessarily drafting a new work, which is (as I understand it) the function of NaNoWriMo, but perhaps editing or submitting or researching or something else--intensely, for 31 days. Others are creating schedules and valiantly attempting to stick to them, even though summer is here, with all the summer things--like WARMTH and SUNSHINE and GELATO and STROLLS. (And for me, bug spray.) For many who work in a teaching capacity, summer feels like "found time," and their fear is that late August will bring despairing moments of "whaaaaaaaat haaaaaaaappened to aaaaaaaallll that tiiiiime?" (Flashbacks to childhood feels. Though I also liked school a lot.)...

I was recently at the Creative Nonfiction Collective's conference. Here are some of my favourite moments from the trip. Enjoy. Why my novel has been "cut" from 90K words to 94K words a time or two. On a medical building. Love art like this. Didn't buy it. Really wanted to.

I'm traveling this weekend, therefore, Spring is springing and I am reluctant to leave. Here's what I'll return to: I'll enjoy being with other folks writing creative nonfiction. By my oh my, it will be great to come home again.

Over on her blog, Transactions with Beauty, writer Shawna Lemay posed an interesting question recently: "What words would you most like to get tattooed indelibly on your skin?" She has a whole list. (She's also in the middle of a Springsteen phase, and she takes lovely photographs.) It's tough to say. One reason I haven't seriously considered a tattoo is that words change meaning for me over time. I don't know that a word I wanted and needed to see daily at 30 (integrity) would be something I'd want or need to see daily lo these several decades later. However. Shawna's right; it's a fun exercise. At the moment, I'm toying with this: "It is a truth universally acknowledged." Yes, it's the opening to Pride and Prejudice . Perhaps mentioning Jane Austen on the blog linked above primed the pump. But the quote also says something about writing and the writer, I think. We worry a lot about whether "it's been done al...