Writing the first paragraph of anything is always difficult, because there’s so much pressure. That first paragraph, even more so, the first sentence, has to do so much: set the scene, get the story moving and grab the reader’s attention. But I took a lot of pleasure from that pressure last week and wrote […]
The Canadian Shield. Trees down to the water’s edge. I’ve made it back from the wilderness! A typical “Canadian sunset” picture. Actually, I’ve been back for three days now, and it wasn’t that wild. While the Mattawa is significant as part of the original “river highway” of Canada, used by the fur traders as part […]
As this post goes live, I’m on the highway toward North Bay, Ontario, to begin a canoe trip down the Mattawa River. It’s going to include some white water, a few short portages and more white water, all in the great Canadian wilderness. Actually, it’s not all that wild. There are provincial campsites all along […]
Creative Commons/Flickr In the sporadic series where I ask bestselling authors about their reading habits and inspiration, I again turn to two very different authors. David Vinjamuri is the author of bestselling military thrillers Binder and Operator, as well as two books of non-fiction. It’s hard to categorize Terry Tyler’s writing other than as “contemporary […]
Image source: writeshop.com I have been wrestling for years over how to organize my work-in-progress, Walking from the USSR. An almost casual comment from a friend over dinner presented a solution. Now I feel I can wrap this baby up! The book is the story of my father-in-law, Maurice, who served in the Red Army […]
Spring is coming to Ottawa — I can tell because the snow is getting dirty and the birds are starting to chirp (“Hey! We’re freezing out here!”) Photo by D. Gordon E. Robertson, licensed under Wikipedia Creative Commons. A change of season always inspires me to take on new projects, and to resolve to complete […]