Escape With A Writer

Our latest discussion in the HWG was about naming our fictional characters. I am a big fan of baby naming books and grabbing names that I hear out in the real world. Much like I grab tidbits of conversations or incidents that happen to use in stories. I have to admit, I tend not to use trendy names, mostly timeless ones. Victoria is one of my YA characters, her cousin's name is Cameo. Lucy is my leading lady in Date with a Dead Guy, her leading man is Jad (short for Jaidev). Kathryn Dean once gave me a critique on a chapter from The Bookstore Lady's Secret Life (also known at Take the Money and Run). Her main focus was on the name I had chosen for one particular character. The character's name was Jewish and I'm not. She starts off as an evil person which Kathryn was afraid could make me look anti-Semetic. Okay, I gave into that one even though the character had her own issues and perfectly good reasons for being nasty. (For the record, in the end she turned out to be

I celebrated my birthday this weekend surrounded by family and friends. Last night, I sat up late watching The Bucket List and crying my eyes out at the end. Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson were amazing. If you are not familiar with it, the movie is about two men dying from cancer. The Bucket List is the list of things they want to do before the die. What possessed me to watch something so morbid on my birthday? Actually, I found it very uplifting and inspiring. I have my own Bucket List. Most of it is not written down anywhere but on my heart. At the top of my list, is selling my paintings and publishing my novels. Last night before the movie, I did some painting. I am going to be part of a large show put on my the Orangeville Art Group in October and need to complete 5 paintings. So far, I have 4 and 1 nearly done. I finished two last night, fuelled by a glass of wine and birthday cake! That alone gave me a sense of accomplishment and peace. The same feeling I get when I write

Over the past week I have been shocked by the resignation of two members of two different groups I belong to. One was a long-time member who is disillusioned by the changes in a group he has been with for years. The second was a recent member who was insulted in outrageous fashion. Both are people that I highly admire and respect. Now they are gone. Life is such a matter of perspective. The whole glass half-empty/half-full thing. Monday was a glass half-empty day for me. Everything that could go wrong, definitely did: The cat sprayed in the front entrance (ruining my 15 year old son's favourite fedora), then vomited all over the floor. On top of grocery shopping and floor and wall washing, a brand new bottle of fuschia nail polish broke all over my tiled kitchen floor. That was all before I went to work at noon. Work was ridiculously busy and nothing but problems. I came home to find out about the two resignations - at the same time. Then took the kids to a 2 hour karate class. L