I wrote this short story quite a few years ago in between edits of Conduct in Question. Sometimes I think that for a novelist, writing short stories can be similar to a painter making sketches for a large canvas. Have a look around the site. Enjoy.
The Life She Wanted
Martha Myles dusted the flour from her hands and wiped them on her apron. She found the beaters at the back of the kitchen drawer and pressed them into the electric mixer. Her new cookbook was propped open on the counter. With... Read Full Story
I sometimes say the first draft of a novel is the most satisfying to write. When the creative spirit gallops free as a mare in the fields, kicking up its heels, you know the work is going splendidly! But when it’s not, your spirit [creative or otherwise] drags along like a lame donkey hauling a cart of manure. Life can be unmitigated hell.
But at last, it’s wonderful! Your first draft of an entire novel exists, complete with a beginning, middle and end. Now what happens?
If your... Read Full Story
It’s a marvellous “high” seeing those three hundred pages stacked up on your desk-the first draft! How long did it take? Three months, a year, a decade? I remember when the last page chugged out of my, by then, wheezing printer that I gazed at that first draft in awe for at least ten minutes. It was the first glimpse of my new-born.
But how did it get there? It’s important to give that some thought, especially now that the real work of revising lies ahead. What did I... Read Full Story
Only a week or so ago, I posted a blog here entitled, what I learned from Ernest Hemingway. In it I said that Hemingway was good writer because he let the dialogue of the characters do most of the heavy lifting-that is the writer could convey emotion, mood, feeling etc., to the reader. To do otherwise was tantamount to having an annoying stage director come out in the middle of a scene to comment on what the characters were thinking and feeling.
The very next book I picked up was Vanity Fai... Read Full Story
As I said the other day, I thought I’d post a few articles about my musings about writing. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Sometimes critics speak of a writer’s voice. But what do yousuppose they mean? I think of it as a goal to be achieved on a very long road. It’s that uniquely personal “way” you have of expressing yourself to the world in word and thought-the sum total of yourself as a human being. You might say it’s the Holy Grail of writing.
B... Read Full Story
Right now, where I am, it’s about 2:30 in the afternoon on Christmas eve day. What I really like is the quiet which sometimes descends at this time after all the running around for food and gifts. Just a moment for quiet reflection before celebrations get going.
I’m going to start posting [today]some articles on writing and assorted topics and so, I hope you drop back in soon. Read Full Story
This short story is the debut of Harry Jenkins, Toronto lawyer, hero of The Osgoode Trilogy. If you like Harry, try Conduct in Question, Final Paradox and A Trial of One. Harry came into being after my practising law for thirty years in Toronto.
In his law practice, Harry Jenkins frequently visited the elderly and infirm in their homes. Occasionally, he attended upon the wealthy in their mansions. Today, he was visiting Miss Alicia Markley and her friend of many years, Sarah Carmichael. Af... Read Full Story
A quick Google of the title The Sun also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, brings me pages upon pages of articles. With scads of information and opinion out there, what can I possibly add?
But before I answer that question, here is a photograph of the River Seine in Paris which I took in 2004–just to set the mood for the book set in Paris in the 1920’s
Most critics discuss at great length themes and characters of this novel. But my question is this: how does a writer create such a p... Read Full Story
AUTOMAT, by Edward Hopper
I have a fascination with the paintings of the American artist, Edward Hopper. Somehow-whether by technique, imagination or subject matter-he is able to create the most compelling and evocative scenes, which stir my imagination.
One of my favourites is Automat an oil painted by him in 1927.
A young woman with a yellow felt hat sits absolutely alone in a barren restaurant drinking a cup of coffee. I look at this and immediately feel her isolation and loneliness ... Read Full Story
Osgoode Hall is a beautiful building in downtown Toronto, where the Ontario Appellate Court is located. When I began practising law in 1973, I can tell you that this was a very imposing building to all young lawyers. In fact the Law Society of Upper Canada was also housed there and that body oversaw the conduct of practising lawyers. And so, it is from that fact that I got the name of the first novel in The Osgoode Trilogy Conduct in Question.
Engraving by Walter R. Duff
If you would like a ... Read Full Story
