The Way We Walk: Writing Lesson From a Tight Skirt

Posted on November 26, 2015 by Susi Lovell

The road was closed for infrastructure repairs. Although the sidewalk was open, a huge machine at one end of the road was sending clouds of dust and grit into the air.

To get away from the dust, I turned left into an alley. As I squeezed past the big truck blocking the alley, a large shiny SUV swung in at the other end.

The SUV paused halfway along the alley, clearly waiting for the truck to move out of the way. The truck driver’s door hung open and there was no sign of him. In any case the road was blocked, so there was no way the SUV would be able to get through.

The SUV horn blared Continue reading →

Searching for Democracy and the Zen Way in a Box Hedge

Posted on November 19, 2015 by Susi Lovell

crabapple about to blossom I live in a place with a communal garden. It’s a lovely garden. A bit disheveled maybe, but for me, that’s part of the charm. There’s always something to delight in – violets springing up in the lawn, the crabapple blossom in spring, the turtleheads in fall, a cardinal singing in the blue spruce, a piliated woodpecker (if we’re lucky) at the back, any number of little brown birds, a rose that manages a glorious bloom despite the best efforts of invading ivy from the car park behind the fence to strangle it.

After years of adding a little something here, a little something there in a rather haphazard fashion, it’s been decided the garden needs an overhaul. A major spruce up. A total redesign.

Lucky you? Is that what you’re saying?

The trouble is, being a communal garden means Continue reading →

In Search Of A Writer-Friendly Computer Chair

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Susi Lovell

I often feel like Goldilocks when I sit down. I so rarely find a comfortable chair! The seat of this one is too deep and sinks too far back where the chair back meets the seat. That one’s too high and has no support for my back. And that other one’s too low and the headrest forces my head forward.

Where’s my ‘just right’ chair?

When I gave up my dance life and chose a sit-and-write life, I tried any number of chairs to use at my laptop. I’d get one thing right (for example, position of the keyboard) and everything else would be wrong (my feet didn’t touch the floor; I had to look down at the screen).

“Get a desk chair,” my husband said.

Nah! They were too expensive and so very ugly.

But I needed to find something I could sit on that would be at least not too uncomfortable for fairly long stretches of time.

Exercise balls? No. Kneeling stool? Nope. Australian saddle seat? My dentist swore by it. Maybe I would have too, if Continue reading →

Left Hand, Right Brain! Ta-Da!

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Susi Lovell

Finally I gave in. My neck pain was so bad that I booked an appointment with a massage therapist.

The therapist told me that my body was out of kilter. My right side was dominating all my movements. The left side was doing nothing.

I checked it out.

I couldn’t even open my locker at the gym (one of those simple three to the right, two to the left, one to the right dial locks) with my left hand. And once my left hand finally found the right numbers, my fingers didn’t have the strength to pull the locker door open. The lock popped out of my fingers and I’d have to start all over again.

As I was making myself work the lock with my left hand, I remembered right-left brain theory: that each side of the brain works with the opposite side of the body, i.e., right brain and left side of the body and vice versa.

So if I concentrated on using my left hand/side, would that act like a vitamin booster for my right brain?

The right side of the brain is the creative side (left is more linear and logical and analytical).

The right brain is the creative brain and is responsible for rhythm, spatial awareness, colour, imagination, daydreaming, holistic awareness and dimension. It controls the left side of your body. The Thinking Business

My right brain could do with a little pepping up, so now I’m using my left hand as much as possible – stirring the soup (OKish), opening doors, chopping and peeling veggies (awkward). combing my hair and brushing my teeth (improving), painting screen doors (bad idea)….

Just wait! You’ll see! Any moment now I’ll be swept up in an amazing creative splurge!

Essence of the Short Story

Posted on October 23, 2015 by Susi Lovell

I always start reading Mavis Gallant’s short stories with pad on knee, pencil in hand, ready to make notes about structure, style, characterization, and other nifty craft insights.

By the second paragraph all that is forgotten. I’m lost in the world of the story.

So I think about the story for a while and then re-read, this time determined to keep a clear, cold eye. Again swallowed whole by the story!

I don’t usually read introductions until I’ve read all the stories in a collection but when I started Mavis Gallant’s “Montreal Stories” again, I thought it might help get me into analytic mode.

And whoomph! There it was! In Russell Banks‘ Introduction. One of those huge, wonderful “yes, yes, that’s absolutely it” moments when all at once a basic ‘truth’ of short stories becomes totally clear and meaningful.

What is the essence of a short story? Not only did Russell Banks’ description enlighten Mavis Gallant’s stories for me, it clarified what I am trying to do with mine. I just had to share.

“The tension – and sometimes outright conflict – between remembered and felt experience on the one hand and, on the other, the known truth of what happened lies at the heart of all great short stories. It’s the argument that generates plot and structure, which, finally, gives a story meaning.” Russell Banks

You can read Russell Banks’ whole Introduction to Mavis Gallant’s “Montreal Stories” in Brick Magazine

Writers Abroad Launches “Kaleidoscope” Today!

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Susi Lovell

Kaleidoscope cover

Writers Abroad launches their 2015 anthology “Kaleidoscope” today – and I’m so delighted to have my story “Solace” included.

Do visit the Facebook launch page for Kaleidoscope where you can read enticing snippets of poems and stories from the anthology, learn about Writers Abroad, and meet the writers from around the world who’ve contributed to the anthology.

You could also win a past anthology in one of the competitions being posted on that page!

Remember, all proceeds go to the charity Room to Read. I write about them in this post.

The anthology is available in paperback format from all branches of Amazon, priced at priced at $8.50, £5.99 or €7.50. It would make fabulous Christmas presents, but don’t forget to keep one for yourself.

Here are the links to buy a copy:

or…

or…
http://www.lulu.com/shop/writers-abroad/kaleidoscope/paperback/product-22392029.html

When Your Writing Supports A Bigger Cause

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Susi Lovell

A few months ago, when I noticed the Writers Abroad call for stories from expat writers for their fifth anthology Kaleidoscope, one of the things that attracted me was that all proceeds from the anthology would be going to Room to Read.

Room to Read? I’d never heard of it. Had to check it out of course!

Turns out Room to Read has quite a story of its own!

While on a hiking holiday in the Himalayas in 2000, John Wood, an executive at Microsoft, accepted an invitation to visit a local school where he happened to notice that the very few (mostly inappropriate) books were kept under lock and key to protect them from the students.

This was the spark that led to the creation of Room to Read, an international charity that focuses on “establishing school libraries, building schools, publishing local-language children’s books, training teachers on literacy education and supporting girls to complete secondary school with the life skills necessary to succeed in school and beyond.”

In 1998, John Wood was a rising executive at Microsoft when he took a vacation that changed his life. What started as a trekking holiday in Nepal became a spiritual journey and then a mission: to change the world one book and one child at a time by setting up libraries in the developing world. He was soon driven to leave his career with only a loose vision of the change he wanted to bring to the world. Leaving Microsoft to Change the World

So often submitting a story is about a personal dream: the glory of having one’s story published!

Now I’m not knocking personal or literary glory! I’m all for it – and kudos to any writer who manages to snag it…but I’ve found a different satisfaction in having Writers Abroad accept a story of mine for their anthology.

What a good feeling to be part of a community of editors and writers working towards the goal of making a difference in the world.

“Kaleidoscope” will be available from Monday 12 October 2015 from Lulu and Amazon.

Thanks For The Memories: Saying Goodbye To Our 1970s TV Set

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Susi Lovell

It’s time to say goodbye to our 1970s television set!

The tv was a hand-me-down in the 1990s from friends who were leaving Canada to work overseas. “It’s on its last legs,” they warned us. “It’ll conk out any moment.”

But it still works in 2015! No zapper to turn it on or off though. Someone has to get up and pull the knob.

I’ll admit it’s difficult to watch a hockey game on it but it’s an old friend and I have a very soft spot for it.

Probably because it reminds me of my first experiences of television.

My family didn’t have a television but our next door neighbors in the small English village where we lived invited us over once a week to watch “Dixon of Dock Green,” a series about a kindly London copper.

We kids would sit on the floor, backs against the sofa or parents’ legs, trying to keep quiet so we’d be invited back the following week.

The curtains were drawn closed. The lights were turned off, the tv on. We wriggled into more comfortable positions. Then right there in our neighbours’ living room, in glorious techi-black-and-white, was Constable Dixon, hand raised to his “bobby’s” helmet, greeting us: “Evening all.” Even now I can reproduce the exact tone of “Evening all”.

An hour later we’d call out our goodbyes and thank yous, stepping into the dark. My mother’s geese would wake up and rush towards us as we ran the ten or twelve paces to our own door, stretching their necks across the path and hissing at us.

One hour a week of tv! What a treat it was! Oh, the deliciousness of living someone else’s story!

In a Strange Place: Writing Lesson From The Woman In Gold

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Susi Lovell

Since April 2 this year, Gustav Klimt’s painting Adele Bloch-Bauer I, the Woman in Gold, has been the centerpiece of a special exhibition at the Neue Galerie in New York.

In the painting, Adele stands radiant, hands delicately curved towards her chest, wearing a dazzling bejewelled dress, dark hair coiffed high.

On a lower floor of the Neue Galerie, in a passage near the toilets, hangs a related display of pictures. These were created by students in Vienna, the original home of the painting, who were asked to imagine Continue reading →

Seeing Strange: The Horse With No Eyes

Posted on July 29, 2015 by Susi Lovell

Notre Dame Cathedral, Vieux Port, Montreal

I’m waiting for a friend in Place d’Armes, the plaza in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Montreal’s Vieux Port.

A great place to wait! So much to enjoy!

Narrow cobbled streets, the imposing cathedral, the surrounding historic buildings (which include Montreal’s oldest building: Saint Sulpice Seminary dating from 1687), a guitarist and singer performing under a shady tree, tourists…and of course, the calèches – the horse-drawn carriages festooned with flowers or feathers.

Three young kids break away from their parents as they catch sight of the queue of calèches, shrieking with delight. They run across the plaza towards the horses, eyes shining, arms open.

Halfway across, the smallest, a boy, freezes, a terrified look on his face. Continue reading →