Downsizing Postcards?

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Susi Lovell

Somehow my collection of postcards managed to escape the downsizing purge.

Until, that is, towards the end of January when I found out about International Correspondence Writing Month. Aha, I thought, now’s the time! Sending one postcard a day for the month of February would make a nice little dent in my stash of cards.

My postcards are full of memories of course. Dozens from the Spanish Riding School in Vienna from a summer spent in my father’s family home in the Vienna Woods about 50 years ago! I insisted on going to watch the horses and riders rehearse every morning. A box from when I worked in Bogotà, Colombia in the ’70s. Another box full – two – from ten years of working my way around the world. I’m not sure I ever left a gallery or exhibition or stately home and garden without postcards!

I’ve never been a good postcard writer. You’d think it would be easy to fill such a small space, but I just sit and stare at that little white square. Maybe that’s why I have so many.

I managed to send eleven before I burned out on my February project. A postcard a day was too intense and took too much time away from writing my novel. To be fair to myself, there were also major distractions because of family health issues.

Mulling over old memories was fun of course. What I especially enjoyed was how certain postcards would suggest a friend who might enjoy receiving it. Old friends who maybe had shared the occasion when I bought the card, who I hadn’t seen in years. More recent friends because I knew they’d be interested in the image on the card. And thinking of one friend naturally leads to thinking of another…

I’ll try again next February. If I could manage every day of the month, it might only take me fourteen or fifteen years to empty the boxes!

Where’s the Write Spot?

Posted on July 6, 2017 by Susi Lovell

Every second week I gather up my pencils and notebooks after breakfast and set out to find somewhere to write for the day. Preferably somewhere I’ve never been before.

“No one is immune to the impressions that impinge on the senses from the outside.” Creativity, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Could be a park, a café or terrasse, an art gallery or museum, a mall, a greenhouse…

I find working somewhere different helps spark off fresh, unexpected ideas.

The new chairs and benches on the Montreal streets this summer are attractive options too! I love the replacement of sidewalk flowers along McGill College Avenue with parsley and other herbs.

summer chairs along ave McGill College, Montreal

Sometimes I look up places I’ve heard about in advance, but usually I just set out and see what I come across. Montreal is a great place for that!

When I saw Continue reading →

Opening the Door to Backstory

Posted on May 4, 2017 by Susi Lovell

Backstories are always fascinating to a fiction writer. How can you know the characters in your story if you don’t know what’s happened in their past and how that’s affected them?

Is that why I feel so sad when I see yet another of Montreal’s beautiful old mansions bite the dust? Because when we’ve lost Montreal’s old buildings, we won’t know Montreal?

I couldn’t help but wonder what the story was of this building Continue reading →

If Only This Were My Secret Door To Writing

Posted on April 28, 2017 by Susi Lovell

Just looking at these quirky little lopsided buildings in the trees to one side of Beaver Lake on “the mountain” (Montreal’s Mount Royal) makes me want to sit down and write.

I’m sure I’d finish my next story collection so much faster if I had one of these as my private writing nook.

Unfortunately that little sticker says Continue reading →

Free Modifiers, Dependent Clauses and a Good Night’s Sleep

Posted on January 28, 2017 by Susi Lovell

bedroom in apartment in Gaudi's La Pedrera (Casa Milà), Barcelona

Towards the end of my appointment with the sleep doctor, after he’d told me exactly what time I should go to bed every night and what time – exactly – I should wake, he suggested I put my iPod under my pillow, ready for the hours when I lie awake.

On the iPod, he said, should be something like ‘The History of the World.’

Goodness, I said. That’ll send me to sleep.

That’s the whole idea, he pointed out gently.

I hadn’t got around to doing that but I remembered it as a long-time writer buddy and I were exchanging emails about grammatical Continue reading →

What Did I Discover From My Year of Blurt Writing?

Posted on December 30, 2016 by Susi Lovell

So what did I discover from my 2016 blog resolution to blurt out a quick story or poem once a week?

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” Maya Angelou

1. It was a great brain zapper! The main idea of Blurting had been to energize my brain as I edited a collection of stories which I’d been working on for quite a while. It worked! Forcing 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 →

Snow Rage: Writing Lesson From A Snowy Sidewalk

Posted on January 16, 2015 by Susi Lovell

I’m clumping along on my ‘grippers’ – grampons attached to boots for icy sidewalks – to the pharmacy. Only a narrow strip of sidewalk has been cleared between the two banks of high snow.

Inevitably I’m going to come face to face with someone heading in the opposite direction. Who will be the one to step aside, into the snow, and wait for the other to pass? Me? Or the other person? Continue reading →

Walking Meditation and Peripheral Vision For Creativity

Posted on December 12, 2014 by Susi Lovell

Hoodoo Trail, Banff, AB I’ve enjoyed walking meditation for years – I just didn’t know that was what I was doing!

I knew that when I walked our dog (especially as he became older and walked more and more slowly), I became hyper-aware of all sorts of sensory details around me, and that I’d often have what seemed like brilliant ideas as to how to solve problems with the story or choreography I was working on.

Hoodoo Trail, Banff It was only when I went on a guided hike with Ronna of Eco Yoga Adventures while at a writers’ residency at the Banff Arts Centre that I discovered the concept of walking meditation.

I have to thank Ronna for a wonderful experience and for introducing me to these strategies for entering into the flow of this kind of dynamic meditation. Continue reading →

When Someone Reads What You’ve Written

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Susi Lovell

You’d think that celebrated award-winning children’s author David Elliott couldn’t possibly complain of a shortage of readers. But in a recent post on his website he shares his disappointment with a particular publishing experience.

I was impressed that an author with such a large following would be so honest about a less than stellar publication experience, and was as happy as if I’d written the book myself when I learned that all was not lost… that David had received Continue reading →

Susi Lovell

short story writer

Tag Archives: writing