Writing...Just because!

As I constantly tell anyone who will listen, the beauty of being a writer is that you can do your work anytime, anywhere with very little restrictions…except for the ubiquitous procrastination or creative blocks that can follow you wherever you go.   As I sit in my childhood bedroom with the pale blue walls, white curtains and bedspread with the blue flowers and ruffles, I am reminded that inspiration comes from a variety of sources but I’m having a hard time focusing as I’m mentally transported back to when I was 12 and my purple room was transformed into a more sophisticated blue as I headed into my teen years.   But, I digress.   I am home in Halifax, Nova Scotia for the holidays and am missing my muse – a 15-pound, black and white feline named Zorro.   It’s dawned on me that his furry presence keeps my creative juices flowing or jump-starts them when they’ve ground to a halt.   Sometimes he’ll just lay quietly curled up on the carpet behind me as I’m tappi...

Join me the 1st of every month as I review a new book.  I will focus on travel, expat adventures and various small business resources.  For my first review I have chosen Tim Brooke's Thirty Percent Chance of Enlightenment – A journey across India in search of the meaning of water , supported by the Champlain College Publishing initiative.   Thirty Percent Chance of Enlightenment is a behind the scenes look at author Tim Brookes’ adventure to India while on assignment for National Geographic to do a story on forecasting and preparing for monsoon season.   I read it while in Malaysia, just recently (so it was actually during monsoon season) so I really got into the mood and anticipation of it all.  I read most of it while on a bus making my way from Kuala Lumpur to Penang Island.  I know most people can’t put themselves into a place that matches the location of a story physically, so Brookes does a great job bringing you into the story with him. It’...

As 2010 wraps up and we get ready to head into another year full of unknown yet hopefully exciting adventures I thought I would take the opportunity to reflect back on my social networking learning curve of 2009.   At the beginning of the year, I started keeping a tally of all the Twitter apps that were available to help manage the sometimes overwhelming demands of the Twittersphere.   We’re still not sure if it’s going to be worthwhile in the long run but if you’re not Tweeting you’re missing the boat…maybe.   I keep trying to find the best measurement tool and tracking metrics and voraciously read about other people’s and companies’ experiences.   It really depends on what you’re hoping to accomplish but there’s rarely any time to step back and take a breath. Anyways, I also wrote a couple articles and blogs about different apps I had found and was using but then as they kept coming at me thick and fast and I would find ones that were better or as I used a parti...

I was chuckling to myself the other day as I was enjoying a day at the water park with my friend's two teenage daughters and one of them told me she liked my "swimming costume."  It took me a minute to realize what she meant.  Ah...It would be what my fellow Canadians would call a bathing suit.  Of course her terminology (which originated from her Kenyan upbringing) is more literally accurate, isn't it?  This is something that us global writers have to contemplate with every single project we take on.  Where does it originate and who is the main target audience?  We must choose our words very carefully.  I remembered another story this same friend was telling me about her daughters visiting their paternal grandmother in Canada.  When it was time for supper she told them to put their toys in the "bin."  Well, in Canada she was referring to the large plastic Tupperware container that she was using as their toy box.  The girls burst into te...

During a recent visit to my hometown, Halifax, Nova Scotia, I stumbled upon an amazing opportunity to learn more about the book publishing process.  As I was sitting around the kitchen table with my mom, having coffee and perusing the Chronicle Herald (the local paper), I spied a notice about an event that was coming up the following weekend called, "Pitch the Publisher" which was part of The Word on the Street Festival , a day long literary event that's held every year.  It was a call for all aspiring authors to bring their manuscripts, ideas or proposals and test them out on an actual panel of local publishers (yes, I am working on a book about living in Dubai and it's to the point where I'm developing my proposal and researching agents and publishers).  I decided it was too great an opportunity to pass up and called right away to find out how to get on the list.  Alas, the schedule was full but I was put on a waiting list and reassured that the previous year t...

There is an ongoing raging debate in the Twittersphere around whether or not you should follow someone who is not following you. The opinions on the issue are as varied as the numbers of people who have weighed in on the discussion and the spectrum is from one extreme to the other. One of my gurus has admitted to deleting every single person she follows who doesn’t follow her. In other words, she regularly goes into a program where she can see at a glance all the people who aren’t following her back and click on an option to unfollow. There are many tools you can use to do this and there’s a link below from this expert to explain how by comparing two of the more popular apps. But, don’t rush off just yet. I’d like to weigh in on the opposite side of the spectrum. I approach Twitter with a very critical eye and ask myself regularly, “What exactly do I want to achieve by Tweeting and by engaging other Tweeps?” (Let me pause here and add a little postscript: I marvel at how many ...

I really thought I had found my social networking rhythm a few months ago but the tempo’s been speeding up so fast and I’m caught in a crescendo that just seems to keep building. Everyone’s so excited about Twitter (I’ll stick to Twitter here because if I add my anxiety about FaceBook, LinkedIn, UTube, etc. we’ll have a novel instead of a blog)! I’ve been in so many conversations lately that swirl around the questions: How many followers do you have? How often do you tweet a day? What topics are you trending? Are you using Tweetdeck? I try to keep up but I just feel I’m sinking deeper and deeper into the mire and am honestly a bit overwhelmed. I believe in the theory that it’s a “social” network and you use it to develop relationships. So, I am trying not to automate it too much. However, I do see the value in having a program assist you in managing the deluge of information and applications. But what app(s) do you choose? I did finally join SocialOomph because at the very...

  AWARDS

As I was sitting in my home office the other day looking for inspiration to write and I heard a howl and a furious rustling of leaves and looked out my window.  The dust was so thick I could barely see into the neighbors back yard and the trees were being viciously whipped around by a wind that must have been 4 Beaufort (for you sailors out there)...it was a Shamal!  Not nearly the fear-inducing wind and rain that comes with a hurricane (and I've sat through a few of those sitting on the bathroom floor, hugging my cat in Fort Lauderdale) but it's still quite unsettling.  Living in the Middle East (Dubai to be exact), we rarely see any rain so the few drops that the Shamal brought were welcome, although not enough to settle the dust down, other than in your teeth and eyelashes.  Yes, it's that pervasive.  It's so fine that it gets into the smallest cracks and crevices so you spend the next week sweeping and mopping dust and sand from the weirdest places. We a...

Last night I had the very great pleasure of attending the closing ceremonies of the 6th Emirates International Peace Music Festival...FREE!  It was organized by the Emirates Youth symphony, which I didn't even know existed until my friend Mimi told me her son played in the orchestra and invited me to attend.  Anyways, what's inspired me to write this today is that we (my husband and I) were absolutely blown away by the talent of these kids, especially the guest violinist, Ellie Choi from Korea.  This "virtuoso" was only 8 years old and held the audience spellbound.  When the conductor and director of the festival, Riad Kudsi, introduced her, he shared with us that her music selection would typically be played by a very well-seasoned musician but that she had insisted so he left the rest for us to decide.  She was not only meticulous in her playing but exuded a unique flare and passion that's rare in one so young.  I sat there thinking, "this little girl w...

In the run of a day (any day) there is always a moment at some point that I think or say out loud, "as my mother always says"...followed by some pithy quote I've heard her say more than once. She's a wise woman and her words have stayed with me over the years. Just this morning, as I was drying my hair, I found myself grinning as I heard her voice in my head saying, "don't go out with wet hair. You'll catch your death of cold." My smile got even broader the more I thought about it because I live in a desert climate now. A little different from the snow and cold I grew up with in Nova Scotia. But there had to be a reason it popped in my head at that moment. Probably just a moment of pause to make sure I was ready to face the day. Sometimes I hear people say that if they started to sound like their parents to stop them. I feel quite differently. When I mention to my mother that I always quote her she says that most of her pearls of wisdom came...