The holidays can be times of blessings and peace, filled with family and friends and turkey and togetherness.
They can also be times of debilitating loneliness, when circumstances bearable at any other time of year become unlivable. It's important to reach out during this season. Some of us will volunteer at Christmas dinners for those who have nowhere else to go. Some of us will drop extra change into a kettle. Others will take over as hosts for the family meal to relieve the burden on ageing parents. Others will spend time with young children to allow new parents a moment or two away from that awesome responsibility. Many writers say their lives are lonely. We sit in our office (or corner of the living room in my case) and talk with the people in our heads, while the people in our lives wander in and out. It's important to step away from our imaginings and take part in our realities. Because nothing is more important than those we love. Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.
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I am sitting in a warm ski lodge, working away on two manuscripts and this blog while my son and his friends speed down the slopes.
I've been known to strap on skis and give the hill a try, but my best friends wouldn't call me athletic. I did stagger through a 5K "run" about a year and a half ago, after months of training. But I haven't stayed with it. I kept waiting for that "high" that runners say they get. It never showed up. I do get a "high" from a lovely turned phrase, the perfect verb, the sentence that says exactly what I want it to. That's probably why I don't mind revising too much. The "Find" function is my friend when I'm cleaning up my first draft. I scoured the web searching for lists of “weak words” (that, really, almost, etc), compiled them, and saved them. Then, while I was writing, I paid attention to the words I use as crutches (I'm very bad with 'just' and 'only') and add them to my list. Now that the manuscript is done, I use "Find" to trace those weak words. Often I find I can simply delete them, but I'll rewrite as necessary. I find this process quite soothing. It feels so good to purge those useless, soft words and make the story tighter, better. Finally...Amazon.ca has a Kindle store!
When I was looking around for my first ereader, I was overwhelmed with the choices. I ended up purchasing a Kobo, partly because I wanted to support a company with stronger ties to Canada. But part of the reason NOT to buy a Kindle was that Amazon.ca did not have a Kindle store. I was shocked the first time I realized this. How could that have been overlooked? Was it because our language is basically the same? No, probably not...after all, there's a Kindle store on the UK Amazon site. Maybe it had something to do with Canada's two official languages? Kind of a lame excuse if so, given there's a Kindle store in Japanese. Could it have been for financial reasons? Does Amazon.com make a bigger profit from Canadian Kindle owners because of the difference between the Canadian and American dollar? If they did, it can't be much now, as the dollars are almost at par. (Right now, MOUNTAIN FIRE is listed at $2.99 on CA, $3.03 on COM) Anyone have any thoughts? Do you know why it has taken so long to get a Canadian Kindle store? |