Updates and Stuff

Warm weather is here and I can't help but think back to the summer that Gord and I prepared to hike the trail. We were so focussed on getting into shape and assembling the equipment that we would need, that everything else seemed to play second fiddle. I imagine that is true for most of us, when we are completely focussed on a particular priority, everything else in our lives seem to line up and fall into place. Someone called that "intentional focus" and it makes great sense to me. When I was writing the book, "The West Coast Trail: One Step at a Time," it was a similar experience. A combination of discipline and focus along with an hour a day of writing, produced the book that many of you have read.

The book is now stocked in many bookstores in Western Canada and is listed by Chapters nationally and on their website, as well as the sites of several other retailers so now I feel obligated to work on some sort of marketing program to support it. Hopefully, there will be a few newspaper reviews in the coming weeks and months to help that effort.

I'm sure that most browsers of this corner realize that in order to write, one must do a lot of reading. My guess is that reading is the one true training program for a writer. I usually have three books on the go at a time, one novel of action and adventure like Wilbur Smith or my friend Jack Whyte (whose books I am now rereading), something inspirational like The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz as well as something that provokes thought like the one I just finished by Ann Fessler called The Girls Who Went Away. Ms. Fessler, in this well written tome, interviewed many women who gave up their babies for adoption, mostly because they were unwed and forced by family and the wisdom of the times to do so. What I found most amazing is that many of the feelings that an adoptee experiences throughout their lives are the same as those experienced by the birth mother - loneliness, abandonment, anger and a sense of being different than everyone else. It's a great and revealing read for anyone who has been touched by adoption in any way.

Recently I was asked what I do, a typical question at most social gatherings and typically I tend to struggle with the answer until this time. I replied, "I'm a writer who still has his day job." The discussion immediately went to my passion - writing, rather than watching the other conversationalist's eyes glaze over as I attempted to explain what I did for a living, she had lots of questions and comments about my chosen interest. How about you? Can you deliver a response, in one sentence, that exposes your REAL passion in life? I'm interested in knowing what your PASSION is in life, not what you do for a living but what you are, or would like to be doing for LIVING! Email me and let me know.