Hi everybody, I've just started a blog at Wordpress.com and I know at least a few of you blog there as well.  Since I am incredibly scatterbrained, please let me know (perhaps for the second time) who you all are and I'll link to you.

Thanks!

Erin

I recently returned from a ten day trip to France.  This was a huge deal for me, my first plane ride, my first visit to a country other then Canada or the US, my first actual trip.  I couldn't really afford it, but I went anyway, and I am so glad I did.

I didn't have a passport, so I had to get one of those.  No idea how to plan a trip of this sort, so I went to a travel agent.  What did I want to do while I was in France?  Just be there, see it, experience it.  All I knew was that I didn't want to sit in a bus for ten days with a bunch of other North Americans flying passed what large corporations deem the important sights and snapping pictures out of the window.  The solution?  We, as green as could be, would arrive in France completely unprepared and wing it, how hard could it possibly be?

It wasn't hard at all.  It was liberating and enlightening to venture so far out of our comfort zone completely unprepared, and of course, completely against the advice of well-meaning individuals who love us.  We had a wonderful time, spent six days in Paris, drank a lot of cafe au lait, then showed up at the train station when we got tired of city life and bought two tickets to somewhere small and within an hour - Rouen, a small city in Normandy was the winner.  We shopped in the market square, the same place where Joan of Arc met a fiery end so long ago, dined on fresh seafood brought in daily from the Atlantic and spent our days wandering through the soaring arches of Gothic cathedrals.  We also learned, perhaps not surprisingly, that most things we thought we knew about France and the French are completely wrong or at least overblown, and no matter what the caliber of the film, never take Hollywood too seriously.

As writers, I think it is in us to have inquiring minds.  I have always wanted to know more about everything, from grade school through university, to my life now, but all of this has always occurred from the safety of my home office or at least the familiarity of my own continent.  I am certainly not encouraging anyone to go jumping off of cliffs or anything, but this year saw my first story published and my first trip to Europe, two lifelong goals accomplished in a matter of months.  I am excited for the future in a way I have never been before.  If I could do these two things with relative ease (still plenty of work involved, just not the level of horror I always seem to expect) what else can I do without my practical and well-meaning, yet stifling mind not always calling the shots?

When writing, I know I am supposed to avoid cliches like the plague, but things are cliched for a reason, and the older I get and the more I do, the more I see the truth in these oft repeated little pearls of wisdom that have stuck around for so long.  From now on, dear fellow writers, I will throw caution to the wind (at least sometimes) believe in myself and my own abilities (God forbid) ignore what other "wiser" people have to say sometimes, take chances without worrying about looking stupid or failing miserably and attempt to live this life in a far more active manner.  Passivity is all fine and good, but the results of existing more actively have my blood pumping and my mind buzzing.  Take a chance.  Do something outside of your comfort zone.  It won't be nearly as hard as you think and the rewards will be quick and tangible.

You know what they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.  How's that for a cliche? 

    So I've finally begun editing my third novel, (the only one good enough to bother) the trouble is I have no idea how to edit something this large.  In this case I did what I usually do when I don't know how to do something and turned to a book.  Four pages of notes later, I started editing.  So far, I've made it through the first chapter, and I must say, the amount of pencil, pen and highlighter is alarming at first glance.  At some point during this process, I realized that I will basically have to rewrite the chapter, and probably the rest of the manuscript too, to a certain extent.

    After the initial horror faded, I actually felt better.  I know if will be a lot of work, but I started to see how changes could make the writing better.  I certainly want it to be the best I can make it before I submit it anywhere.
    Like most writers, there is no competition between the writing process and the editing process - it's like the difference between June and January for Canadians, but slowly, very slowly, I am starting to see the merits and the pleasure in editing too, and I can largely thank Robin Carson for that, the editor of On Spec magazine and the guy who made my first professional editing experience such a positive one.  If anyone has any thoughts or advice on the subject, I'd love to hear it.

 I've spent a good deal of my life waiting for things to happen.  This lead to a lot of waiting around, and a lot of frustration and unhappiness at the lack of all these things I have been waiting for.  Around the fall of last year, things started to change.  I've thought a lot about why, and can only conclude that it's a combination of factors, twenty-eight years of various experiences coming together in just the right way.

Things are happening.  It's going to be a big year.

Just after Christmas, my dog succumbed to cancer.  That event, and two motivating books seemed to tip something, to finally flip some dusty switch in a remote corner of my brain.  I have finally reached some goals, all of which feel as though they have been around as long as I have.

In the spring issue of On Spec magazine, there's a short story by me - my first professional publication.  I'm in the editing stage of my third novel, but the first I feel confident in attempting to get published.  On June second I leave the comfy and all too familiar confines of Canada on my first actual trip for ten days in France - a whole other continent, country and experience.  Three big goals, all coming together at once.  So what changed?  What happened?  What is the difference between the frustrated waiting and the fruition?

The short and not at all satisfying but all-true answer is me, I changed.  I decided I wouldn't wait anymore.  In a combination of intense epiphanies and slow moments of dawning I realized that this is my life, that clichés are often true, and that I am the creator of my own destiny.  No one else will do this for me, I have to do it myself, and most importantly, I can.  In some indefinable and profound way, I know I have changed forever.  I still have moments when I don't believe it can be that simple, but I know now for certain that it is.  Occam was certainly onto something.