Hey hi hello – thanks for clicking!
I’m going to try to keep this post concise – weird, right? – and so I will get right to it…
As a writer, I tend to ponder over how some things in life are so common, so every day, that we can forget how interesting, how unusual, and how influential it is for us.
Take the average mirror, once upon a time known as a “looking-glass”.
For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on Earth.
What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you.
Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean;
they show us how to live and die.Anne Lamott
I have already answered why I began writing fiction, so let me unpack why I read it too.
I think I have always been a bookworm.
As a child, I enjoyed reading stories of other people in other times and other places with other problems.
Why is it that we seek out more problems, about people who we don’t even know, who aren’t even alive?
Dear whoever you are…
Yes, I’m still here, still writing on this blog, though not as often as I had planned.
Oops?
It’s been over a year since my last life update, so here goes…
Let me recap some of the events that have happened:
I’m still living in the Arctic (and if you’re a writer you should too!); I continued working as a full-time sub teacher at a primary school (and really loved it), but in the last few months have switched to a duller paper-centric office job; my best friend died and it was damn brutal for a long while, and I’m only now adjusted to all the leftover emotional scar tissue (some of my coping strategies are listed here); I essentially relapsed and had a tough go of things before again getting sober for what has been about 6 months (read this for more about my life with addiction), and I’m still a writer…
Okay, so on to what I want to say here today.
It tickles me when I come across a channel or blog with their last post update something like “I’m finally back!” or saying “will resume uploading stuff regularly”, and then they never post ever again.
I find it amusing because I totally fucking get that.
I get their hope and intent at setting their goal to return to something with newfound enthusiasm and dedication, but it just doesn’t work out that way.
Priorities change.
People change.
Things change.
That makes sense, right?
Does it though??
I am turning the big three-zero in 2019, can you believe it?
I know, I seem so wise for one so young… lol?
No, but seriously – I’m pretty flabbergasted by that age.
Of course, turning 30 is a big milestone that not everyone has the privilege or good luck to ever reach, so naturally, this needs to be something celebrated with big fanfare.
But still… 30?
Continue reading “archie’s ambitious pre-30 writing goal that can also get you inspired too, maybe?”
Hey hello!
In the spirit of me running late this morning, let’s get straight into this, shall we?
So that’s a quickie on what I, archie the writer, have been doing.
Now I want to speak a bit to the title of this post, and this phenomenon of how we humans tend to lose perspective, or just become mildly disoriented, in what exactly the fuck we are trying to do – right now, this moment, as you inhale your next breath.
Okay, let me elaborate…
Continue reading “cannot see the trees because of the forest”
Hi bonjour – welcome back.
Despite sporadic blogging habits, the rest of my offline writing life is progressing well.
I am pretty confident that I can describe your greatest fear.
Not only that, but I can prescribe a formula to squash it flat.
And at no charge either!
(though I’m not responsible either if you fail to squash it right, and then it just becomes agitated and even scarier and haunts you forever, or something like that… okay?)
Okay, but seriously, I probably can describe your greatest fear.
Remember when you were a kid, and you would play games that had this big surprise?
“What Time is it Mister Wolf?”, where “the Wolf” would keep answering your questions with the time 3 o’clock or 12 o’clock or 8 o’clock, until LUNCHTIME!
Scared me every time… I knew it was coming, but still…
Without really meaning to, I seemed to have become a writer’s stereotype.
Since late 2017, I have been living up north in the Arctic tundra, on an island of snow, ice and the occasional sunlight. It’s a small town here, the type where everyone knows everyone, or just about any way. Did I mention there was lots of snow?
More to the point, life in the Arctic for me turns out to be damn similar to those few famous authors who found a log cabin in the woods to write their books without any distraction. (As an aside, Thoreau comes to mind as the most iconic cabin-dwelling writer, but how often does that image neglect less-romantic realities such as how Thoreau’s momma lived nearby to do his laundry for him? That truth not only speaks to the unpaid labour of women behind the scenes of famous men but really thwarts that idea of any person as an island onto themselves.)
Total peace and solitude – a writer’s dream come true, right?
Well, um, yeah, actually, sort of…
Continue reading “archie lists… 5 reasons writers should live in the Arctic”
The one known as Ursula K Le Guin has departed.
So it goes…
She is survived by books – full of characters and entire worlds – stories and premises that have impacted countless people in more ways than typical for any author.
There’s a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life,
or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.
— from The Dispossessed
I felt the need to write something about her passing not simply because she was a writer too, or that I have read some of her books, but because she inspired me by the ways in which she integrated her politics into her craft and persona.
So here it goes…
A while back, I shared news about a free online writing course.
Since then, I’ve been keeping a list of some others to share at a later time.
That time is now.
*Cue dramatic music* Continue reading “archie reviews… online writing courses!”
Like everyone, sometimes you have moments when you lose direction.
You struggle to recall why you are doing this, what’s the point, who cares and so forth…
In other words: doubt.
Doubting ourselves and our intentions for whatever we are trying to accomplish.
Doubting our talents as forever inferior, incapable to ever fully accomplish something.
Doubting our medium, the chosen form of artistic expression, to be the proper conduit to channel our deepest truths into something seen, heard, felt, witnessed by another.
Sometimes, I doubt whether I should be writing –
if written words are able to satisfy what I desperately need to say.
But when I begin to lose clarity in my purpose, I turn to something, anything, that demonstrates the true beauty of the written word.
It helps remind myself how it has been done before and can be done again in new ways.
Continue reading “finding beauty in written word [again]”
Hey again! Thanks for stopping in 🙂
Oh, how am I doing? Gee, you are so thoughtful – thanks for asking! Continue reading “the slow times of writers (life update #1)”
Good things are found if one knows where to look…
Such as all those free online resources available for writers.
Yes, ‘free’ often means low-quality, but I’m not about that life.
The International Writing Program at the University of Iowa presents Power of the Pen: Identities and Social Issues in Fiction and Nonfiction, a free massive open online course.
This creative writing MOOC will focus on writing about identities, communities, and social issues in fiction and nonfiction.
There is no cost to enroll;
registration is completely free for all participants.No writing experience is required.
Welcoming writers of all communities and identities.
Follow the link by clicking here!
Have fun!
archie.
archie writes 