I sometimes say the first draft of a novel is the most satisfying to write. When the creative spirit gallops free as a mare in the fields, kicking up its heels, you know the work is going splendidly! But when it’s not, your spirit [creative or otherwise] drags along like a lame donkey hauling a cart of manure. Life can be unmitigated hell. (more…)

It’s a marvellous “high” seeing those three hundred pages stacked up on your desk-the first draft! How long did it take? Three months, a year, a decade? I remember when the last page chugged out of my, by then, wheezing printer that I gazed at that first draft in awe for at least ten minutes. It was the first glimpse of my new-born.

But how did it get there? It’s important to give that some thought, especially now that the real work of revising lies ahead. What did I learn from completing it? (more…)

Only a week or so ago, I posted a blog here entitled, what I learned from Ernest Hemingway. In it I said that Hemingway was good writer because he let the dialogue of the characters do most of the heavy lifting-that is the writer could convey emotion, mood, feeling etc., to the reader. To do otherwise was tantamount to having an annoying stage director come out in the middle of a scene to comment on what the characters were thinking and feeling. (more…)

As I said the other day, I thought I’d post a few articles about my musings about writing. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Sometimes critics speak of a writer’s voice. But what do yousuppose they mean?  I think of it as a goal to be achieved on a very long road. It’s that uniquely personal “way” you have of expressing yourself to the world in word and thought-the sum total of yourself as a human being. You might say it’s the Holy Grail of writing. (more…)

Right now, where I am, it’s about 2:30 in the afternoon on Christmas eve day. What I really like is the quiet which sometimes descends at this time after all the running around for food and gifts. Just a moment for quiet reflection before celebrations get going.

I’m going to start posting [today]some articles on writing and assorted topics and so, I hope you drop back in soon.

Here’s another favorite character of mine, Dorothy Crawford, widow of Richard Crawford, Harry’s deceased law partner, Richard. Have you ever met women, who have no idea how to live when the husband dies, because they have been so dominated all their lives? When I started in law in 1973, I met a lot of them. Dorothy is about to get the shock of her life about her husband in this chapter.  Read on!  (more…)

  So, now that you have met Harry Jenkins and his elderly client Norma Dinnick, I am going to introduce you to Dr. Robert Hawke, Harry’s adversary. This charming, but sinister madman claims to have a cure for Alzheimer’s. Where do we meet him? In his bathtub at the King Edward Hotel in Toronto.

I’ll be posting various chapters, so please read on and come back for more. Hopefully, you’ll be so intrigued that you will have to buy A Trial of One.  CHAPTER 2 (more…)