The Germ Theory
When I was taking the Masters’ Degree in English at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, I was taught the germ theory of writing. You hear a story or read an article in a magazine and take a word…
Read MoreThe Germ Theory
Poetry Carcasses
I was grumbling to John this morning about how every topic I think of to write a poem about seems to have been done to death by greater and lesser poets than I. He told me about the view of…
Just Imagine!
Imagination is as much a thief of time as procrastination. The difference is that imagination gives you something wonderful to show for the time it steals, while the time stolen by procrastination is merely wasted and gone forever. I discovered…
Writing Poetic Forms
I wrote my first Haiku the other day. Twenty-five years ago when I first heard about them I thought: “Oh, what a cute little poem.” Try as I might back then, I just couldn’t make one. I finally conceded defeat.…
Purposeful Poetry
I’ve been reading and writing and thinking about poetry a lot lately. I’ll soon have enough for another book. What I’ve been thinking about has been its construction. In many ways it’s a lot like writing an essay. It has…
Playing Chess
[If you read my blog post last week about free association, you will recognize the same principle at work in this post. The trigger for writing this was my husband, John, crowing about winning a game in an online chess…
Free Association
To be able to free associate is a very useful skill. To let your mind roam freely and leap from idea to idea no matter how preposterous is helpful when you’re stuck. Start with where you are and keep track…
Ideas
Someone once asked me where I get my ideas from. In other words, where does creativity come from? Two different questions, really. My ideas come from others’ stories, family lore, newspaper articles, books and other places. Wherever I can hook…
After retirement, I looked around for something to do.
After retirement I looked around for something to do. John was a professor at a very good liberal arts college in Missouri. The college had a good tuition remission program for staff and families, from the groundskeepers on up. So…
I have always wanted to write …
I have always wanted to write. No one encouraged me in my school years so I became a nurse. I took my R.N. At the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax, Class of ’68. I worked awhile , then decided to…
It Was Snowing Yesterday …
Margaret Westlie on Reading, Writing and Life Look for a new blog post each week. It was snowing yesterday and the day before, and I was thinking back to other years and how we always experience seasons. As a Canadian,…
