Erin's Journals

Just a thought… You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence. [Octavia E. Butler]

Thank you for coming in to spend some time today – and every day. I don’t know for how long I’ll continue these seven-day-a-week journals, but let me tell you, it’s downright therapeutic (at least on this end). Yes, there’s social media for quick bursts of whatever’s on my alleged mind, but this time with you makes me dig a little deeper. Like I hope I used to do daily with you when I had a day job!

Since radio as my comfort zone is not an option, I’m loving having a place to write here every day. In fact today, writing about writing. Before I get into it, Indigo has asked me to share with you this link, and the news that until Sunday, they’re offering 25% off “Authors We Love” – and rumour has it, I’m one of ’em! Please help support Canadian writers at this time and maybe one day, yours will be among the books people are choosing to keep them company and help raise their spirits or expand their horizons.

A woman named Jessie wrote to me to ask my advice on an eBook she wants to start. While I’m probably the only published author she might feel comfortable reaching out to, I really have only written the one (while contributing to a few others). So I am far from an expert.

But in case, like her, you’re using this time perhaps to start on that project you’ve never had time for, here are the contents of my note to her. If it helps you, then great! It never, ever hurts to share what you know – no matter how much or how little – when someone asks.

I’ve been thinking about your note, Jessie. So here goes (in no particular order)!

1. Write what you know and research what you don’t. The worldwide web can make us all experts – or at least familiar – with what it is we want to write about.

2. Write and write and write and write. I’d done it daily since 2003 when HarperCollins approached me in 2016, so I knew I was ready. 

3. Even if you think you don’t have something to write on a given day, just sit at your laptop and start to type. Often the brain memory of writing comes back and the juices start to flow. You can always cut out the meanderings that began your writing that day; goodness knows that’s how my journal works. I often end up in a completely different place, on a new topic, from what I thought I was going to say that day.

4. If you’re writing a book, think about what you want it to contain. I’m assuming it’s non-fiction, but whatever it is, a storyboard helps A LOT.

I did this with mine: I had a Bristol board and several post-it notes. On each one, I wrote what I wanted a chapter to be. Then I moved them around and marked them as I’d written that chapter. The editor did NOT want me to write in chronological order, and the reasoning behind this was that if you are at a gathering and someone hasn’t seen you in ten years, you do not start telling them about your adventures/events in this way: day one, we went to the Venice. Then we came back and….etc. You write in terms of what’s compelling and then fill it in. Often times this works. 

5. Read authors whom you’d like to emulate. Obviously make your thoughts and writings your own, but if there’s a style you like, then use it. There’s nothing new in the universe. Cite sources; research points of view if you’re sharing someone else’s. The last thing you want is to find you’ve attributed a quote to Einstein that you saw in memes that said HE said, but he did not. If you lose credibility on the small things, you risk losing the reader in the big picture.

6. When I was afraid to start Mourning Has Broken, I actually Googled “how to write a book.” I don’t know that I used anything I found as I had the guidance of some pretty awesome people at HC, but you have a lot of information right at your fingertips. Many successful writers (see Stephen King’s On Writing for example) have shared their process. Almost everyone knows more than I do about writing a book, so soak in their wisdom.

7. Write for your readers, but mostly write for yourself. It’s akin to dancing like no one is watching. Don’t let the little voices in your head tell you you’re wrong or that it’s not good or won’t sell (if that’s your aim) – let an editor do that for you when you’re done. Your job is to tell the story and let someone else worry about the other details. 

8. Pay for an editor. They are worth their weight in gold.

9. Be disciplined. Sit down and set a daily goal for the number of words you want to type on any given day. It doesn’t have to be Atwood – just get your thoughts out through your fingertips. But make sure you put what you’re doing in a high place on your list of priorities or it will be put aside for another day. You always have time for the things you put first.

10. Ask yourself before you begin: What is my message? Who am I writing this for? And finally, what is my end goal?

These are all things I hope will help you as you journey and write.

Take good care and if you have any questions, feel free!

I’ll be back with you here tomorrow. Balancing sleeplessness, incredulity and anxiety with gratitude, peace and more gratitude. 

Who knows what’ll come out of these fingers tomorrow? 

Just a thought… If you get, give. If you learn, teach. [Maya Angelou]

The late Maya Angelou’s birthday is April 4, same as Rob’s. So that quote seemed fitting, even two days after his.

Another quarantine family birthday to mark today: my little sister Leslie, who just finished a gruelling course to reboot her life and become a personal care worker/health care aid, celebrates under these most bizarre circumstances. As I told her yesterday during a zoom call with all four sisters, a birthday marked in quarantine doesn’t count, so you don’t add a year! I mean, I read it on the internet….

Rob’s birthday on Saturday was memorable for all of the right reasons. Our aunt and uncle brought a beautiful hot beef stew with a gorgeous side of mashed potatoes and even some cherry loaf for dessert plus chocolate Girl Guide cookies; our friends and angels from Sidney delivered a lovely chocolate cake plus a small steaming loaf of freshly baked bread. How can we be so lucky?

While out briefly on Friday, I managed to pick up two packages of Super Nibs for Rob’s “big” gift from me. (Well, besides the wink-wink nudge-nudge; if you saw Saturday’s journal you know about that. LOL) There were no Twizzlers, but just three packages of Super Nibs and I felt that taking them all would be unfair.

Unlike so many, the man needs nothing. And we were blessed to have the gift of food literally dropped at our door. But the emotional highlight of Rob’s birthday was opening a card that Colin (with help from Brooke, I suspect!) had drawn with two bananas talking to each other on the phone. I videoed Rob opening it, if you want to see it. Here’s a link.

Colin was delighted with Rob’s reaction, too; when his mom showed him the same video he exclaimed, “Again! Again!”

Saturday’s journal also has pics of Colin and his new sister, if you’re not quite used to checking in here seven days a week. Yesterday: thoughts on Dad. And can I brag a little bit? I heard from my sisters during a four-way Zoom chat yesterday that he’s turned the 15% rent reduction on his place into cheques for the Salvation Army and his local food bank in Kelowna. I’m so proud of him; we all are.

Rob and I have decided we’re going to follow his lead, starting with our local food bank. So many people are what they call food insecure at the best of times; these are the worst of times and those of us blessed to have more than enough are called upon to share.

As I used to demonstrate live on the air, it takes literally one minute to make an online donation to the Daily Bread Food Bank, or whomever you want to share whatever money you wish to give, if you have any to spare right now.

It seems there’s so little we can do to help our sisters and brothers in need, and if it’s not monetary aid, then you know how a phone call or video visit can brighten someone’s day. They always brighten mine!

Take good care of yourself and try to think good thoughts. Hard times can’t last forever but people will always remember how you took care of, or thought of them, during these challenging weeks and months.

I’ll be back here with you tomorrow.

Just a thought… Feeling gratitude and not expressing it, is like wrapping a present and not giving it. [William Arthur Ward]

Ah, Palm Sunday. Lauren was born on a Palm Sunday in 1991; one week later, after we were sprung from hospital following a bout of jaundice caused by her arriving three weeks early, I put her in a bright yellow dress for Easter Sunday mass. Since her skin tone was a combination of red and yellow, the dress looked AWFUL. But I thought that since I’d had it on a doll for years, it would be nice to have her in it. Thankfully, I don’t have a picture to share!

How far we’ve come in baby fashions! Seeing the outfits that Brooke puts on darling Jane just lifts our hearts. Brooke’s generous with pictures and was hoping to dress up her little doll to take out but, of course, that’s not happening. So we get to share in the sweetness!

Colin’s call with Grandad was super cute yesterday and he’d made a sign that said Happy Birthday Grandad on it. A hand-drawn card arrived in yesterday’s mail, just in time, and it was just wonderful. 

As for Rob’s birthday, because we’ve basically ordered everything we need online, I couldn’t come up with one thing for him this time. But he got lots of phone calls and emails and greetings from folks on my social media, so it was a nice day, topped off by a beautiful turkey dinner we prepared together and from which we’ll have a week’s worth of meals. It was far cooler in our neck of the woods (about 8C) than it was for many folks who read this journal and we are waiting for island weather to improve!

I’ve been visiting with my dad by phone a lot; he calls about every three days and although many of the stories are ones he’s told me in previous calls, I sure don’t mind. They’re exercising extreme caution in the place he calls home in Kelowna and we’re relieved about that.

There don’t seem to be any cases there and they’re even lowering the rent by 15% because the residents can’t take part in the usual activities and use the facilities the way they normally would. Also, given that many of the staff have been laid off, their overhead is much lower. Nice move, though, to reduce the costs of living there for the folks who are pretty much isolated from their loved ones.

I’m so glad Dad has his companion Dawna and that they’re able to enjoy their dinners together each evening, as well as quiet time spent with Dad reading to her from the various books about The Bible that she enjoys.

They did have a “block party” of sorts this past week though: residents set up chairs outside their doors and listened to a musician who played and sang for them from down the hall. Quite inventive, I’d say, and good for keeping up people’s spirits!

Dad made his usual Easter joke about hiding his own eggs next Sunday, so all is well with his sense of humour. We talk about the Blue Jays World Series reruns, climate change (his favourite topic to get me going), the weather and what my sisters are up to.

Here’s one of my favourite photos with my Dad, taken five years ago.

I’m fearful every day of losing this soon-to-be 87-year-0ld man, but we know that, given his prostate cancer diagnosis near 20 years ago, every day with him – on the phone or in person – is a gift.

Come to think of it, if these times have reminded us of anything, for ALL of us, every day is a gift.

And I’m grateful that you come here each day just to share in a moment of the unwrapping.

Stay safe, stay healthy – and I’ll be back with you here tomorrow.

Just a thought… I exist in two places, here and where you are. [Margaret Atwood]

Welcome in – and I’ve got a treat for us on a special day.

I thought I’d share with you today – thanks to their mom Brooke and dad Phil – pictures of two of the sweetest faces in our world. They’re thousands of kilometres away, yes, but we get to share some Facetime every weekend and Brooke sends us photos on a wonderfully regular basis.

This is sweet baby Jane. She turned six months old on the 30th, has two shiny teeth and is just a total beauty. Last Sunday when we were chatting with Colin, as Daddy carried Jane, she reached out her arm and waved back at us. We thought that was sweet, but what’s even more remarkable is Phil said she hadn’t done that before! It’s just that easy for that little petunia to wrap us around her fingers.

The most wonderful thing is how she and Colin adore each other. He has such fun making her laugh and she doesn’t take her eyes off him.

It won’t be a surprise now, as Rob will read this before it gets posted, but our Sunday Facetime has been moved up to today since it’s his birthday. It promises to be the highlight of his day – ’cause he’s going to be wanting some “cuddling” and I’m gonna be like…

Have a gentle day – try to stay sane and I’ll be back here with you tomorrow.

Just a thought… Sometimes we get so caught up in trying to accomplish something big, that we fail to notice the little things that give life its magic. [Angel Chernoff]

This should feel like a bit of a freedom day for Rob and for me: two weeks ago we began our Canadian self-isolation and our 14 days are up. I’d been self-isolating for two weeks prior to that in California, as I had a bit of a cough and didn’t want to scare other people.

Something I learned from Stephen Colbert the other night: the etymology of the word “quarantine.” From Wikipedia:

The word quarantine comes from quarantena, meaning “forty days,” used in the 14th-15th-century Venetian language and designating the period that all ships were required to be isolated before passengers and crew could go ashore during the Black Death plague epidemic.

By the way, the late night shows are back. I’m loving that we can see the humorous moments, even in some of the most horrific events in our history, through the eyes of the hosts and their teams of writers. It’s the only way I can digest what is happening, and saves me from having to watch any of Trump’s podium rallies.

“#1 on Facebook,” he bragged like a nine-year-old the other day. Not only is that a lie (as if it matters, because President Obama has far more FB followers), but just think of how ridiculous he sounded saying it.

“New tone” or not, it’s still mindboggling that this malignant narcissist is at the helm and spewing his garbage. As I say, thankfully, someone else is watching it for us. Torontonian and former Star reporter Daniel Dale, now a Trump fact-checker, should get danger pay. And free therapy.

Come to think of it, that’s what we could all use these days. When we look back at the end of January, we’re almost certain that Rob had a case of the coronavirus. Of course, we don’t know for sure, but he was sicker than he could ever remember being: exhausted, coughing and, although he didn’t have a thermometer, a suspected fever.

At that time, I was in Ottawa and not around to help or catch it from him, but I can’t remember him being that sick. Given that he’d been in a local casino just prior to that, with its cesspool of germ-laden buttons and surfaces, and people who’d come from who-knows-where, it’s entirely possible that’s where he picked up a bug.

If that’s the case, then the incubation period was fast – less than three days. In retrospect, it seems possible, as it appears this virus is affecting people with varying intensities. If it was COVID-19, we’re very fortunate, we know. And we’re still exercising extreme caution. 

We want to give blood. We want to go grocery shopping. Those two things, I think we can do with the proper precautions. We have a package to pick up at the post office after a Canada Post worker inexplicably left a notice at our front door earlier this week – without ringing the doorbell – when we were both inside the house (which he or she might have expected).

Perhaps that’s the new protocol for the people on the front lines and, if so, we respect it – completely. But we weren’t looking forward to going anywhere except to pick up a few supplies: a turkey dinner seems to be in our immediate future.

I received a video that I thought was well worth sharing. In it, a store employee outlines what she needs from US and everything in this is a solid reminder of how to protect and conduct ourselves during the rare outings we make. Here’s a link.

Please take a few minutes to watch and share this informative and entertaining video, and thanks for coming by. Tomorrow – yes, another Saturday journal on the way – I’m going to treat you to a few pictures of our six-month old baby banana granddaughter Jane that I think will take your mind off all of our worries, if only for a moment or two.

Stay safe, stay sane. We can do this.