Time and Light Switches

Finally this year comes to a close. It went faster than I expected. Far faster than I ever knew years could fly. I’m not sure what I was expecting from this year, but I can say it wasn’t exactly this. What I mean to say is, I made good on more than one promise and accomplished more than I ever excepted myself to.   I don’t want to brag, for I have sat in the seat of survival being the crowning accomplishment for far longer than I’d like to admit. So all the little and big achievements really just add up to one big one for me. To know that I am more capable than I thought, that I can do more hard things than I gave myself credit for.  I’m halfway there, five years in, five years free. It took me nearly a decade to get as bad as I did, to walk so far into the darkness. So I don’t mind if it takes me ten years to walk back into the light. But this soon to be past year has felt like the beginning, like the work I’ve put in might just be starting to pay off. I’ve still got much...

  Christmas is weird this year. It gets weirder with every passing year, and too the magic comes back stronger each year. Its the oddest thing to go on experiencing life long past the point that you thought you would. And I don’t mean to be dreary and bring that up so often, but its a thing that taints my world view, it will go on colouring my view of life for years to come I think. So Christmas feels weird, both so here and close, and far off in the dusty corner of my childhood. I suppose this is just a part of growing up, experiencing life from new lights and finding which one suits you best. Its long and arduous but I think, if I’ve got this right, it will be worth the journey.   I’m hoping for a white Christmas, blankets of snow and excuses to drink hot chocolate. I always want a snowy Christmas day, its a funny thing we, as my family, will argue and banter about. Some of us love the snow more than others. There’s much yelling about “prayer radiuses” which you’ll only un...

As the year begins it’s slow wined down, I too begin to slow. I’d say I’m still motivated to get my work done, in finishing draft two, but it looks different this month so far. The holidays bring about a plethora of feelings and not all are comfy cozy.   I’ll start my day loving and singing the praises of winter landscapes. But by the 7th gust of wind that stains my cheeks rosy I’m less agreeable to the winter season. With a mug of tea in hand I’ll be right back to ogling the snow. I guess you could say it’s an on-again off-again relationship.  As the times tease me about almost changing I’ve begun to lose some patience. I’m not proud of it, just aware. You could say it’s not a cozy feeling on my part.  I’ve come to an important realization, that I’m sure I’ve arrived at before, that this blog is more than the simple content I create. At the absolute least its my way of forcing accountability, without it I’m not sure I would have started writing a book. I write ever...

Chapter 16 is my favourite chapter. In case you missed it, I’ve been writing a book since March. For it being my first novel I’d say its going quite well. But chapter 16 is my favourite. There’s something about it, between the dialogue and setting and overall feel it, its just my favourite.   Its honestly taken me much longer to work through draft 2 than I was anticipating. I really thought that it would only take me 23 days of work, because its 23 chapters. And by the time this is all said and done it will have taken me 23 days of active work, but months of sitting on it.  Anyways I just have to be honest for a second, while I’m writing this my delete key is beginning to falter. Its showing its age and over-use. And I could go into a poetic diatribe about how I’ve probably deleted more words than I’ve wrote. But the reality is, this computer I write on is nearly 4 years old, which isn’t that old I know. But I’ve written multiply times a week, soemthos 7 days a week, for...

  The last of the month and the 200th blog post for Time and Light Switches land on the same day. I just flew cross country, coast to coast, and am a little emotional for a myriad of reasons. Not the least of which is that this is the 200th post. 200 times I’ve sat down to write and had something to say, whether it was about emotions and life, or the nature of the creative process.   In honour of 200 posts I’ll share some snippets from the writing that came tumbling out while I was flying.  -I cried the two days leading up to this flight. I thought I was in the clear from the tears when saying goodbye to my older brothers felt more like walking into the next room than flying to the opposite coast. But the night before, when I had to hold my inconsolable 10 year old cousin while she sobbed about how FaceTime wasn’t the same, yes that nearly broke me in two. I was about one more sob away from staying and just forcing a way where there wasn’t one. It’s the hardest thing ...

  I’m not spontaneous by nature, and if given little time to think my immediate answer to questions will always be no. However, Sunday night, near midnight, my mom calls my brother and I up to ask if we would like to join them in California for thanksgiving. Mind you I live in Nova Scotia, the exact opposite coast and other side of the continent. In what some would see as a shocking turn of events I got on a plane Tuesday at noon and few across the continent.   What does all this have to do with the creative process you may ask, well not much I must admit. However all of life is relevant to the process.  Half of my family lives out on the west coast and the other half lives on the east coast. We spend a lot of time on FaceTime and a lot of time sending messages in a group chat.  My parents were on an extended trip on the west coast, and my brother and I were at home carrying on with regular life. When my mom called near midnight anything could have come out of her mo...

  Been think about motivation this week, how it can make or break me. How its not something you wait around for to fall into your lap, but something you take with your shaky hands and bruised knees. I’ve spent the last year and a half trying to take back my physical health. No one really prepares you for just how responsible you are for your own health out here in the wild we call adulthood.   I could sit here and list the ailments and discomforts that pushed me into making a change, but the important part is that I’m just trying my best to eat a little better and move around a little more. So I’ve ate more broccoli in the last two years than the whole of my life combined. And I’ve tried every type of physical movement to try and stick with some sort of physical activity. I’m not convinced that I’ve found the exact formula that works for me, because when I get sick, or busy, or just happens to be that time of the month, I tend to fall down on the job.  But this thing ...