I know that summer is not over yet but I can’t wait for fall to share my ‘what I did on my summer vacation‘ story! 
Writers are by nature a solitary being and at times we can become very withdrawn and introspective while engrossed in writing work. Ask any writer what their dream vacation would be and most would lament for a space and place to be alone to write. My summer experience was for me one better than that. Not only did have a unique space and place but I had the rare gift of writer-types camaraderie.
As a successful applicant to the Sage Hill Writing Experience, I had the honour of sharing ten days with 30 other writers of all genres and specifically four other fiction writers, the Sage Sisters as we are now known, all work-shopping our novels. Under the direction of Terry Jordan (Beneath That Starry Place), we each shared a unique writing-life-altering experience. The knowledge gained, the direction and guidance in my own writing are beyond measure but the greatest gift was not only the honing of my craft but in the support and friendship from the ‘sisters’ and also from the faculty and support staff. (Terry Jordan and other faculty bios)
All that would have been more than enough, but for me the absolute best part of the entire experience was the solitude I and other writers at Sage Hill thrived in. The isolating setting tucked away in a monastery setting, hosted by Franciscan Friars at St. Michael’s Retreat perched above the town of Lumsden, 30 km NW of Regina in Saskatchewan’s picturesque Qu’Appelle Valley was worth the price of admission.
The quiet daily routine, simple surroundings, simple meals, limiting social and as little contact with the real world as one cared for, along with supportive retreat-mates all seeking the same made for an energy which lent to prolific creative juices pouring onto the pages.
I know my writing will forever benefit from this unique opportunity and encourage anyone who can seek out an opportunity such as Sage Hill Writing Experience to do so and treasure each and every creative moment. I know I have a renewed outlook on my writing experience thanks to this unique and amazing opportunity that my summer of 2010 gifted to me.
Thanks to instructor Terry Jordan, my Sage Sisters, the Friars and hosting support staff at the retreat and especially to the Sage Hill ED, Philip Adams, who performed his endless role of ‘everything to everyone’ with a kind, loving and comical heart making each and every day a pleasure to be there.
Did you manage to escape to any writing retreat/workshop locations? I would love to share the info with others - please leave a comment or email me.

 "In this poetry chap book author Michelle Greysen
               shares her poetic reflections on falling in love ...  
                           first love, new love, forbidden love and true love."

For details and ordering info go to:
http://www.lulu.com/content/7550664

   (if you are in southern Alberta you may reserve your copy for pickup at Inktiques or want to arrange for a signed copy mailed worldwide please contact Michelle for a shipping quote)

COMING SOON ... 
Inklings On Writing by Michelle Greysen
For upcoming titles by Greysen Ink Inc. Publishing - please visit 
http://greysenink.com and select "Book Publishing"

Thank you for all your positive support of my writing and as always I welcome any and all comments.

Warm regards,

Michelle Greysen

michelle@GreysenInk.com

I invite you to grow and challenge your own writing and please contact me to receive the early release information for this title due out this summer 2009. Thank you for asking the questions that inspired this affirming book on discovering the writer in you.

michelle@InklingsOnWriting.com

Warm regards,

Michelle Greysen

www.GreysenInk.com

http://twitter.com/GreysenInk

Author, Inklings On Writing
ISBN 978-0-9735549-2-2
forthcoming summer 2009

When you are faced with those panic moments of what was I thinking when I took on this story, remember to break it into small parts, sections of ideas from which to jot down related information to grow a future bigger story. Don’t overwhelm yourself with an enormous daunting project but rather enjoy the creative process one paragraph, one idea, on idea at a time. Don’t feel as if you have this great task ahead of you, rather set a goal for the next hour, how many words will you write, or pages, or a paragraph perhaps. Decide where you want your story to be in an hour and just go there, just see where the words take you. Stop at your pre-decided goal break, re-evaluate your goal, set a new one if you are ready, and carry on.

 Write and think and imagine in small scenes and settings and stop to write a snippet of the experience and eventually the parts will come together in the whole. Enjoy the process.

"Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs." ... Henry Ford

As writers we are naturally observing wonderful ideas all around us in our everyday. We see more colour, more humour, more description, more everything than do the non-creative types balancing our energy in the universe.

So how does one get these ideas from our keen eye, processed through our observant brains and out onto the paper? For me unless I make a constant effort to write it down the observation is quickly lost. Training oneself to gather those ideas and log that which grabs your attention is a self-taught skill a writer will need to develop to create their own idea bank.

When something grabs your attention you must have a method of recording not just the idea but the sensory appeal of the moment. Details need to be noted to draw on later as you use the scenario for inspiration in your own storytelling. It is not just about writing down the facts, but rather about writing down the feelings. Don’t just jot down an observation but instead record the emotions. I heard one writer describe it as not just telling the reader it is raining, but leave them feeling like they are being rained upon.

Note where your emotions took you, what it felt like, smelled like and even sounded like if it is relevant to the experience. All these noted details will come in handy when in your writing you recreate the emotion through a similar event or a totally unrelated story line but a desire to invoke a similar experience in your reader. A reader has to relate to your work to enjoy it and connect with it. An emotional connection to an experience will give them that hook to your storyline.

I have a creative artist son who at a young age could describe his own sketching ability without even realizing his profoundness in his reality of his talents. I simply commented one day on how amazing he could draw a likeness of a face, and his response was one of those collecting the idea moments for me. It sticks with me still today and always as it applies to both writing and drawing as it is a creative process statement. What he said to me was, “I don’t draw the face I draw the light and shadows around it and the face appears”.

Writing is exactly that skill. Write the observations. Write what it smelled like, what it felt like, the emotions it invoked and the story will appear around the idea. As in the sketch lines on a work of art, in writing the words let the reader see the story. Your reader needs to feel what you felt and to be drawn in as you were when you first had the idea. Create a constant ongoing system to record and collect your ideas.

Time is an elusive partner to a writer. Some days there is never enough time, others there is far too much time spent with no words on a page. Needing time to write is as important as needing that place to write and the passion to write. Without time driven passion and the most inspirational desk space is wasted.

Time is one of those things that a writer has to make a deal with. First and foremost a writer must decide exactly how much time they need to write. If a goal of a large word count, or chapters, or projects is on the horizon break that down into how many hours in a week you will ultimately need to attain your writing success.

It truly is necessary to take a week long snapshot of your life, all the elements that take up your time, and block it off on a daily calendar allowing for true writing time. Not checking email time, opening mail time, pitching query time, doodling time, daydreaming time, reading your horoscope on facebook time, but true writing time.

For myself I ultimately want more than 60 hours a week to write. I realize that to not set myself up for failure a realistic goal of 30 hours each week of pure writing time around my hectic life and all the tasks I tackle daily is probably more doable. I had to do an honest assessment of what takes up my time to get a picture of how many hours a day can I realistically write in reasonable blocks of uninterrupted time. Knowing my goal was 30 hours and knowing that I am a neat freak around the housework, a laundry-a-holic, cook real meals, need my evenings of down time relaxing with family, and run a seven-day-a-week year-round antique store with very little staff, do all my own accounting and also freelance magazine write as part of my income, there was not a lot of space to find 30 hours in a week.

I did it, it is on a schedule, highlighted, colour coded and achievable, eventually. It will take some time to get used to the dedication, and some time to train myself and people in my life that this is what I do and I am not just sitting at my desk waiting for their call or email. As my writing projects develop the passion of the research and the story lines draw me more and more to the process and the time is easier to dedicate to. The time spent is necessary for the result, the vision, and the journey starts with the commitment.

Be it 10 hours a week or 50 hours a week writing has to start with a commitment. Being realistic of that block of daily time over the week, with consideration to your success is the start of an exciting process. The necessity of making your job as a writer as important as your job as a parent, partner, homemaker, provider, career, friend, and everything else you tackle will finally sharing equal billing and come into your reality.

It will only transpire when you pay attention, dedicate part of your world to writing, and make a true commitment daily to sit still and write. That does not mean you have to write every day, it means you have to schedule realistic writing time into your weekly schedule as you do all your tasks. Work towards meeting your schedule on a regular basis, but more importantly do not give up when you do not make a daily scheduled block, because it will come around again tomorrow and you get another chance at carrying on back on schedule.

Start today, make your commitment to yourself, realistically schedule your daily weekly time and honour yourself with keeping your commitment to your writing life.

“Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year - and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!”  Anthony Robbins

The discipline comes into play when one can take those constant inspirations onto a piece of paper. To me that does not mean simply scribbling them somewhere, jotting an idea or a character sketch into a notebook when the idea hits, or making mental notes to someday use an enlightening scenario in a future story, but rather it means truly writing the words. Not the kind of writing on the fly on loose pages, but the process of sitting down to gather all those scribbling and notes and creating the whole from the parts.

The place from which a writer writes is as important as what they write. The private space where the surroundings are inspirational, where the surface feels rights, where thoughts can flow unedited and safely to the page without judgement or a second eye constantly peering into the process is key. The impeccably personal private space from which to write becomes as vital as what one writes.

It does not have to be an elaborate character desk oozing in history, or a sanitized industrial-like clean surface from which to create. But it does have to be private, your own, and tucked away from the distractions of the world. Perhaps you don’t even have a desk from which to write but rather your desk is an old leather valise with your papers and pens and you cart them to your favourite spot in the world to sit and write and your desk is under a tree somewhere in a quiet park. What works is that you create your room, your desk, your place, your very own private personal space where you go to every chance you can to write.

In this place, at this desk, you must respect and honour your platform, your easel, your palate from where your work flows. If you are inspired by personal items in your life surround yourself with them, your family pictures, your good-luck charms, your totems and mementos, your collections that bring you passion, and all things personal. Do not clutter the surface with distractions or negatives, leave your household bills and to do lists in another room away from the creative process and positive space of your writing. Don’t email friends in between writing paragraphs, don’t answer the phone, and don’t even play music if it distracts you, but blast it if it inspires you. Creating your place to write, your room of one’s own, is as important as creating the words. It is the place from which you create and you need it to be as right as any other profession needs a workplace, an artist and a studio, a mechanic and a garage, a doctor and a clinic, a writer and a desk.

Create the private personal inspirational space for the words to flow. Give yourself the gift of a place to write.

“A Women must have money and a room of her own if she is to write” ... Virginia Woolf, from A Room of One’s Own

Passion instils self-energy of unique qualities. To be passionate about whatever one does, be it writing, painting, cooking, accounting, engineering, or whatever the task, one has to be at one with the doing part of being. It is not simply enough to be a writer on has to do writing, and do it in a passionate way.

Writing comes from deep within, and some would argue that it might even come from with-out, from some energetic interruption from the universe as if gifted on to the paper through the writer. However one discovers their words, the lack of passion in doing so makes the job of writing, just that – a job.

Any professional who is passionate about what they do will relay the same message, the lesson of being in the moment and being alive in what one sets out to accomplish on a daily basis.

Drone is a negative low energy term that can be the opposite of passion if one allows the process to overtake the passion. Wandering one’s way though a job, meandering and biding time is not invoking nor engaging your mind with your body. Your mind is a powerful tool, arguably your best tool regardless of your profession. For a writer it is everything. Our mind becomes our go-to place on a moment by moment, word by word basis to get the job done.

The energy that comes from creating one’s work from inside your own head is indescribable to a non-writer and shadows a mystery and romance around the world of a writing lifestyle. That energy when coupled with passion creates a powerful process and when the two are in sync writing becomes a very charmed way to make a living.

It is not always that simple, and all writing be it journalism, research, technical, non-fiction, poetry, novel, script and many many kinds, all come back to one thing – that of the words that must come together on the paper. Those words must filter through the mind of the writer, process themselves onto the paper, and carry a reader’s attention. The simplest newspaper article to the most complex big-screen script must all go through the same process. Without a passion the writer does not only the reader a disservice, but also one to themselves.

Without the passion of writing, the homework and research, the process and the final outcome are lack-lustre and one might as well trade in your pencils and stand behind a counter asking ‘do you want fries with that?’

Why write if you don’t bring a passion to the page? Always pack along your passion when you gather up your tools to write. Carry that passion through the entire experience of research and creating, and it will magically find its way onto the page every single time.

"I can never get people to understand that poetry is the expression of 
excited passion, and that there is no such thing as a life of passion 
any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who 
would ever shave themselves in such a state?"
... Lord Byron, in a letter to Thomas Moore, 5 July 1821