Winnipeg has begun to feel claustrophobic. Let the irony sink in as I will trade this city for New York, a densely populated metropolis, in a short time. They say Winnipeg feels like a city with a small-town feel. We do have a thriving arts scene, the roll-up-your-sleeves kind, we have the NHL Jets and our Human Rights Museum. Winnipeg even got a very nice write-up from National Geographic. Another irony: New York also made that same list. Guess what destination grabbed my attention?
Between bouts of wanderlust, I have two writing courses on the go. I traded in my medical terms for an online Reading Fiction course from Gotham Writer’s Workshop out of New York. It involves reading short pieces of things like how an author uses the third person limited to tell a story. We then do an exercise like writing a 500-word story about a woman getting drunk, getting fresh with one of the guests, and the husband getting her to leave. Oh, and tell it from the POV of a seven-year-old. It’s a six-week course helping me to read fiction for its part yet doesn’t feel like a traditional English class. Otherwise, we would have pieces of the story all over the metaphorical floor.
The second, writing-related thing, involves the 2016 Writer’s Circle run out of a WPL (Winnipeg Public Library) branch. Huzzah! I had to apply and yelped getting the you-made-it email. The circle will help my 2014 NaNo draft, the one daring me to mold it into something I can take it all the way. Julia Cameron once wrote about a creative project having synchronicity, and this draft has do-it vibes emanating from my Google Drive. It’s scary as hell, but that’s like most things in life. It’s all doing the writing part of the writing thing.
I am not the only one, as usual, wanting to get away from it all. The students madly scramble to get assignments handed in, presentations prepared, while dreaming of bed/warm place/not seeing the college for a week. We can all use a break as the north wind asserts itself, again, making not only my face hurt but my hands and scalp. I forget to hydrate more in the winter as the air dries my skin to paper.
My dreams consist of one phrase on a card from a former co-worker: Take a trip worth writing about. Almost there.
Unpaused Life 