writing Moments Matter

Grab the Moments that Matter!

This is the title of my current Writing on the Senior Side story published in my local paper.

This is my short poem that begins the story:

We are sometimes laughing and loving.

We are sometimes secretly sick.

We are sometimes seduced by sadness.

We sometimes soar on invisible wings

We sometimes slip into the abyss.

We sometimes wonder

 Are we running out of time?

We, who live on the senior side.

We sometimes ponder

What is important? What is right?

What is our moment to grab and hold tight?

The story is about our day trip to the big city to see the Titanic Artifact Exposition and my personal connections to the Titanic. You can find it on my website, mgailstelter.ca, under “Published Pieces.

Grabbing the moments that matter is unique to each of us. The loves of our life are the moments we grab and cherish, but as writers, we also identify our time to write as moments that matter.

As I head into October, I am writing my first mystery novel, continuing to publish my Family Stories book, and writing my 1000 to 1200-word newspaper stories every other week. I am also editing short stories and thinking about entering a contest. Some choices need to be made as I reluctantly acknowledge I am tired, and sometimes not well. I must decide what, in my writing life, is right, what is my moment to grab and hold tight.

Today’s blog is about jumping into writing a mystery and an update on self-publishing my family stories book.

I’ve always wanted to write a mystery. My first thought, when I start any new learning or consider an experience, is to find out, find out everything I can about it. I often like to take a course as my jump start, so it was natural that I took, as part of the Writing Certificate, Writing the Novel. It wasn’t enough. I wanted more, but after six courses and the final project, I didn’t want to take any more courses, at least not for a while. So I went to my next go-to: read and learn. I have been reading Stephen King on Writing. Excellent and helpful, but still not enough. I am reading and enjoying a cozy mystery, Bury the Dead, by Canadian authors Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti. I have read so many mysteries over the years of my long life. Two of my favourite authors are Louise Penny, Anthony Horowitz. Both are masters of well-written, complicated and engaging stories. Like many lovers of reading readers I go in spurts, reading all of Patrica Cornwell’s books and then many others such as Kathy Reichs, Dan Brown, and John Grisham. Reading to write is crucial, but it was still not enough. I want to know about planning and plotting my mystery novel. Next stop, the internet, any free stuff to answer my questions. I found a template. I am not a template writer. I took the template and my notebook and started to write down some possible extensions for what I had already drafted. I thought about everything readers should expect in the first section of my mystery. I thought about everything I had learned and previously tried when writing short story fiction. The planning was fun, and bringing it to life was so enjoyable as the work filled up the page. Okay, the template was a good choice for the first section. Where do I go next? I’m not quite sure. I’ll let you know.

Publishing my Family Stories Book

I decided on the title. I added a preface and table of contents, and the copy line-by-line edit is underway.  I am not looking forward to the next sessions of edits I will be doing after she/he/they are finished.

I am now connected to the book designer and have sent my thoughts on the cover. Finally, I hired a local photographer to take headshots for my picture on the back cover. I am not eager to have a photo; I am old with white hair. I sent her an email telling her I have lots of wrinkles and asked if she was good at miracles. So why am I having the photo? I want my as-yet-unborn great-grandchild to know what I looked like when I wrote the book. (And it’s not so bad, as there are pictures of my younger self in the book.)

I am looking forward to holding my first book in my hands and sharing it.