Writing Archives

June 19, 2023 Video Creative
April 4, 2023 Creativity and Working Around Ablest Language
December 31, 2022 On Writing and 2022
December 11, 2022 Chris Boucher (1943-2022)
August 3, 2022 Remembering Mike Filey
June 11, 2022 Video Essays
June 22, 2021 Space Colonies Group Chat, 2151 CE
August 14, 2019 Launching this September: The Night Girl
October 11, 2018 Red Maple Nomination
July 3, 2018 Books 49, 50, 51, and 52
May 25, 2018 Ups and Downs
April 25, 2018 I'm getting tired of still having to deal with this crud...
March 15, 2018 The Return of Amazing Stories
March 7, 2018 Hanging Out With the Dream King
The Dream King's Daughter Becomes My Sixth Published Novel
February 17, 2018 On the Need for an Integrated Transit Plan
Part 1: Expand the Inter-City Bus Network
January 22, 2018 Contemplating Failure, Seven Years Later
January 12, 2018 One Year Later
December 8, 2017 Remembering When Ontario Was an Oil Power
November 25, 2017 Books #43, 44, 45, 46, 47 and 48
November 23, 2017 The Places Where We Remember
October 23, 2017 Good Places to Write in Toronto - The UPStairs Lounge
October 19, 2017 Off to Ottawa
October 13, 2017 The Anti Cookie Monster
August 9, 2017 On the Death of VIA Rail
July 22, 2017 On Pockets
July 16, 2017 On Ontario's Reinventing the Wheel
July 7, 2017 Canada's connection to the past is being degraded
July 4, 2017 On Meeting Gordon Korman
April 24, 2017 The Curator of Forgotten Things Goes Shopping
April 9, 2017 On Kitchener in Bloom
March 3, 2017 End the Agreement
February 20, 2017 Fixing Fixed Incomes
January 27, 2017 Where the Wasps Were
January 25, 2017 It's important to stand up for the truth
October 24, 2016 The Porcelain Anniversary
October 18, 2016 How Stupid People Threaten the World
October 10, 2016 Books #39, 40, 41 and 42
September 30, 2016 Many, Many Thank Yous
September 21, 2016 It's the Little Things that Count...
August 30, 2016 The Chastened Society
Or, What is Reverse Steampunk?
July 27, 2016 Another Column From the Post...
July 24, 2016 Latest Columns
July 9, 2016 On Bakka-Phoenix Books and the Life Long Passion
June 30, 2016 The Blue Fireman
June 16, 2016 The Attack of the Narratives
June 4, 2016 Dedication
May 31, 2016 Run, Boy, Run!
The Sun Runners Soundtrack
May 22, 2016 Smile If You're Riding Minnesota's LRT
May 11, 2016 Welcome, Swan Riders!
April 25, 2016 Happiness is a Cold Nose
March 29, 2016 Of Buses and Streetcars
March 22, 2016 Books #36 & 37
March 5, 2016 The Writing Life
March 2, 2016 Brand Extension
A Short Harry Potter Fan Fic
February 25, 2016 Desk Photographs
February 22, 2016 Author Photographs
December 1, 2015 Things I've Written Lately
October 27, 2015 The Guy and the Girl Who Lived...
October 21, 2015 Books 33, 34 & 35
October 1, 2015 Things I've Written Lately
September 21, 2015 Farewell to the Office
September 20, 2015 Post #3000
August 5, 2015 Smellorama
July 25, 2015 Ex Machina, What I'm Writing, and Things
June 5, 2015 The Mystery of the Missing Water
May 28, 2015 Just Remember that Somebody Had to Consider the Possibilities
April 10, 2015 Throne of Scorpions
Erin Bow's The Scorpion Rules Cover Revealed
March 25, 2015 My Thoughts on the Plot of Frozen Fever
March 11, 2015 The Art of Scorpions
February 13, 2015 Thirteen Years Ago Today
December 2, 2014 Books 26, 27 and 28
November 1, 2014 On a Life Turned Somewhat Upside Down
September 1, 2014 Just What Cats Need...
August 19, 2014 The Last Two Weeks of Summer
June 29, 2014 Assorted Thoughts on a Sunday Morning.
June 9, 2014 Ruth Graham is Embarrassed that You Like Young Adult Novels So Much.
June 4, 2014 Descendant of the Dinosaurs
May 16, 2014 Cue Angry E-mails In 3... 2... 1... Ah, here we go...
May 3, 2014 Updates for May
April 19, 2014 My Birthday, the Universe and Everything
April 2, 2014 You've Come a Long Way, Baby!
March 3, 2014 The Curator of Forgotten Things
January 31, 2014 Why, Thank You!
December 30, 2013 Big and Little
The Time of the Doctor Reviewed
December 23, 2013 "Giant Inflatable Santas Unite Neighbourhood's Christmas Spirit"...
November 21, 2013 Maple Blossoms, by Vivian
November 10, 2013 Power
October 20, 2013 Fall Deepens
October 13, 2013 Blue Sun, by Vivian Bow
September 23, 2013 What I've Been Writing Lately - Fall Equinox Edition
September 20, 2013 The Thrill of Embarrassment
September 11, 2013 The Beach at the End of the Line
August 16, 2013 What I've Been Writing Lately
July 4, 2013 An Educational Toy
June 19, 2013 This Blog is Not Abandoned
April 11, 2013 A Poem
April 7, 2013 In the Sun
March 10, 2013 Jealousy
March 8, 2013 Someone is Watching Me
February 3, 2013 Hulk vs. She Hulk
December 8, 2012 The Forgotten Tax Number
October 25, 2012 The Things that Pop In My Head
October 17, 2012 Whither Self-Publishing (and Fan Fiction)
October 9, 2012 Six Books Down, Two to Go
August 20, 2012 How to Write Four Books in a Month
July 12, 2012 News
July 10, 2012 Nocturnal Revisions
June 28, 2012 Nocturnal Adaptations
June 12, 2012 The Waiting Game
April 23, 2012 So Big, and Yet So Small
April 19, 2012 The Man I Was II
April 10, 2012 Echoes and Fingerprints
February 23, 2012 And Now For a Little Cross-Promotion
February 21, 2012 News You Do Not Want to Print...
February 20, 2012 Having breakfast at the corner of King and Dufferin.
February 3, 2012 Attack of the Zombie Lego Hordes!
February 2, 2012 A Groundhog Day Resolution
January 20, 2012 The Ballet Dancer and the Karate Kid
December 31, 2011 The Year of Anticipation
December 12, 2011 Monday Happenings
December 2, 2011 Coffee Communities
November 27, 2011 Irons in the Fire
November 22, 2011 Reputable Since...?
November 12, 2011 Tick Tock Goes The Clock...
November 4, 2011 Brevity's Soulful Wit
October 22, 2011 An Inspiration For Icarus Down
October 5, 2011 Plain Kate Wins the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award
July 7, 2011 The Parliamentary Trains
June 29, 2011 A New Identity
June 26, 2011 Erin's Good Week (In Spite of Strep Throat)
March 16, 2011 The Names of Things V
When Isaac Became Simon, and Vice Versa
January 21, 2011 Contemplating Failure
November 18, 2010 Thank You Centennial
November 9, 2010 The Seeds of Doom: Doctor Who's Best Thump
November 4, 2010 Schadenfreude Pie, Schadenfreude Pie...
October 27, 2010 Um... Who's Driving? (The Story, I Mean)
October 17, 2010 Why I like Scrivener
August 31, 2010 The Other Bow Book Release
July 23, 2010 On the Latest Dispatch by Fred "No Fun" Phelps
July 19, 2010 I am Supporting Impoverished School Libraries in California
July 13, 2010 The Parent Trap
(Why there are so few Parents in YA Literature)
June 15, 2010 On Rule 34
April 8, 2010 Patricia Wrightson (1921-2010)
April 7, 2010 South of Union
April 1, 2010 The Best Places to Write in Waterloo Region
February 24, 2010 It Was One of Those Mornings...
February 22, 2010 Shortcuts to Success
February 17, 2010 The Nightmare Queen
February 6, 2010 The Best Places to Write in Toronto
January 1, 2010 The Year of the Red Jellybean
November 27, 2009 Artificial Lightning in Philadelphia
November 6, 2009 Vivian Katherine's Fourth Birthday
September 28, 2009 The Zombie Handkerchief
September 18, 2009 Behind the Scenes in Toronto's Financial District
August 18, 2009 How to Write a Book in Ten Days
July 27, 2009 Writing Update From Lincoln
July 24, 2009 Towards a New Point of View
June 24, 2009 "The Dream King's Daughter" and "Plain Kate" Win Major Ontario Arts Council Grants
June 13, 2009 The Aftermath of Creativity
May 19, 2009 The Geography of Storytelling
May 11, 2009 Wrestling with Glorfindel II: Three Makes a Crowd
May 6, 2009 Thank you Rockway!
February 23, 2009 Quick Hits - February 23
February 19, 2009 Mustang Pride
February 12, 2009 On Researching Historicals
February 5, 2009 Works in Progress
November 11, 2008 WAHOO!!!
November 1, 2008 What I'm working on...
October 30, 2008 Why Does Improving a Story So Often Involve Grievious Bodily Harm to the Characters?
September 25, 2008 If I Had a Million Dollars...
September 15, 2008 Book Blogger Appreciation Week
September 10, 2008 Wrestling With Glorfindel
August 16, 2008 Preparing for Eden Mills and The Young City
May 24, 2008 Planning Out My Next Few Months
May 21, 2008 Terrorism in Toronto's Subway... in 1985
April 4, 2008 The Secret Prudes
March 11, 2008 Bohemian Renaissance
March 8, 2008 Driving Through a Winter Wonderland
March 4, 2008 On Political Venom, Part II
February 26, 2008 I'll See Your Meme, and Raise You One
February 18, 2008 How to Write a Book in 19 Days
February 1, 2008 Heading to the OLA Super Conference
January 10, 2008 Top Ten Signs You're Reading Something by James Bow
December 30, 2007 Carousel
December 20, 2007 Sex! In! Spaaaace!
November 29, 2007 The War on the Holidays
October 15, 2007 A Travelling Man (HA!)
October 2, 2007 What's the Word? And What's Next?
September 16, 2007 Movable Type 4.0 Reviewed
August 24, 2007 A Writer's Interlude
August 13, 2007 Mackerel Skies
August 3, 2007 Working Madly
July 27, 2007 The Baby Pictures Still Exist
July 6, 2007 I Have Coldplay in my Pants!
July 2, 2007 On the Town of Boone, Iowa
June 13, 2007 Bizarre.
May 29, 2007 A Question of Anonymity
May 25, 2007 Quick Hits - May 25
May 24, 2007 Waterloo-Wellington Blogstravaganza Invitation
March 31, 2007 I'm Just Talking About Washington, Man!
March 15, 2007 What if Steve Jobs was President... or, What if the President was Steve Jobs
March 8, 2007 Quick Hits - March 8
March 3, 2007 Love Your Characters (or The Unwritten Books: Where Do We Go From Here)
January 17, 2007 Portrait in Bubble
January 15, 2007 Doctor Who is Back!
January 12, 2007 The Night Girl Passes 20,000 Words
December 24, 2006 All I Want for Christmas is...
November 26, 2006 In Conversation with Kenneth Oppel
November 24, 2006 Fairy Tales in Secret
November 17, 2006 What the Founding Fathers Were Thinking
November 15, 2006 The National To-Do List IV: Electoral Reform.
November 2, 2006 Vivian Katherine's First Birthday
October 28, 2006 The Night Girl, the Next Morning
October 9, 2006 Jorane: The You and the Now
October 2, 2006 The State of Waterloo's Economy
September 25, 2006 Suddenly, I'm a Blogging Expert
September 12, 2006 Driving Airport Road (Mono Road)
September 9, 2006 The Kids Are All Right
September 1, 2006 Making Water Bloom in the Desert
July 20, 2006 Under Construction (and a Meme to Tide Us Over)
June 17, 2006 The Unwritten Buzz
June 16, 2006 Worth Commenting On
June 14, 2006 Toner Memories
June 12, 2006 On Canadian Coffee, and the Other Tim's
May 1, 2006 Mayday! Mayday! (Quick Hits for May 1st)
April 25, 2006 Jane Jacobs (1916-2006)
April 13, 2006 Greyfields Illustrated
April 9, 2006 Three Restaurants
April 6, 2006 Credit to Other Writers
April 1, 2006 Erin Reads at the Brantford Armouries
March 22, 2006 Writing News
February 13, 2006 Four Years of Blogging
February 7, 2006 Four on the Floor!
December 8, 2005 Smart (Alec) Cards
December 1, 2005 Fun Election Tool
November 24, 2005 The Missing Placesetting
November 20, 2005 In Between Dirty Diapers
November 12, 2005 23 + 5 = ?
November 10, 2005 Brilliant!
October 29, 2005 The Hurricanes Go Greek
October 1, 2005 The Poor Woman of the Ikea Parking Lot
September 29, 2005 What's the Word?
September 26, 2005 Isis of the Check Out Line
September 23, 2005 Interesting Tidbits
September 15, 2005 More Writing Progress
September 12, 2005 You're Welcome
September 3, 2005 Remembering Hurricane Juan
August 17, 2005 The $1L Gas Problem (Like the Y2K problem, except with gas)
August 1, 2005 The Passing of King Fahd
July 27, 2005 Canada: The Manual
July 24, 2005 Aw, Crap!
July 20, 2005 Postcards from the Dead
July 2, 2005 Best. Field Trip. Ever.
June 13, 2005 Speed Bumps Ahead
June 8, 2005 At the CMPA Conference in the Old Mill
May 28, 2005 The Barons of Suburbia
May 26, 2005 A Toronto Oddity?
May 23, 2005 Tim Horton Wins
May 10, 2005 Ideas that come in the night that, in the cold light of day, make you glad you don't own a juicer:
April 30, 2005 Writing Update
April 12, 2005 A Safe Bet
April 2, 2005 April Fools III
March 25, 2005 Sitting by a Coffee at the King Charlotte Timothys
March 22, 2005 Revelation
February 22, 2005 What I'm Working On
January 25, 2005 Living on my Writing.
January 19, 2005 Irons in the Fire
January 14, 2005 Things Are Not Slowing Down, Though They Seem to Be...
November 25, 2004 Fads As Only Schools Can Form
November 14, 2004 How to Act Like An Opposition Party
October 29, 2004 Kent Mansley, I Work For The Government...
October 25, 2004 The Day I Went to Sleep
October 8, 2004 Workshopping Sealwife
September 17, 2004 Things You Don't Expect to See Reported in the Toronto Media
September 13, 2004 New Orleans is in Play
September 1, 2004 Plot, Subplot, Superplot
August 29, 2004 And the Secret Code to Disable the Defence Shield Is... Is... 1-2-3-4-5
July 21, 2004 Writing Thoughts
July 8, 2004 More Visitations
June 23, 2004 Tallying Your Winnings
May 30, 2004 Follow Ups
May 24, 2004 Answering Google's Questions
April 1, 2004 Unfortunate Connotations
March 26, 2004 Cool James Koole
March 8, 2004 She Needs to Talk
January 5, 2004 New Year Resolutionaries
November 26, 2003 Fairy Tales in Secret
November 2, 2003 Grace (and Writing) Under Pressure
October 16, 2003 She Rode Into My Life on a Tricycle
September 26, 2003 Most Palestinians are Civilians Too
September 17, 2003 Why Proofreading Is Hard
September 10, 2003 Nothing Here to Fear
September 3, 2003 I Write Like a Girl!
August 10, 2003 Writing For Coffee II
August 2, 2003 A Character Meme With Audience Participation
August 2, 2003 I Like the Sound That Rain Makes
July 28, 2003 Writing for Coffee
July 11, 2003 The Moment I Realized I'd Left Reality and Was Now a Resident of Cloudcookooland II
July 8, 2003 Sitting in the Starbucks of Chapters Waterloo
June 23, 2003 In the Food Court of the St. Jacobs Factory Outlet Mall, One Saturday Afternoon
June 18, 2003 Sitting in Krispy Kreme, After Stopping at the Bank
June 11, 2003 In the Food Court of Kitchener's Market Square, Before the Morning Shift - II
June 4, 2003 How Old Are You?
June 3, 2003 In the Food Court of Kitchener's Market Square, Before the Morning Shift
May 26, 2003 What Do Your Characters Carry?
May 16, 2003 An Interesting Literary Award
May 1, 2003 Assorted Questions for May Day / Writing and Birthdays
April 23, 2003 A Barn Can Have a Horse in it.
April 17, 2003 All of Us Were Scared...
April 13, 2003 The Joys of Spring / Why Fantasy is Written
April 11, 2003 Trenchcoats and Wish Lists / Science Fiction and Fantasy's Clashing Toolkits
April 6, 2003 Science Fiction and Fantasy Come With Their Own Toolkit
April 1, 2003 April Fools II
March 15, 2003 The Sound of Silence
March 10, 2003 I Feel Most Like Zeus When...
March 4, 2003 The Path of Creation
February 18, 2003 Writing Secret #421
February 15, 2003 Writing News (Not Mine)
January 23, 2003 At Sunset in a Nameless Town
January 22, 2003 Building a Universe From Scratch
January 18, 2003 The Boundary Between the Beginning and the Middle
January 14, 2003 Aftshadowing
December 30, 2002 What Makes Toronto a Good City
November 17, 2002 Sunday Writing Quiz
November 14, 2002 When Metaphors Attack!
November 4, 2002 Pringles, Spam and Books
October 29, 2002 Place and Mood
October 24, 2002 The Purpose of Free Writing
October 23, 2002 We Weren't Supposed to Go There
October 18, 2002 Friday Five on TV
October 17, 2002 My can of Coca-Cola is red.
October 16, 2002 Words With Just One Beat
October 13, 2002 Thanksgiving in October
October 11, 2002 Words on a Friday Afternoon
October 2, 2002 Another Letter From the Emperor!
September 30, 2002 The Weekend and This Week
September 23, 2002 You Want to Write? Read.
September 18, 2002 And Now For Our Sponsor... A Talentless Hack
September 9, 2002 It's Getting Better All the Time
August 25, 2002 Boys of Summer
August 18, 2002 Apologies
August 4, 2002 Still Writing. Still Cleaning.
July 23, 2002 Blogs About Fiction? Meet Fictional Blogs
July 20, 2002 Saturday Six
June 7, 2002 Toronto Trip and the Trillium Awards
May 13, 2002 There's This Book I Haven't Written Yet
May 11, 2002 Fiction Saturday
April 2, 2002 April Fools!
March 14, 2002 Gel Pens
March 13, 2002 Writing Longhand
March 4, 2002 We've Got Balls
February 20, 2002 Dan Kukwa and Writing in Bronte