review

Three months seems an appropriate time to conduct a review of my blogging activities,so please bear with me as I take a few moments to do just that.My stats page indicates I have made 55 entries over just a bit more than three months and have just over 850 page views.I wish there were more and that I knew how to promote my blog better,but it's just my first try at it and I am learning.Hopefully the writing will get better too.For now I'm reasonably happy with things overall,though not necessarily with every entry.

I set myself the goal of getting to 75 entries before the end of this month,but that is looking like a bit of a challenge at this point.I've been busier than I thought I would be and I still do not have my own laptop so getting computer time can be a bit of a problem too.And really,I think it is more important to aim for quality rather than quantity,even if it means I miss posting for several days.The problem is that pageviews seem to drop if I don't post at least every couple of days.Also, unfortunately I'm not blessed with an inexhaustible supply of writing ideas either.That seemed so much easier when I was doing my writing in a notebook.Notebooks,though seem to keep getting lost,stolen,burned or flooded or just plain thrown away by someone that doesn't see their significance

So what about the direction this blog is taking?Well,basically the idea was to start a sort of a memoir.But really this blog contains just about everything I would normally be writing when I was putting things in my notebooks.In fact,the blogs entitled Memoir Writers Homework are prepared by hand first anyway.That is because the intent with those entries was to continue the writing in the same way as when I was attending the writers group in Toronto.Those entries are topical in nature and took about 10-15 minutes to complete,which is something I could never achieve in similar time with a keyboard.Still,apart from writing memoir in larger themes,or chronologically,I found those assignments a useful hunter gatherer activity and they have produced a wealth of raw materials for the actual writing.So they will continue.

So far I haven't really started the memoir except to set a sort of a context and provide some of the backstory without which the story itself would not make sense.But the starting of that is not far off.

Why write a memoir.Well,simply,I think everyone who can write should write.I don't really see my life as being especially interesting,but others might.My grandparents stories are mostly lost because they didn't write.They were not extraordinary really,but I am at a lack for some things I expect I would find interesting.As might people a hundred years from now when they see my name in a family tree.

Mostly I think my story is about my identity as a Canadian,and how you find that identity in a country so vast.That's still an ongoing experience for me.Consequently,you will see basically two kinds of writing.There is of course the memoir complete with some of the writers exercises that help to create it.So you will tend to see some insight into the actual process as well as the work product,which is an idea that appeals to me,at least right now.You will also see what I like to think of as writing in the here and now,which are really my daily reflections on a wide variety of subjects,that,until recently were being kept in coil notebooks as a kind of a journal.That too will continue.A couple of years ago I tentatively decided to separate the "now"from the "then" as far as writing is concerned.Format rules that out for the moment but it is just something I will have to live with.

How do I feel about keeping all these thing in a blog?Truthfully I'm not certain.At times I think the writing is not good enough,but I guess everyone who writes is subject to those thoughts.I sometimes wonder if putting all these things in the open market changes the way I write,or what actually gets written.Subject for a separate entry perhaps.Then there are the times,less frequent when I think that this writing might actually be of interest or use to someone.I notice I have readers from several countries all over the world,who might be getting a sense of what living in Canada is like and that keeps me going.

To everyone who takes the time to read,I thank you for your indulgence and I hope you will continue to follow along.I hope you will read the blogs I'm reading too as well as the video lists posted at the bottom,and some of the books I'm reading,which I've also posted.

For at least another three months and likely longer I will continue to keep this blog.I also welcome some of your comments,good or bad.It would be great if you could just leave me a note and let me know who you are and where you are from.Also,if any of you are writing blogs,I would like to check them out and possibly list them among the ones I'm currently reading.

That's all for now on this very hot night from Calgary,Alberta,Canada.