In 13 more sleeps, I'll be a "Nervous Nelly"! Guaranteed.

With my brilliant procrastination skills, I should be walking through the door of the Hunt 55 Club in Huntsville with an empty mind, ready to stare at the blank page on my laptop and then reach for the first bottle of Pepto Bismal before I even type my first word.

This is how the Best Writing Event of the year starts for me every year. I basically have no clue what I am going to write during this marathon... I wait impatiently for the lightning bolt to strike and to set me off typing for the next 72 hours. Yep, that's right, no sleep, only typing what's rattling around in this brain of mind for a continuous 72 hours... okay, I confess, I do stop to eat every once in a while. The event is sponsored by amazing local restaurants, who donate generously to our event. The food is delicious! It's one of the main reasons I attend this event.

Are you wondering what event I'm talking about? The picture kind of gives it away, doesn't it? I'm going to be participating in the Muskoka Novel Writing Marathon to raise awareness of the illiteracy problem in Canada and to raise money for the YMCA Literacy Programs in order to help people locally. These programs are amazing considering the current Government's limited funds. With our fund-raising efforts during this marathon, the YMCA finds volunteer tutors to work one-on-one, passing their knowledge on to those who struggle with English, reading, writing, and math skills.

This year is very exciting... we have our first graduate, Nora B. in the program actually taking part in the writing marathon. How awesome is that? One of our veteran writers, Pat Flewwelling is sitting nice and close, and is going to guide Nora through the scarey process. Pat has won the most prolific writer for at least three years in a row. I think she will still win that title this year, even while helping someone else. She is a machine... fastest typist I know!

Here is a You-Tube video of Nora telling you how this program has helped to improve her life:

If you would like to help us in the fight against ILLITERACY, please decide to sponsor me in this fund-raising effort. You can donate to me in person with cash or cheque OR on-line until July 10th at:

                                                       Lori Twining - Canada Helps Giving Page

Every $1 counts, and tax receipts are being given to anyone with a donation of $20 or more. Or you could donate to me in person when you visit me at the Muskoka Novel Marathon from July 12-15, 2013 at Club 55, in the Huntsville Civic Centre, 37 Main Street East. If you come to visit me…please bring me cookies or jube-jubes… my brain works a whole lot faster, and I have quite the imagination when I have sugar! But you don't have to, of course, I really just want your donation of money! Grin. I will give anyone donating $100 dollars or more a character in my novel. Interestingly enough, both my husband and my ex-husband have decided to give me $100 each to not mention them or anything about them in this novel. Mwhahahahaha! Just a little incentive to the people that I'm currently blackmailing... if you don't give, I will spill your life across 100-pages of fiction in 13 days. You are on a time limit, starting now! (insert cackling witch sounds here). I'm just joking about the spilling of your secrets... or am I?
 
On another note, if you would like to contribute in some way to my creative process in writing my story… I will accept all of your suggestions for story-lines and I may even use you as a character in my novel (provided that you give me a nice donation). I can make you rich or poor, skinny or fat, or even famous! I could also make you be my character everyone loves to hate, especially if you don’t contribute to my fund-raising effort. This is not a threat… just a warning! Hope to hear from you soon! 

* If you would like more information about illiteracy in Canada, go to Canadian Literacy web page.

Some people want to be a writer. Some people are a writer. How do you tell the difference?

Just say it…”You are a writer” and better yet, just say this, “I AM A WRITER”. The easiest way to be able to say that you are a writer is to sit your ass in the chair and write. Whether you use a pen and paper, or decide to bang away at the keys on your laptop, just do it… just write. There, you are writing, which means, you are a writer.

Here are 7 signs that you may be a writer, just in case you are waffling one way or another.

1.   Self-doubt is everywhere, but it’s especially on a writer’s mind every time they put words down on paper. Will your reader like what they read? Or will they think it is total crap and it makes no sense? The important thing about writing
is that if you didn’t have anything to say, you wouldn’t even try to write anything down in the first place, right? So, go ahead… keep writing. Ignore the self-doubt and be ready to be judged, ridiculed and challenged by others, because, even Stephen King has people who say he can’t write. I disagree. I think Stephen is a genius. So, we’ve agree to disagree. So, stop worrying about self-doubt. You were meant to be a writer, so write.

2.   Ideas for stories are racing through your head faster than you can write them down. You can’t sit at a coffee shop without wondering why two people are raising their voices and slamming their hand on the top of the table. You pull out your notebook and start writing a point-form list of all the possibilities. You over-hear the odd word in the conversation… Divorce, Bicycle, Italy, Sister, Gun and suddenly you have a little short story developing about the girl’s sister on a secret trip to Italy with the other sister’s sexy husband, riding through a vineyard at sunset, planning his wife’s murder to avoid a big messy divorce, so they can be together. Bottom line… writers have ideas every minute of the day. It’s whether they write them down or not that makes them a writer.

3.   Scenarios are easy for you to come up with, regardless of the situation. The person driving in front of you is weaving across the middle solid line and your husband says, “That guy must be drunk.” Your brain comes up with several reasons as to why the driver is driving erratically and it doesn’t include being drunk. You can’t help but start blurting out other reasons, like… “maybe he just received a phone call that his mother is dying and he is wiping tears out of his eyes as he drives to the hospital”… “maybe his dog is having a seizure and he is holding him, while he drives to the vet hospital”… “or maybe his ex-wife just showed up and shot him, leaving him for dead, and he has to drive himself to the hospital?” So many good reasons instead of jumping to the drunk conclusion. If you do this, you are a writer.

4.   Admiration for writers while you read their work. If you can’t help smiling and re-reading passages that an author has published, then you are definitely a lover of words. You feel the need to seek out other book loving friends and discuss how the author described something as simple as eating a peach. The love for words, books and admiration of other people is a strong indicator that you should write.

5.   Your Dream Job is to be a successful famous writer. A person who can make enough money by doing what they love… writing. You want to stay at home every day, hang out in your jammies or yoga pants, eating Skittles or M&Ms, and pour your little heart out into your laptop, writing without interruptions. If you’re really lucky, you will be doing this at your beach house, looking out at the white sand and the calm blue water, and for afternoon breaks, you will be drinking piña coladas while swinging in your hammock between palm trees… oh yeah, this sounds awesome. Did I mention the fact, that money is falling from the sky… all the proceeds from your seven million books you just sold. The 50 shades of
success. So, if you want something similar to this, you may be a writer.

6.   Spare Time is spent reading or writing, not watching television or playing video games. If you have to drive a kid to his hockey game and he has to be there one hour before the game, what do you do with your time? Do you socialize
and gossip? Or do you write story ideas on napkins? If you spend your time in a dark corner alone, away from the other parents, writing about the fire-breathing dragon about to inhale the teenage princess for lunch, then you are a writer.
Plain and simple.

7.   Shopping only occurs when the fridge is empty and the cupboards are bare… OR if you happen to see a bookstore! Every writer needs to browse in every bookstore they pass by, for at least an hour minimum, never ever feeling bored,
buying several books, because a writer never leaves a bookstore without an armful of new books! If this describes you… you are a reader and most likely a writer too.

So, what do you think, are you a writer? If you read the entire post, my guess is that YOU ARE A WRITER! Congratulations!