Smile for Today ~

"Southern Ontario, formerly one of the most brutally inarticulate communities in human history, now finds itself in possession of James Reaney, Alice Munro, Robertson Davies, Margaret Laurence, Al Purdy and a dozen other people.  The community as a whole has not grasped the real importance of this fact."

~ Northrop Frye, cultural critic, address, Options Conference, University of Toronto, Oct., 1977.
FAMOUS LASTING WORDS Great Canadian Quotations, John Robert Colombo, 2000.

Visit  www.catherineberrystidsen.org  *

Everyone Welcome ~ 1:00 p.m. Join us for the first fascinating personality of the season!  1st. & 3rd. Thursdays.  Tea & Coffee Pot's Always On... free admission, everyone welcome. www.catherineberrystidsen.org

"When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts.  You are connected to your child and to all those who touch your lives.  A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child."

~Sophia Loren, Italian actress (b. September 20, 1934)


"Hold fast the time!  Guard it, watch over it, every hour, every minute!  Unregarded it slips away. . . Hold every moment sacred.  Give each clarity and meaning, each the weight of thine awareness, each its true and due fulfillment."

~ Thomas Mann (1875 - 1955) German novelist.

Smile for Today  (before computers)

"~ forgive this typing, but my hand staggers like a drunken washer-woman after writing innumerable articles, so that is in kindness to you ~"

~ Virginia Woolfe in a letter to Hugh Walpole (Typewritten Sunday, April 12th 1931)

"Its so difficult to write, because, ~ well, after finishing a book, the mind bobs like a cork on the sea ~ I hate the feeling;  I had forgotten the horror.  I am irritable and melancholy and I doubt not, if you were here, egotistic."

~ VW in a letter to Ethel Smyth (February 16th 1931)

~A Reflection of The Other Person, The Letters of Virginia Woolf, 1929 - 1931.  Editor:  Nigel Nicolson, Assistant Editor:  Joanne Trautmann.  Chatto & Windus Ltd. Clarke, Irwin & Co. Ltd., 1978.





On Writing ~

This From John Steinbeck, "Of course I want the new book to be good.  I have wanted all of them to be good.  But with the others-- all of them -- I had a personal out.  I could say -- it is just really practice for "the book."  If I can't do this one, the practice was not worth it.  So you see I feel at once stimulated and scared.  The terror of starting is invariable but I am more terrified now knowing more about technique than I did. There's a kind of nauseated stimulation about going ashore under fire that is not unlike this feeling.  You know you're going to do it and it scares the shit out of you."

~ John Steinbeck (1902 - 1968)  Pulitzer Prize winning American writer. In a letter to George Albee, Dec. 19, 1950.

From Samuel Johnson, "A man may write at any time -- if he will but set himself doggedly to it."

Also this,   "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money."

~ Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784) English Author. (Thank you, Laurie Miller for Johnson quotations.)

File Photo:  lbwalker, Stephen Leacock's Old Brewery Bay, Orillia.



Stephen Leacock's Old Brewery Bay, Orillia



Stephen Leacock wrote a book titled How to Write.
"The best practical advice that can be given on this subject is, don't start.  That is, don't start anywhere in particular.  Begin at the end:  begin in the middle, but begin.  If you like you can fool yourself by pretending that the start you make isn't really the beginning and that you are going to write it all over again.  Pretend that what you write is just a note, a fragment, a nothing.  Only get started."
www.leacockmuseum.com



~ Stephen Leacock (1869 - 1944) Canadian teacher, writer, humorist.  How to Write, New York 1943, p.27.

File Photos:  lbwalker.  Click on photo for larger image.


"Good, no-nonsense, cold-blooded advice.  Writing's hard, but the hardest part is just to get started." ~ Lawrence Miller.  Author of The Avro Arrow, A Picture History, Lorimer, 2011.  Laurie has taught, edited and had a typography and graphic arts shop.  He lives in Caledonia, ON.

Future of the "Newly Reclaimed" Douglas Creek Development ~  Turtle Island News

"The Haudensaunee Development Institute (HDI) the planning department of the Confederacy Council, is holding meetings, beginning Thursday (August 30) at 5 p.m and inviting Six Nations people to attend to discuss how the newly reclaimed Six Nations land should be cleaned up and revitalized.
Some want to see it stay the way it is, a skeletal reminder to Six Nations neighbours of what happened just six years ago.
Others are ready to move on, with or without the support of their neighbours in Caledonia."

~ Turtle Island News, North America's Native Weekly Newspaper, Wednesday, August 29, 2012

www.theturtleislandnews.com



Story of Caledonia



Available in The Neat Little Bookshop HELPLESS, Christie Blatchford, Random House of Canada, Ltd.,2010

www.caledoniawakeupcall.ca