Olive was elegant. There was no doubt about that. She was tall and slim with alabaster skin, bright blue eyes and jet black wavy hair. Even as a little girl she chose her clothes with great care. “Do you think this colour matches my eyes?” she would ask her mother. Her mother said to friends,…
So you’ve been asked to speak at a conference or at your local business improvement meeting, or at your niece’s wedding.
Good writing isn’t written – it’s rewritten. And then it’s edited!
Apostrophes cause all sorts of confusion. They get thrown into places they don’t belong and left out where they most definitely do. There are three places where apostrophes seem to cause the most confusion — omissions and contractions, possessives and plurals. Omissions and contractions Apostrophes fill in the gap for a missing letter(s), or where…
In mid-summer, new neighbours moved in. Before I met them I noticed they had attached a bird feeder to their deck. It swung out to sit in the branches of the willow tree that had spread across the fence from my yard. “A bird feeder, that’s a good sign,” I thought.
Spot was a stray: part sheepdog, part terrier. I don’t know how he got the name Spot — he was black with no markings — or how he came to live with us. Well, he didn’t actually live with us. He lived in a kennel outside. “Please Dad,” I would plead. “Can he just stay…
I stood in front of the dusty chalkboard shoulders back, arms at my sides, stiff like a soldier. I stared out at my six and seven-year-old classmates and took a deep breath. It was my turn to do morning talk (show and tell in Canada). I don’t know what drove me that particular day to…
It was early spring in New Zealand, the end of the August school holidays. I was bored and couldn’t wait for school to start again. I was staring out the window wondering what I would do for the day. I knew I would clean my room, do dishes and peel the potatoes for tea. These…
Two little girls, one wearing pink, the other wearing blue, sit together on a velvet chair staring straight ahead with no sign of a smile. They watch from behind a large wooden frame. On the back of the frame, there is a label that reads: Parker, portrait painter and general artist, Imperial Art Studio, Grey…
The instructor of a writing course I took a few years ago introduced it by noting that 60 per cent of writing was thinking. Sometimes I forget this advice and start a project without thinking. I plunge into the writing, bang out a paragraph or two and come to a halt — lost. It’s as if I…