A New Day is Dawning

Ah Vocal. How I have enjoyed the time I have spent with you. Taking on the challenges, reading the works of others and submitting work from my past. And how I miss the freedom to continue filling my time with you and the many members and their works. Why? Because you managed to ruin it all by being too good!

I joined Vocal to give myself the gift of writing. This is truly who I am. A writer; but throughout the years so many other things got in the way. So many other people needed my attention.This resulted in the only writing I got done was based on work. The only reading followed suit. Finding Vocal brought me back to me where I was writing for the joy of it, and reading the works of the other authors for the pleasure of seeing our world through the eyes of another. The challenges indeed challenged me as I stepped into different ways of expressing myself with themes I would not have thought of on my own.

And then a challenge brought it all to a halt. A great challenge, I must admit, but one that moved me into a new direction, a direction that is taking all of my time and energy in the present moment. It was the challenge to write the first chapter of a great American (in my case Canadian) novel. I took on that challenge and I wrote and submitted that first chapter fully realizing that it was not only a first chapter but indeed, a whole novel I was working on.

And so, these days, I sit at my computer and work on that novel. A novel written in the style of Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, the greatest of the American novels ever written, in my mind. Vocal is forgotten as my fingers fly over the keys. On a rare day I will drop in for a few minutes to read some of the works of other writers to relax and to support them through positive comments, but the challenges are left unchallenged for others to take part in. My goal is to finish a chapter a month this year having already completed the initial five. I only hope I can do this topic and my country justice through what I am writing.

I thank you Vocal for giving me the impetus to take on this enormous task. For indeed, the focus of my novel is so important at this time, a focus that has come to light during the past few years in ways we never expected, yet also so needed by our country if it is to continue to be a democracy. At Christmas I published my first novel: one that I carried in my head for almost fifty years before I took the time and made the effort to put it on paper. It will be going on sale in the coming week. Perhaps at this time next year I will publish my second novel and it is all because of you. My only wish is that as a Canadian, I would be allowed to invest!!