It’s about two and a half hours by car from our house in Seattle to Vancouver, Canada, and three hours to come back again. The difference is due to the border crossing — the lines into the US at Peace Arch are unpredictable and inefficient. There is little to do but sit in your idling vehicle, fussing with the radio and pondering why the line you’re not in is moving so much faster. It’s the border crossing that keeps us from heading north to our neighbor city more often.… continued…
Increasingly, newish writers are surfacing in my in-box asking me to read their work and give them some feedback. This flatters my ego to no end — “HA! You think I have something to teach you about writing! HA! That’s HILARIOUS!” A-hem. Hey, anyone who has the nerve to ask me for feedback is probably genuinely striving to be better — I like to encourage that, there’s more than enough crappy writing out there. In an attempt to keep yet another awful piece of writing out of the public eye, I’m happy* (with sufficient bribery) to read something over, hand out a couple of general pointers, and then, send a bludgeoned hopeful back to their keyboard with a head full of not very sugar coated feedback.… continued…
