March 11, 2024

Hi, I am a writer which is not to say much. Anyone who has learned how to read and write is a writer. It goes without saying, but I said it anyway. The point is, how good a writer are you? I have been trying to be a good writer for more years than I will admit. Leave it say that I starting writing when having a Smith Corona typewriter was considered to be state of the art. I had a Smith Corona Silent which now goes for about $900 on eBay. I should have kept mine! So, yeah, I've been writing for a long time. I've published a few poems and stories here and there. I have always tried to improve to become a good writer. The difference between someone who is a writer and a good writer, is that a good writer never stops trying to improve their skill.

That is where the Burlington Writers Workshop comes in. I joined the group about two years ago or so. I was struggling to write a nonfiction about one of my ancestors, Etienne Parent. He was well known in Quebec in the first half of the nineteenth century, as a journalist, a political activist, a lawyer, a philosopher, a politician, and all round amazing guy. Today, he is only known by a few Quebec historians, politicians, and genealogy nuts like me. 

The book was not going well. I joined the group and started to share my work. I would be lying if I said that it was easy taking criticism on all the great work that I thought I was writing. To be fair, it was not the worst writing that the group had ever read, but I wasn't going to be interviewed by Oprah any time soon!

I took the feedback, both verbal and written, and reviewed it. I took the parts that I thought were useful and went back to my book and made improvements. The biggest improvement that I made was to change the book from nonfiction to fiction. My book is now a historical novel about Etienne Parent. 

I'm not going to say that the book is finished and it is ready to be printed by Doubleday. But it is almost at the point where I can give my novel about Etienne Parent to beta readers. They will read my draft then give me feedback on the issues that they see with the book. I would never have gotten to this point if it wasn't for the feedback that I received from the Burlington Writers Group. 

I will leave it here for today. I wanted to introduce myself as a writer. I still don't consider myself to be a good writer because I have a lot more to learn about writing and becoming a good writer. Also, I wanted to introduce the Burlington Writers Group. Tob e clear, it is a writing group in Burlington, Ontario, Canada, not Burlington, Vermont.

That's it for today.