A number of people who read this blog have written to me and asked me to share my writing process, having been intrigued by recent posts on academic workflow. Many people who know me ask about how I manage to get a lot of writing (and other stuff) done. I thought I would try to …
Continue reading "My Writing Process (Or “How I Am Productive”)"
Today, I woke up and felt like a man with a mission. A mission to write. Academic life can seem idyllic to many outside the business: professors, especially those with tenure, can largely set their own hours, work from home, and get to interact with energetic and interesting people of all ages. While there is …
Continue reading "A Peek into Academic Life: Jul & Aug is “The Writing Season”"
Well, yesterday was finally July 1, 2011. A fateful day. A day of change and thresholds. Before I tell you why it was so important, I have to say that I spent the evening in lovely surroundings, at my friend and colleague, Dr. Terry Flynn's house in Kitchener. He and his wife put together a …
Today marked the end of the summer residency of the Master of Communications Management. We had a blend of the first-year students and the upper-year students as well. What a fantastic group of professional communication leaders from across Canada. I taught MCM 739: Understanding Social Media Publics and my good friend and colleague, Dr. Terry …
Now that I have finished the 100 Life-Loves series, I am going to go back to writing the Hamilton Stories. I hope these are just little tales meant to bring out parts of Hamilton that I have known and seen, and to try to tell stories about everyday characters that everyone can relate to. I …
It has been a pleasure to watch the House of Commons Question Period the last couple of weeks. The members seem to have truly taken NDP Leader Mr Jack's Layton's challenge to heart. This has, just looking anecdotally, led to what feels like more questions being asked. It also feels as though women appear to …
There is nothing more precious than life. We often lose sight of this, burying life behind the darkness of our anxieties, our plans, our ambitions. Life is all around us, but so easily missed. It is in the sparkling eyes of children who are enjoying the playground for the first time on a watery spring …
We love to run forward, but how often do we take the time to think back. To allow ourselves to be overcome by a desire to journey into our past, explore it, relive it. We have all experienced what it feels like to suddenly feel awash in memory. To momentarily leave the present and be …
Continue reading "Life-Love 99: Retelling the past through the eyes of the present"
We may live very busy lives, full of places to go, people to see, and anxieties that weigh upon our minds, nature is constant and reassuring. A walk in the woods is a salve for the soul, and the most beautiful music in the world is that composed by rustle of leaves in the trees, …
Fortune favours the bold, said the classical Roman poet, Virgil. It is easy to live life meekly. In fact, our culture encourages meekness and self-effacement. We are told that we shouldn't speak too much of our accomplishments, or the people we know. We are told that we should fit in and conform. What's most surprising …
