Browsing Tag

writer’s rituals

Meet the team: love and sugar heroes

By November 25, 2016 Books

Love and Sugar Launch Countdown Week

Writers work alone. Maybe there’s a writing circle for support, or rituals known only to their editors.  Support, when it comes, is crucial. Just ask Canadian literary star Miriam Toews, who scooped the $50,000 Writers’ Trust Fellowship earlier this week.

The fellowship affords me an extravagant amount of time to write, and time is the most meaningful gift a writer can receive.

-Miriam Toews

Time, yes, was needed for my with love and sugar project, for inspiration to root into shape.

Inspiration is a small bouncy ball that flies at you, you who often forget your catcher’s mitt. A  lost single glove in the gutter. The sign on a church billboard as your car stops at a red. Overheard trails of conversation while you wait in line. The pink elephant in your home office.img_0279

Inspiration are the pair of pom-poms, cheerleader red, worn by parents who mark up your advance copy with sticky notes.

Are those mistakes you found?, Author Daughter wonders.

No, they are all the things I love, responds Agent Mother.

Inspiration is a think tank interested in accountability and croissants or yogurt parfaits as meeting tools. Show up and spew might be the theme for our bi-monthly meetings: mostly, it’s thinking out loud, coffee, giving feedback, coffee, sharing failures, coffee, applauding success (however minute). Did I say coffee? Made by someone else? Handed to you as you slump to your seat? Good morning. I have nothing for you today. Wait, okay, maybe I do.

Nancy Macdonald

Inspiration is a team of bakers with their own m.o, each answering the call and delivering up delights on a tray. No, I didn’t pay them.  But taste testers and bakers were as much as part of this journey as anyone else.

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Inspiration is a vat of booster fuel from life coaches, self-avowed and otherwise, ready to jumpstart flagging engines, cross the city in a mass book delivery wearing a chauffeur cap and feather boa (is there a better delivery uniform? Let me know), or remind you that yes, you really did do it.12342320_10153824959254066_4293986945597405530_n

Here are a few heroes with the love and sugar breakdown.

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What’s your favourite sweet thing to eat?

Stephanie BlackCheesecake with homemade caramel sauce and homemade whip cream. Skip the fake cherries please!!!!
Before I had dairy intolerance I’d say old-fashioned butterscotch sundae at a 50’s diner would be ideal.

Lisa Simone: Chocolate Fudge Layer cake- icing not buttercream-sweet fudge OR two fresh Polish Panczky- doughnuts with plum filling and lots of liquid icing sugar dripping down the sides.

Cindy Andrew: My grandmothers carrot cake with cream cheese icing!

Janet Land: O’Henry Chocolate Bar and Pecan Butter Tarts. I can’t choose!

What’s your favourite sweet thing to bake?

Stephanie: In Haileybury, Ontario at my grandmothers, she would bring me homemade chocolate chip cookies (we made earlier that day) and a glass of milk while I read Archie’s with the dog beside me.

Lisa: Rice Pudding- although I never eat it.

Janet LandAunt Mickey’s chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.

Cindy: My grandmothers carrot cake with cream cheese icing!!!…

A ritual you love?

StephanieA favourite ritual today is Shabbat dinner when we work together in the kitchen, light candles, pray, and say thanks and ask each other what we are grateful for, and what kind action was shown to us or what we did kind for someone else.

Lisa: A daily favourite is setting the table right before bed so it’s ready for breakfast, or preparing the strawberry French toast on weekend.

Janet LandMaking family weekend breakfast: french toast, crisp bacon, fresh strawberries, fresh OJ, fresh coffee.

Cindy: Today it is hard to find time where everyone has a few hours at the same time to get together but we make it essential at Christmas.. sporting our Santa hats, we pile into the car with the dog and a football and head to the tree farm. We grab some cider and a few saws and head out into the field for the perfect Christmas tree… singing carols which embarrass the kids until they just join in and love it… It still take a few hours to find the perfect tree (easier now that the kids are older and can toss the ball around while we hunt, but when they were 2 and 4 no matter how many layers of clothes we put on them, they froze and it never ended well until visiting Santa in his hut at the end…I love this part of Christmas… we are together, outside, playing and seeking that special tree.. some days it’s too tall and we have to cut off a few feet, some years it’s small, but every year it is our perfect tree and my perfect time with the family!

Thanks for sharing all.

ARE WE ALL HUNGRY NOW????dsc_1605

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HAPPY WEEKEND EVERYONE.   For those joining me on Monday at my launch, I promise Christmas cookies. (annehome1@rogers.com to rsvp)

 

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