Most of the time I’m a million miles away from wherever I am supposed to be, which can become dangerous to my career when I’m on a deadline (just kidding, I can focus when I have to...really) and dangerous to my health if my mother’s been trying to reach me.

Well today I wanted to explain a little bit about why that is. About my passion. Of course, you probably think that passion is chocolate or shopping. Sexy Italian men who do dishes? Writing you say?

Well it’s not. Funny huh?

Don’t get me wrong, I love writing, and the process satisfies me about as much as that bar of chocolate or something else that my sexy Italian man does for me other than the dishes :)

But while my passion comes as part and parcel with the writing process, the real draw is not the formal practise of putting words to paper, but the visceral impact of those words on my life, and the lives of others.

My passion is in the act of creating something that has a voice, a vision, something that will leave a lasting impression.

In exploring this craving, I started long ago by studying a more traditional and obvious medium, and so took paint and brush to canvas, attempting to turn the ultimate intimidating blank white page into something more, something real and alive with feeling and energy. I studied the great masters (whew those coffee table books get heavy), and painted for a lot of years. I do still enjoy pulling out those art supplies on a lazy Saturday afternoon when the house happens to be empty and I have the time and quiet that I need to focus my efforts on it. But painting was something that got less and less practical as my life started to get more and more complex, and while my passion still lived inside of me, raging for a release, I found it less and less satisfying because the process had become very frustrating.

I started writing when I found that I had made one too many excuses not to pull out my paintbrushes. The supplies were either too difficult to clean up afterward, the paint took too long to dry for me to get any quality work done in the time I had allotted per week, or my workspace was too small and dismal, having been stashed away in a corner of the basement. Whatever it was, and I don’t really want to analyze my disenchantment with something that I did once love wholeheartedly, I still needed an outlet for the swirling vortex that was growing and churning inside of my brain.

It turned out that I could take those eddies of colour and crazy dreams and twist them into some semblance of coherent thought (at least I think so, those of you who have read my work may disagree  ).

So whether I’m dreaming in coloured splotches of oil paint, or black printer toner on laser paper, the end result is thankfully the same...for me at least. My reviewers may actually prefer paintings of poppy fields to gripping tales of altered universes.

It's been a super crazy kind of summer, with everything from emergency trips to the hospital for stitches in obscure areas of the body (You don't really want to know, and my husband would kill me, since he's the one with the stitches), to camping trips, weddings, showers, birthdays and BBQs.

Whew.

I have always associated Fall with new beginnings. I know, it sounds pretty backwards when you consider that Springtime is when the long winter gives way to fresh flowers, refreshing rains, and new births throughout all of the animal kingdom. But maybe it has something to do with my childhood, and that first day of school that always brought with it new clothes and a great backpack, a new classroom and the meeting of future great friends.

It has of course been a R E A L L Y long time since I've been a student, even though I like to think that I'm constantly learning and upgrading my skills, but this year I still feel the same, that feeling of newness that September brings. Part of it is because my husband is a teacher, and so he's always going back to school every September after kicking back for the summer. My son is also back at school. This is his second year now, and he's going to Senior Kindergarten--it's way too cute to watch him set aside his clothes the night before, and put his things in his Spiderman backpack.

But also this year, I have a new beginning--no I didn't go back to school. I started a new job. That comes with all of those things that you usually associate with beginnings and change--uncertainty, expectation, and a great big hunk of nerves crystallizing in your belly.

I think the job is going to be good. Training is a bitch, being as it is held at head office, which is a good two hours drive for me, but when I get back to my own office afterward and start to get settled in, I think that I'll enjoy the opportunities that come with a new office, new people, and a different challenge.

So for now, I'm off. I have training to do, and people to meet. Talk soon.