Tag: Whistle Radio

Radio Interview Part 2 with Charlene Jones AND Burn Baby Bullying…

cyber-bullying-6

Today, I’m sharing PART 2 of my interview from Whistle Radio. CHARLENE JONES interviewed me for their OFF THE TOP segment after the most recent WCDR Roundtable Meeting! Here’s PART 2, in which I talk a lot about Trafalgar24, the upcoming fundraising play creation event for Driftwood Theatre.

Much thanks to Charlene for the interview. She was an absolute pleasure to talk with. I really enjoyed the experience!

Bullies – Still! After All the Campaigns – SPEAK UP AGAINST BULLYING

It’s hard to believe that bullying is still a thing. It seems the more we speak out against it, the more it happens. This doesn’t mean the dialogue against it should end. We must NEVER stop pointing out instances of bullying, rallying against it, educating.

In a recent review of Burn Baby Burn Baby, I was called out for something my narrator character, Francis, said. In his narration, he made a passing comment about him not being one of those narcs who tells on someone who picks on him. I did this to be authentic…not to suggest it is uncool to speak out. We must always speak out. If you know someone who is being bullied, TELL SOMEONE ABOUT IT. If you are being bullied, TELL SOMEONE ABOUT IT. If your friend is bullying, TELL SOMEONE ABOUT IT. Never be silent. Silence, history shows us, can kill.

anti-bullying-sloganFrancis is a victim of bullying in my novel BURN BABY BURN BABY. He lives with a physical deformity, after being severely burned in a childhood attack by his own father. The bully character in my novel gives Francis the nickname BURN BABY. And he taunts and abuses him mercilessly. Francis tried to be strong about it. But in his efforts to be strong, he was actually weak. Because it’s NEVER a good idea to be silent when you are being bullied. In Burn Baby Burn Baby, please understand that I was NEVER condoning silence. If you’re silent, the bully wins. If those who witness bullying are silent, the bully wins. The bully should never win. Silence can escalate into a chaos of circumstances where, in the end, no one wins.

TELL – SPEAK UP – GET HELP

In Canada, reach out to KIDS HELP PHONE ONLINE or CALL 1-800-668-6868

Also, reach out to PREVNET

In U.S.A, reach out to STOP BULLYING

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline:

1-800-273-TALK (8255)

Canadian Suicide Crisis Centres

BE YOUR OWN HERO. BE A HERO TO SOMEONE WHO NEEDS ONE. SPEAKING UP CAN STOP BULLYING.

Part One of My Radio Interview with Charlene Jones OFF THE TOP at Whistle Radio! And You Got Your Genre in My Peanut Butter!

I was interviewed by CHARLENE JONES of Whistle Radio Stouffville for the OFF THE TOP segment! Today, I’m going to share part one of the show.

We talked about my novel writing process, the Muskoka Novel Marathon, Driftwood Theatre and Trafalgar24…

You can find CHARLENE’S WEBSITE HERE.

She is also on TWITTER.

WHISTLE RADIO 102.7 FM

Much gratitude to Charlene for interviewing me.

I can’t decide!

John Steinbeck on ideas...
John Steinbeck on ideas…

In grade school it was SO simple. You took a sheet of construction paper. You glued macaroni to it. You poked holes in it and threaded pipe cleaners into it. You painted a bit in one corner by blowing through a straw to move a blob of paint around on the page. You glued a feather to another corner. You shot the whole thing up with glitter before sticking a cut-out of your latest Wish item from the Sears catalogue into the centre. You didn’t care. You used all materials available to you. And it looked…well, bloody fantastic. It looked amazing. Art at its finest.

Why can’t we do this as adults? Why can’t we whim our lives? Madly off in all directions!

Because four-letter words are attempting to stop us, to staunch the flow of our creativity. Words like FOCUS. Okay, it’s five letters…but when you try to live within its parameters, it’s four-letter words that come up out of the frustration.

I still want to collage things. I still want to dip into whatever it is I want to do that day. I lack focus. I am easily distracted. As a writer, that’s such an incredible curse. When you don’t even know what genre you want to hang around in, it becomes an issue. Do I want to write contemporary? Do I want to write horror? Do I want to write romance? Do I want to write comedy/humour? The answer is YES. And then there are markets. Do I want to write for kids? Or teens? Or adults? The answer is YES. Heck, I can’t even pick a medium. I want to write for the stage. I want to write for the page.

After my recent Crisis of Happiness, I’m currently struggling over what it is I want to write. At first, I thought I might be struggling with whether or not I wanted to continue being a writer. But I think I have narrowed down my problem to being that I don’t know what I want to write. I don’t know what genre. I don’t know what market. I need to find a way to narrow my focus. I need a crystal ball to tell me what to do next. I have multiple projects halted and in the air. It all stems to trying to funnel myself into one distinct category when my mind wants to go off madly off in all directions.

I need to write despite the fact that I don’t know what to write. Because I’m discovering that if you don’t use it, you lose it.

But I want feathers and pipe cleaners in my paintings, dammit. Nobody puts baby in the corner. Sometimes, I feel like the old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups commercial. I’m walking down the street with my contemporary Young Adult manuscript in hand and this horror genre comes skateboarding madly toward me and crashes into me. After the accident, I look up at my manuscript and notice it’s covered and dripping with horror. I turn to the genre with the now broken skateboard and I yell, “HEY! You got your genre in my peanut butter!”

This is not my writing life!