Writing

"The two most important physical dimensions of the writing profession are time and space.  Write every day at the same time and in the same place, whether you have anything to say or not.  The very act of sitting at your writer's time and in your writer's place releases the writer's energy in you and begins to affect you automatically."

So said University of Notre Dame professor of creative writing, Richard Sullivan.  He is correct.  A writer for almost 50 years, I know how my creative juices flow.  I must be at a keyboard.  Otherwise the words do not come.  I think this is because when I began to write seriously, while at Maclean-Hunter, I faced a typewriter and a ruthless editor who taught me so much about getting rid of words.  That's the trick. 

Jean Portugal was a brilliant editor.  I was part of a group of newly-hired journalists who wrote for many business-press periodicals, as well as Chatelaine, Miss Chatelaine and The Financial Post.  Mrs. Portugal, as we always called her (never "Jean"), edited our copy.  Roy MacGregor sat opposite.  I knew he would be a very successful writer, which of course, he is.

But the way I write is as professor Sullivan describes it.  I remember the hated weekly deadlines.  I would have an assignment and worry and worry the article around in my head for days until the last second.  Then I would sit at the typewriter and out it would flow.  I used to try and write as good writers write, imitating them, hoping my copy was as good as theirs.  Often it was.  That's the way I write today.  I try to imitate good writers while communicating my own ideas. 

I love writing.  It is a mandatory passion.