Essay "On Writing in Canada"

by Carolyn Henderson

Even in the frozen north, it all comes down to people.

I love to write. I love the freedom of expression that's an innate right in all of us. To stare at a blank page brings me joy when I know that in minutes I can fill it with colourful thoughts, opinions, fascinating characters or the not-so-fictional-drama that is my life.

Writing in the Canadian Rockies is a unique and blessed opportunity. Most of my writing has been done at my PC with a glance of the majestic Mount Rundle out the window to my left. Last year, when I started writing my memoirs, I invested in a laptop computer. I had this vision of the perfect writing life, and it included writing freely, sitting on the fresh-smelling shores of the Bow River, ideas jumping at will from my brain through my fingertips. I am passionately pounding the keyboard, coming up with just the right descriptive paragraph that would undoubtedly move even the most reserved reader. With the mountains in the background, how could I go wrong? I certainly wouldn't be lacking in inspiration. But what if it snows, as it so often does this time of year? Then what happens to my cliché of a writing life? Simple solution: our local coffee shoppe....a writer's dream haven.

With the smell of caffeine welding my thoughts and the never-ending cast of characters coming into the shoppe, I most certainly have the materials for a best selling novel. I sip my chai latte while I watch that same lady with the baby who I see in here every week. I never see her with anyone else and she talks to that little baby like he's her best friend, sharing with him the day's events and even reminiscing about the "Friends" episode they caught last Thursday. Is it really possible to reminisce with a baby? Perhaps. In my novel I will give her a deadly disease, cancer or something, and I will talk of how she herself is a struggling writer, writing through the eyes of a newborn baby as she battles for an understanding of the world before she dies. Interesting stuff. And let's not forget about that group of wannabe-pro snowboarders, the twenty-somethings. I want to turn them into a gang of hoodlum thugs but my commitment to the Canadian personality prevents me from doing so.

The best part of writing in Canada has to be the people. Being a writer here does not make you weird or an outcast as it might in other locales. We have a varied palette of artists here -- actors, writers, painters, photographers, quilters -- all expressing their inner vision through their chosen medium. Mine just happens to be words.