How writing helped me through grief
Suzanne Boles
by Suzanne Boles
2y ago
Writing helped me through grief, but there’s more to the story. Almost eight years ago (June 8, 2013), since my husband, Bob, died I find myself writing a blog post to explain that if you met me in the depth of my grief, the person you met before isn’t the person I am now. After Bob died I was depressed and suffering from complicated grief. This means that not only did I have to go through the grief journey, but I also had to find ways to tamp down my long-time depression that was compounding my sense of loss. So, what does this have to do with writing? A lot. With grief, you lose focus. I did ..read more
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Patience: What Word Would You Use?
Suzanne Boles
by Suzanne Boles
2y ago
Piggybacking on my friend and fellow writer, Nicole Laidler’s New Year’s blog post, I thought I’d use her idea of choosing my word for 2021. Unless you were hiding under a rock, everyone in the world knows that 2020 was the year of Covid19. And in 2021 we are into another year of the pandemic. Here in Ontario, Canada we’re in another lockdown in an attempt to stem the second tidal wave of new Covid cases and surge in death rates that resurfaced around the December holiday season. Despite all of this we have reason to be hopeful. There are vaccines. The end is near. But the experience of anoth ..read more
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Introducing my New Website!
Suzanne Boles
by Suzanne Boles
2y ago
I’m very excited to launch my new website. Though my previous website was professional looking, I feel this one really captures who I am and what I do. As I launch this we’re in the midst of the pandemic, but I love to travel so my wonderful website designer, Carolyn McNall, did a hand drawing of a photo taken on my 2018 trip to Portugal (the header for all my home page and a version for the banner on all other pages). I was enjoying chocolate gelato when a travelling companion snapped this photo. I really feel like that photo exudes my joy of both travel and chocolate gelato. Here’s to furthe ..read more
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Focus on Your Business
Suzanne Boles
by Suzanne Boles
4y ago
Focus. This word keeps coming up for me often lately. How do you keep your focus on your business?  How do you keep organized enough to keep your focus? What should you focus on? I’ve been grappling with this for months. I know I want to change the trajectory of my business. I’ve been telling colleagues my mantra is “To write what I love, and work for clients where respect is mutual.” I’ve written this down more eloquently, but the fact is I haven’t carried through with it. Instead, I spend hours each day procuring information to help freelancers, writers and freelance writers, and post this s ..read more
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Critique Writing with Kindness
Suzanne Boles
by Suzanne Boles
4y ago
I feel like I can’t write anymore. This thought has been stuck in my head ever since I took a memoir workshop with a well-respected former editor of a national magazine. She had nothing good to say about my submission. She went through everyone else’s submissions line-by-line. She left mine for last. She gave a sweeping critique basically saying what I’d written wasn’t good and I should scrap it altogether. No positive feedback. I literally felt like a failure. My hope was to start writing my memoir book using some of the tools she would give us, but she only praised one writer’s work and the ..read more
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Tips to Overcome Writer’s Block
Suzanne Boles
by Suzanne Boles
4y ago
Tips to Overcome Writer's Block For the first time, in a long time, I couldn't write. Some people call it writer's block. I never liked that term and in his book Writing Tools, 55 Essential Strategies for Every Writer,  Roy Peter Clark (Poynter Institute) says we should think of this as a time of "rehearsal" or the process of "mental preparation," but whatever it is, it's definitely not good when you're a writer. For those of us who make our living as freelance writers, the problem becomes exacerbated with looming deadlines - article for a publication (print or online) or content for a clie ..read more
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