So it's time, I've decided.

I've sat on my laurels long enough. The little guys is going to be five months old and many of the tasks I have set out for myself to do while on Maternity Leave are collecting dust in some storage center in my brain. Now, I know taking care of a baby is a full time job and that any spare time I get, like these moments when he naps, are mine to get shit done and then recharge my batteries.

Well it's been about five months now and I'm feeling recharged. I think it might have to do with the shift in weather. With my hay-fever always comes this rebirth and this urge to do, well, more.

I've decided to try and dedicate myself a bit more to my writing. I'm making it my goal to write something, anything each and every day. It can be a part of this blog, part of my other blog or I'll finally start to get cracking on that second novel of mine (or maybe just work at re-writing the first one). I'm setting my goals low as I know there will be times when I just won't have the energy or the time to sit down with my thoughts for more than an hour to bang something out. Ferocious Sonja was right - I do sometimes set my goals to high. Even two minutes of writing is better than nothing at all. Use any time I have, don't get discourage if all I am able to spew forth are some under-developed ideas or a response to some one minute writing exercises. All of it is worth something.

I've been playing around in my head for years with a novel idea. I've been reading some locally focused sub-culture books these past few days and have been thinking that I need to embrace my rotten city for all that it has to offer and maybe its time for me to write about it. Maybe it's time for the real Rise and Fall of Penny Lane to be told.

The idea is tantalizing. I have seen so much and have done some incredible things in my youth. Why not commit them to paper in some tribute to my city. My fair Winnipeg.

I don't loath it, you know. I think the people who live here or have spent many a year here have developed the perfect definition of the 'love-hate' relationship. We are not complacent, nor are we push-overs. We just see what the city has to offer, and love it's gutters and it's sprawling parks. We threaten to leave, some of us do, but we always seem to either long for the city, or end up back in it. We idolize it as much as we hate it.

Listen to a track called "I Hate Winnipeg" by the Weakerthans and you'll know.. you'll know...