Of Officers and Blogs and Books that Make Me Cry

A few random things for a Monday… I grew up with cops. My mum worked as a public servant for the RCMP for twenty-six years, so her co-worker friends included police officers and other people whose work lives, like hers, involved behind-the-scenes stuff that made police work possible. These were the people by whom I was surrounded, and all of them, every single one I knew, was in it for the right reasons. And now, we have our own friends who are cops, and they, too, go to work every day to try to make the world a little safer, a little better, sometimes at the expense of their own safety. And I know that when one of their number is killed in the line of duty, it’s like losing a family member, whether that person sits next to you at coffee or is a stranger from across the country. My thoughts are with the entire police family and everyone else affected by the senseless deaths of Const. Fabrice Georges Gevaudan, Const. Dave Joseph Ross and Const. Douglas James Larche in Moncton last week. I’m not sure who linked to this post, but it’s a good list of things it’s far too easy for most of us to end up regretting in our writing careers, easily avoided if we’re aware and willing: http://thewriteconversation.blogspot.ca/2014/05/9-things-youll-regret-when-you-look.html I just read Maddie Dawson’s The Opposite of Maybe. I was delighted to stumble across it on the shelf at my local bookstore, because I enjoyed what I thought was her first book, The Stuff That Never Happened, and I didn’t know she had a newer one. I’ve since found out (to my great delight), that she has earlier books under a different name, which I intend to check out. I like that Maddie explores territory I love exploring in my own work: the shades of grey between the absolutes of right and wrong, black and white, in which most of life seems to happen, and the nature of relationships of all sorts. Her characters are real and flawed and they make mistakes and don’t always know what’s right for them. There’d be spoilers in the bits that made me cry, so I won’t tell you what they are, but they made me cry not only for the characters, but for the way they resonated with me and spoke to truths and things – love, family, our history and stories, connections – that are important in my own life. If you like introspective women’s fiction, as I do, I recommend it. Share...