After pursuing a life of science, my creative flow had been stifled for years. What began as an e-mail to a friend describing my first day on call as a newly graduated Veterinarian in Southern Ontario, grew into a desire to create a memoir that could be sort of a family heirloom to be opened every couple of generations or so to see what Gramps did.
To my surprise I found I really enjoyed writing. More than that, looking at things as a ‘writer’ gave me a new perspective on day to day life. I even found it to be therapeutic. After a particularly unpleasant job, I would find myself seeing the humour in it almost before I left the farm instead it taking a number of years (as in ‘Summer Symphony’ which I will upload sometime). I even found myself pulling over on the side of the road to jot down a few paragraphs of a story idea after a call, or to write a brief description of something I had seen in the scenery that had struck me as noteworthy or beautiful that I would want to record to use in a later story.
The more I wrote, the more I came to enjoy it, and slowly the idea began to form that maybe, just maybe I could produce a book that would be more than a family heirloom opened every 40 years or so.
So with that in mind, here I am in an attempt to improve my writing by exposure to other writers and their feedback on my work.
As background to my stories I should say that I am a Veterinarian who graduated in 1984 and set up practice in the rolling hills of the Oak Ridges Moraine, located within sight of Canada’s largest city, Toronto. My practice is a mixed animal practice, that is to say I see everything from dogs and cats to horses and cows and everything in between.
I am very excited at having found this group and look forward to growing and learning along with you.
Brian.
p.s. Characters who appear regularly in my stories but are not reintroduced in each one are: Christine, my understanding wife. Wendy, my animal nurse of 18 years, and Grant, an interesting, valuable employee, but one who is a little ‘high strung’.