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Katie Bickell

Author, Instructor, Manuscript Consultant

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katiebickell

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My daughter’s bedroom is a greenhouse. Not reall

My daughter’s bedroom is a greenhouse. Not really. Really, it’s the smallest, darkest room in our home, chosen by her when she was ten years old because, prior to her moving out of the bedroom she shared with her sister, it was my office - a place where she’d meet me at 6am to play a game of chess, or where she’d work on homework in later afternoons across the desk from where I wrote. Before that, she’d spend hours at my feet in her bouncy chair in that room, when she was a newborn baby and I was a newborn writer. It is the same room where, on the second day of her life, her father forgot her wrapped up “taco baby” style on the room’s guest bed, when I called him up for dinner and away from his task of uploading photos of her to Facebook for friends and family members to see.

“Where’s the baby?”
*confused look before realization* “oh shit!”

But now the room is her secret garden, with plants in every corner and on every surface. Kept alive with grow lights and a small humidifier, she collects and curates like a botanist. So, we were thrilled this weekend that she invited the rest of us into her interest when she researched and organized a family trip to Devon’s Botanical Gardens. She introduced us to exotic and native plants, and pointed out their many special features that I can’t recall but enjoyed hearing her tell me about.

An amazing thing about a child growing into their own world is the way it expands your own. As she and her sister take up their own interests and hobbies and specialities, we sometimes have the privilege of invitation. Then, we no longer experience things we know through their eyes, but things they know through ours. The days of parenting a teen often feel fleeting and sometimes it’s a little sad to feel her taking each step away from me. But then, just look at what she’s waking toward 🌱

Soaking up the fall coziness during a manuscript c

Soaking up the fall coziness during a manuscript critique 🍁

A few months ago I started making my initial consult notes on printed copies instead of digital and I’m never going back. It’s a little more expense (ink & paper) and a little more time (after penning notes in margins, I input them into comments on digital copies to be delivered to the client following our manuscript meeting), but the feeling of pen on paper and the opportunity to leave my desk is so worth it. It’s all about the little thing and I’m a big believer in romanticizing life.

This is a bit of a joke I tell my students in a class I teach on overcoming writer’s block. In that lecture, I ask students to think of the last time someone “romanticized writing” to them. It happens all the time - you tell someone you’re a writer and they tell you their fantasies about it: how if they were you, they’d write in dark pubs like Hemingway, or in moleskins on the bus while people watching, or by candle light at midnight. For many of us who write to pay our bills, these fantasies can kinda make us cringe because we live the far less glamorous reality of writing to stringent deadlines or hating our early drafts so much we can barely read them or working in the midst of domestic chaos because there was one option - clean or write - so you end up working with laundry piled on one side of you and dirty dishes on the other.

But, when motivation is gone… well, for me the best thing to do is sink into a fantasy. If writing in a pub or on a bus or in a fresh moleskin or by candle light is enough to bring back a millisecond of the magic, it might be just enough to break out of a funk. I’ll take it, always ✨

#manuscriptcritique #editor #editing #writersblock #romantisizeyourlife #writing #shortstory #cozy

Register for free by calling Strathcona County Lib

Register for free by calling Strathcona County Library, or schedule a one-on-one appointment with me to write your resume (also a free service! Isn’t our library fab?!). Other available free services include interview coaching, online job application, and contract negotiation skills. See you soon!

#interviewskills #acingtheinterview #sherwoodpark #sherwoodparkevents #sherwoodparklocal #jobsearch #resumes #work #strathconacounty #careercoaching

Instagram post 18027737371568892

Instagram post 18027737371568892

See you in the morning? #resume #newjob #jobsearch

See you in the morning? #resume #newjob #jobsearch #resumetutor #resumewriting #work #careercoach #strathconacounty #sherwoodpark

Summer Photo Dump - backyard hammock hangouts - bi

Summer Photo Dump
- backyard hammock hangouts
- bike rides
- boating with mom and Wes
- a visit from overseas
- Barbie movie ‘fits
- the kids learning how to turn their feet into washing machines during a muddy vacation with no washer
- rainy day fishing
- beach days

September photo dump:
- Parent’s night at Chloe’s junior high (that kid’s dad!😍)
- our 10 foot sunflower (new Bickell record)
- First day of school at two new schools: high school and junior high
- How’d ya like them apples?
- the start of kitchen renos
- a little office love ❤️ Manuscript consultation work between resume clients

Firmly in the keeping-my-daughter-company-during-h

Firmly in the keeping-my-daughter-company-during-her-boyfriend’s-football-game stage of life. #HiInstaItsBeenAWhile #fall2023 #septembervibes🍁

Chloe: you’re not good at making hair look good,

Chloe: you’re not good at making hair look good, but I knew you’d be able to make it look crazy.

You got me, kid. That’s the specialty.✨

#holidayhairday #whovillechristmas

Celebrating F’s 41st trip around the sun with ch

Celebrating F’s 41st trip around the sun with cheesecake and candlelight. Happy birthday, Honey🎂 We love you so much ❤️

Instagram post 18224925259084495

Instagram post 18224925259084495

Halloween 2022 It’s a bittersweet holiday this y

Halloween 2022
It’s a bittersweet holiday this year. This is the first Halloween Chloe decided not to celebrate her birthday and instead go out with friends, and the first year Caily decided to host a horror movie marathon instead of trick and treating. After a decade of Halloween birthdays, it was just Freddy and I making do with a date night at Blowers and Grafton. But how lucky were we that we had that 10 year surprise tradition, Honey? 🧡🎃 still no one I’d rather the spookiest night of the year with.

(Still dressed up as The Witch of Appleton Crescent though, ‘cause, I mean, is it even a costume anymore?)

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