Marcus Lopes's Blog, page 11

Finding Inspiration

With an established writing routine—writing every day no matter what—I don’t wait for inspiration to put words down on the page. It’s a luxury I don’t have, especially as I’m getting older and time seems to be passing by quickly. Plus the fact that I have a day job and try to make the most of my mornings at home. Yet there are things that do inspire me to write, and that help fill my creative stores. Today, I want to share a few.

 

Art Galleries

 

There are certain artists, and their works, tha...

On Purpose

What do you want to do? It was a question that was asked a lot when I was growing, and a lot more so as I neared the end of high school. What would I do next? There were a lot of things that interested me—music, politics, cooking, policing (notice that writing didn’t make the list then)—yet I really had no clue what I wanted to do. But like my older sister, I’d follow ‘the plan’ and go to university because our parents never had that opportunity. So, for five years I went and wandered aimlessly...

Cutting Out the Noise

It’s been a minute since I watched a newscast or scrolled through the headlines on news sites. That’s been intentional on my part because I used to spend an inordinate amount of time checking headlines in an obsessive way. That ‘obsession’ intruded when I wrote or read, when I was baking or cooking, or when I was in transit to and from work. It had me constantly—despite my intention or will—reaching for my phone. To get back to what mattered, and stay focused, cutting out the noise was the only...

The Call to Courage

In a social media post last week, I talked briefly about Ryan Holiday’s book, Courage is Calling: Fortune Favours the Brave. At the time, I was on my second read-through of the book after having read it roughly a year earlier. I set it aside to read again as I was trying to bring order to my writing space. 

Let Us Not Wait 

This time around, the book’s epigraph, a quote from the Greek philosopher Xenophon, really caught my attention: 

“Let us not wait for other people to come to us and call upo...

A New Year. A ‘New’ Way of Being

Towards the end of November 2023, and as the year began to wind down, something became crystal clear to me: I was wasting a lot of time. I was too often reaching for my phone. I tried to do things—write, organize my expenses, bake/cook, read—while surfing the internet or streaming a movie or show on Prime Video. These were bad habits that I knew would impact my ability to do deep work, yet it became harder and harder to stop them. That led to another realization: I needed a ‘new’ way of being.

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A Pretty Palatable Year [in Review]

We have two weeks to go before we say goodbye to 2023. I was kind of bummed out when the year began. Doubt had crept in, and I expected it to be a year long on disappointments and short on accomplishments. As it turned out, 2023 was a pretty palatable year. Here are the highlights. 

Another Book (Finally) Published

I had a lot of doubt as to whether or not I would get Bring Him Back to Me onto virtual bookshelves. There had been several setbacks writing this novel, but it was finally shared wit...

Make a Choice

As the end of 2023 approaches, we’re going to hear a lot of talk about how the year went. There will be reflections on the people who died and the impact they had on the world. We will relive the highlights of sports and world events. At a personal level, a lot of us will look back and determine if we succeeded at what we set out to do. For some, that will be a positive experience. For others…not so much. But no matter how the year went, one thing is clear: we all had a choice.

Have a Vision

Un...

Embrace the Suck

I am a morning person. For most of my adult life, I have not needed an alarm clock to wake up in the morning. When I was a flight attendant and had to be at the airport before the crack of dawn, I would set an alarm as a fail-safe. However, I would mentally remind myself what time I needed to get up before going to bed. And usually anywhere from fifteen to twenty minutes before the alarm was set to go off, I would wake up. In my current role working late nights, I am still naturally waking up e...

Embrace Reality

A few weeks ago, I ordered and started reading Arnold Schwarzenegger’s book, Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life, only to put it down. Not because it wasn’t interesting, but because another book1 I ordered had arrived and it stole my attention. Then last Monday as I travelled to Malton on the Kitchener Go Train, I picked up where I left off with Be Useful. And as often happens lately when I’m reading certain books, it felt like Schwarzenegger could read my mind and his words were directed right at ...

Do Hard Things

Running the Toronto Waterfront Marathon last October, there were several moments when I wanted to give up. As the pain exploded in my right foot and my pace slowed to a walk, I remember thinking, ‘What the hell just happened?’ Everything just evaporated. The ease with which I was running. My breathing. My mental toughness. And my chance at setting a personal best. Over the years, running taught me I could do hard things. Only there I was, pulling off to the side to stretch, breathe, wallow, and...