message for Ryerson's True to Life class

Writers, they've given us a new classroom which is bigger, has moveable desks - and maybe even windows! The height of luxury.

Still in the VIC building on the second floor, but Room 201. There will be a notice posted on the old door in case you forget. See you Monday. With room to breathe.

And while I have your attention - with regards to the homework that perhaps you've embarked upon by now - remember, you're just putting something on paper to get started. Remember that a first draft is always flawed, clumsy, all over the map. But try, even with only 500-600 words at your disposal, to write about an incident or a sense memory that matters to you.

I keep a notepad by my bed for those middle-of-the-night flashes of inspiration or lists or craziness, and this morning I woke to last night's scribble: "imposing coherence on the world." And I remembered - that's what, at 3 a.m., I decided writing was - a way of imposing coherence on the world. Mine, anyway. In order to understand the world, I need to write about it.