Thinking that fate has just kicked me in my big procrastinating writery butt ...

It goes without saying that it's been a long, long time since I posted here. Life just has a funny way of throwing things at you and I'm just way too easily distracted by those things. Lately, though, the calmness and routine that I crave have been slowly creeping back and my mind has been turning once again to my writing. Of course it hasn't been turning enough to actually drag me to the keyboard for anything more than grinding out my monthly column. That is until this morning. Sometimes fate decides that we need a big cosmic kick in the butt. I think I just got one.

Anyone who follows (followed) my blog may remember this post from November 11, 2008. I wrote about discovering my great-great grandfather, Arthur Hall, and learning about his service in WWI.

Last night my seven year old was working on a project for Remembrance Day and I pulled up that piece to check on some details. Then, after talking to her about our family's military history I felt compelled to attend the service today at our local Legion. When I returned home I decided to re-read my post from last year about my grandfather. Then I clicked on the comments. At the bottom of the list was one that I had never seen before. It had been left in May .

The writer was a student who told me that she is studying history at university and was leaving in a few days with a small group for a battlefield study tour. As part of this project she had to choose a Canadian soldier and deliver a brief presentation about him to the other students in the group. She had chosen my grandfather! (she had found him through her local Legion's website).
She assured me that he was not forgotten (as I has mentioned in my post) and that in two weeks she would be visiting his grave and sharing his story with 15 other students.

I will admit I had chills. Then my heart sank. I realized that she didn't have a blogger account. How was I going to find her? I had questions. Fortunately my mind hasn't become so cluttered that I forgot about facebook. I searched her name and school. I found a girl that seemed to be a match. I sent her a message and she replied with in about 20 minutes. I had found my girl! I have since sent her a more detailed reply and am hoping to hear back from her.

Doing more research and writing more extensively about Arthur is always something I have intended to do. It was however, something that I have had simmering on the back burner. I had started another unrelated WIP last winter. But Arthur is always somewhere in the back of my mind. Perhaps the events of the last 24 hours are his way of telling me that I need to stop ignoring him, we need to get better acquainted.