News Update
Hello. I’m back, taking stock. What on earth have I been up to since the wins I posted back in 2017? I finished my first novel – a crew of eccentric characters now in search of a literary agent. And working ‘officially’ on the second one. And, just today, submitted two stories to a flash […]
How The Creative Process Works
Lying on my yoga mat, focussing on my breathing, focussing on releasing the almost crippling tension in my neck and shoulders – suddenly it comes together. Dots join. It’s like a little explosion in my head. It happens instantaneously. That’s the creative process. I could never have arrived here by logical, linear thought. Only when […]
A Story of Mine
“Tortoise had become so demoralised by other, faster, nimbler animals bullying him that he lost all his self-confidence. Instead of feeling calm and unhurried and savouring every instant of Now, he yearned to be fast like cool, streetwise Hare. It’s not good to be a tortoise, he told himself. So Tortoise went into a decline, […]
Weaving Text
In a recent post we looked at how the creative process has many stages, and how writing is no exception, and how each stage requires different skills and tools. And how, when we get stuck or frustrated with our writing and maybe beat ourselves up, it’s often because we’ve forgotten or are unaware which stage […]
What a Vase from Portugal Can Teach Us about Writing
This vase was bought my late parents many years ago on holiday in Portugal. How did this vase start life? As clay. Formless and colourless. So how did it become a vase? Someone had an idea in their head – a design – and probably sketched it on paper. And then the potter had to […]
Big Mind Join Dots
Yesterday, on the way back from the shops, an idea hit me – a section of plotline for the second novel, which is currently mostly a bunch of freewrites and crappy drafts. You know that feeling, that holistic feeling when dots are suddenly joined in your head, or pieces of a puzzle that have been […]
Picasso for Writers
I’m going to be brutally honest here: writing is scary. It’s one of the big reasons we procrastinate. That said, it’s taken me years of attempts at meditation, mindfulness, NLP, Ekhart Tolle etc etc to even begin to detach a bit from my thoughts; to observe what happens between a thought and the response to […]
The Gift of 20 Minutes a Day
Can we reframe this business of writing for 20 mins a day/500 words as a gift that you give to yourself? A gift to that part of you that never wanted to be cooped up in a classroom all day. A minimum time and space where you can express yourself – say whatever you want […]
With A Rose Between Her Teeth
A story that plays with both British and Spanish stereotypes. “Whenever we Costa Brits became weary of sun, sea and sangria, tired of bright beach umbrellas, blue skies, palm trees, bead curtains, and dinner at midnight, we would go over to Debbie and David’s. Debbie’s chintzy little villa with its garden gnomes, crocheted toilet seat […]
Black Dress: The Making Of A Story
My most chilling – and successful – story (if successful means the number of times it’s been published) came straight from my unconscious mind. It’s the only story I’ve ever written that required minimal tweaking rather than driving myself crazy with endless rewrites before it felt ‘right’. I found Black Dress on my hard disc […]