Magic Vision Writing Course (online)
At last – The Magic Vision Writing Course is here! Where Creative Writing meets the Law of Attraction I’m excited to share with you a set of simple but powerful tools from the creative writer’s toolbox with which you can craft an inspiring festive vision for anything you want – for yourself, for your community, […]
Not Schrödinger’s Cat
An article of mine about the Catalan language once appeared in a magazine under the title ‘Catalan Got Your Tongue? The Language With Nine Lives.’ I showed it to my Spanish friend M-J. She was bemused. “In Spanish,” she said solemnly, “a cat has seven lives. Why nine?” “Porque sí.” Because yes, which has always […]
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 […]
Love Your Characters
The essential element of powerful fiction is not a twisty plot, pace, tension, effective writing… you can do all those things and still not engage the reader. The absolute key thing is that your reader CARE about your characters. Period. And how do you do that? By caring about them yourself. And how do you […]
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 […]
Writing: The Three Keys
Passion – Perseverance – Patience Passion drives the story and sweeps the reader along. Your passion for your subject, your story, your characters in some mysterious way leaves its energy imprint in the words on the page, and your reader will feel it and will care. Perseverance means using your writing craft tools until you’ve […]
The Colours and The Shapes
Ever since I was a depressed, angst-ridden teenager in Manchester, I’ve zoned out / self-soothed / chilled out by wandering round shops. So when I read about the wonderful Artist’s Date tool in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, I thought: I already do that. Costume jewellery and art supplies, fabric departments and toy shops, tropical […]