It’s a month since the UK government announced lockdown. The Husband and I began our personal self isolation a week earlier on March 16, so, five weeks and counting, we’ve pretty much adapted to our new routine. The only thing … Continue reading Unlocking
So, here we are then, all stuck inside waiting for the beast to sniff us out and come knocking on the door disguised as a friendly neighbour or lost delivery guy. We get a lot of lost delivery guys (both … Continue reading I Need a Haircut & Other Whinges
Now I’m earning a regular wage I’ve been able to buy a new phone. Not brand new, but a year old iPhone 8, quite an upgrade from my old 4s which was apt to randomly switch itself off, and overheated … Continue reading Writing in a Taxi in Mauritania, Virtually
For the last two and a half months I’ve been working for/with a company that runs conferences. I only do three days a week so I still have four days to work on my writing and other aspects of my … Continue reading Ten Minute Post
On my old desktop computer, and in my loft, I have years worth of writing exercises, prompts, and old lesson plans. And this week has seen me searching through old files, dusting off old documents, revamping ideas (with the help … Continue reading Story-A-Week #12: Using Objects as Prompts
If you’re a writer you’ll be familiar with the question, ‘are you a plotter or a pantser?’ A pantser being someone who writes before looking at such structural things as pace, arc, motifs, etc. A plotter being someone who creates … Continue reading Story-a-Week #11: An Attempt at Plotting in Advance
Last Tuesday was the last in my Café Stories series of workshops* so we looked back on everything we’d covered, pulled it all together with a look at the narrative arc, did a bit of editing, and wrote one last … Continue reading Story-A-Week #10: Narrative Arc
For last Tuesday’s Café Stories I put together a lesson that combined memoir writing and plot types. There are umpteen theories on the range of narrative structures, but to keep it simple I stuck to the one that holds there … Continue reading Story-a-Week #9: Memoir and Monsters
Another hard won story which started in the Café Stories workshop on Tuesday. We did the art of writing about place. The setting for a story is more than merely a backdrop for the action, when done right it can … Continue reading Story-a-Week #8: The Art of Losing
After last week’s meltdown I feel I’m back on the sea-plane of unstoppability with #8 of Benjamin Hardy’s thirty behaviours: Become More Playful and Imaginative Hardy begins with this quote from Einstein : “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge … Continue reading On Becoming Unstoppable #3
