This week, I received a wonderful email from a friend asking me how I started as a writer and how I sustain my writing life. What works for you? she asked. Or doesn’t? What keeps you going? Is there an inner force guiding you, leading you, or pushing you? These and other questions, stopped me in ...
What should we do when we don't want to write? When the desire has died and the very thought of playing with words becomes a chore? Should we take a break? Or push on regardless? One day this week, I lay on my bed for a whole afternoon and lost myself in Jim Crace's prize-winning novel, 'Harvest'. The ...
Cory Taylor died recently after a long fight with cancer. She left behind a remarkable book that was written in the space of a few weeks when her illness became untreatable. ‘Dying: A Memoir’ is a moving account of what dying taught her about life. It made me realise that when I wake up in ...
Incest is an uncomfortable topic to discuss. My novella, 'The Last Taboo: A Love Story', which was published in Griffith Review's Earthly Delights Edition 54, is about genetic sexual attraction between a mother and son who are separated at birth and reunited as adults. Yuk! I hear you thinking. What a turn off! Most people ...
My neighbour's foxgloves are late blooming this Spring. 'I don't think they're going to flower at all,' she told me two weeks ago. She was seriously thinking of pulling them out: I cautioned her to wait. Look at them now; a cascade of bells on long-reaching stems, their little spotted tongues welcoming the sun. How quickly ...
How do you write? Are you a planner or pantser? Do you draw up a plan and follow it meticulously? Or do you fly by the seat of your pants, let the words tumble out willy-nilly and then select, order, structure and rewrite? Perhaps you do a little of both? Most writers do. And what ...
A few years ago, I was part of a panel discussing how best to find a publisher. One writer on the panel was self-published, another wrote non-fiction, another wrote for young adults, a fourth wrote popular fiction. Each stressed the obstacles to getting published. Research very carefully, they said, and find out what is selling, what readers ...
What can a child possibly teach adults about writing? A lot, I discovered on a dismal winter's day when my grandson was four years of age. We had exhausted Lego, painting, play dough, gingerbread men and turning the couch cushions into a fort. ‘Why don’t we write a story,’ I said in a moment of wearied ...
This is a riff on clutter. There is nothing minimalist about my study. Books everywhere. I’ve run out of shelving space so now they sit on the never-used heating unit, on the floor, on the bed. I went through a teddy-bear thing years ago and began a collection, then turned to poodles, but poodles are ...
Meditation is as easy as breathing. Hold on to that sentence forever. You don’t need a private guru or a six-week workshop, or a personalized mantra that costs a small fortune. Trust me, the less you try, the easier it is. Much the same as writing. If I meditate before I begin writing, I always ...
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