Archive for the ‘Latest news’ Category
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Discipline
I don’t even like the word. It reminds me of boarding school, or unspeakable things done in grubby rooms, or, alternatively, yogi masters dressed in pristine white seated in uncomfortable positions. It is not appealing. However, the word has been on my mind. Discipline – call it structure or practice, if those words convey a ...
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Mini-review – The Art of Slow Writing by Louise DeSalvo, 2014
When I was at the very start of my writing apprenticeship, I bought heaps and heaps of books about writing. I’d use them as writing workshops and work through the exercises diligently. I still sometimes do this – it’s a great help when I’m stuck with a piece of current writing or want to change ...
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Making a Creative Life
Recently a photo of a semi-frozen Scottish loch popped up on my Insta post with a small caption about living more simply and pulling back from commitments. The photograph noted that she and her partner had had a difficult couple of years, so in 2018, they were both trying to take Fridays off. Fridays were ...
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My Reader’s Journal continued
A couple of people have asked me how I’m recording what I read this year – do I just make some notes or is it more structured? What I’ve decided to do is a reader’s report on each book. I’m using the same format as reader’s reports I’ve received as a writer and the format ...
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A Writer’s Masterclass
I used to be a fast, gulp-it-down, voracious reader. I’d read one book and at the book’s end, be already reaching for the next like a chain smoker. When I worked in our second-hand bookshop in my teens and early twenties, I’d practically snarl at customers who dared interrupt my engrossed reading. Much later, I ...
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Introducing the Gabriele 25.
a The revision I’m currently doing is difficult on a number of levels. It’s quite major – requiring a re-thinking of parts of a story – a journey – I thought I’d sorted. There’s no easy fix, or not in my mind, anyway. It’s not a matter of strengthening a character’s motivation, consolidating the setting ...
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Decided on my New Year intention already!
This is the year I live more deliberately. I’m sick of rushing. I’m banning it in from my life. I want pauses. I want time. I want deliberation. I don’t want to rush writing, but I don’t want to rush anything else I do either – sewing, cooking, knitting – even planning. I want it ...
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Re-discovering the Benefits of a Writing Residency
One of the problems with being a writer and working from home is that your attention is constantly being tugged and pulled in different directions. If you combine writing with any other kind of work – and, let’s face it, most of us have to do that, it’s all too easy to let that (paid) ...
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Clifden, Galway and a memory of my father
I said I’d finish my Clifden Arts Week posts talking about Colette Bryce, who I heard as my final poetry reading at Clifden. I really enjoyed hearing Bryce read her work – and was delighted, later, to find a Selected poems at the wonderful Galway bookshop, Charlie Byrne’s. I’m particularly interested in writing about childhood ...
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Wild and Woolly
I’ve wanted to go to Shetland Wool Week ever since I first heard of it – which I think would have been in 2013, when I first went to Shetland. As a long-time attender of Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show, the thought of a week doing woolly things excited me. So, when Helen took off ...