The Hodgepodge, a writer’s journal
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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 ...
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Clifden Arts Week
Arrived in the bus from Galway – a mesmerising trip through the countryside – to be whisked by Australian/Irish poet, Robyn Rowland straight to a reading by Tom McCarthy, who was a last-minute replacement for Paul Durcan. It was a fascinating reading, not the least because McCarthy placed himself in opposition to Durcan politically in ...