For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time to still be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me […]
100 Day Creative Challenge Day 93: Less is More One of the best writing classes I’ve been to was a business writing course. This may seem a strange choice of class for a writer of fiction to attend, but I’ve always struggled to write less. A 500 word limit in a uni assignment just about […]
100 Day Creative Challenge Day 92: Get Messy Why, when we know that there’s no such thing as perfect, do most of us spend an incredible amount of time and energy trying to be everything to everyone? Is it that we really admire perfection? No – the truth is that we are actually drawn to […]
100 Day Creative Challenge Day 91: The Three C’s Number Three: Conversation This week I had four writers at my home for a two-day writing retreat. There was time to write, time to talk and time to eat and talk. The conversations were full of, ‘What do you think about…?’ ‘Wow! That’s a great idea. […]
100 Day Creative Challenge Day 90: The Three C’s Number Two: Community: At the point where you feel like your craft is never going to be good enough, that’s where community comes in. Community is what helps you not to give up. There’s nothing like being in a community of like-minded people who understand what […]
100 Day Creative Challenge Day 89: The Three C’s Number One: Craft The creative life requires the ‘Three C’s’ — Craft, Community and Conversation. Writing is a solitary pursuit. We sit and tap away on our laptops for hours—alone with our thoughts. We go off on amazing adventures and spend time with created characters—in isolation. […]
100 Day Creative Challenge Day 88: Reasons To Write There are a hundred good reasons not to write. You have to steal back the time from your busy life and make your writing a priority. All art is in the doing. Action has magic grace and power. I gave a talk at the Inspire Collective […]
100 Day Creative Challenge Day 85: Pain is My Friend Anything worth doing is worth doing well. We’ve all heard the saying and perhaps trotted it out at certain times in conversation. The truth of this statement is that anything worth doing is going to involve some pain. I’ve returned to exercise after eight weeks […]
One Hundred Day Creative Challenge Day 84: No Regrets Regret is a word that means, I wish I had. Words carry psychological power. Afraid. Fear. Time wasted. Time slipping away. Plan B. Not saying yes. Something I always wanted to do but didn’t. I hurt people. Lost touch with people. Staying in my comfort zone. […]
