I’ve written a lot about writing advice – the good and the bad – but if there is one piece of ‘accepted wisdom’ I’d like to see killed by fire, it’s ‘REAL writers write every day’. ‘Real writers write every day’, you are told, as if being a writer is an uncontrollable impulse that must […]
Tag Archives: Writing
I’ve never been a fan of New Year’s resolutions. In part this is due to my fondness for seeing autumn, with its ‘back to school new notebook’ vibe (and the fact that my birthday is in September) as a much more natural fresh start, in part because my schedule tends to be frantic from November […]
In an unequal world where we are encouraged to monetise every aspect of our lives, do we need to redefine what ‘failure’ really is? And maybe consider that sometimes – often, even – it might actually be a good and necessary thing? As you can tell from how often I’ve updated this blog over the […]
I’ve never been a fan of New Year’s resolutions. In part this is due to my fondness for seeing autumn, with its ‘back to school new notebook’ vibe (and the fact that my birthday is in September) as a much more natural fresh start, in part because in a normal year my work schedule tends […]
I wrote an earlier post on why your lockdown hobby, be it cooking or crafts, can actually be a useful thing for your writing, and as my cross-stitch obsession deepens, it’s teaching more and more ways that is true. So since we’re heading into local lockdown again here, I thought I’d use some of the […]
When you are trying to carve a career as a writer, it can feel like you are competing with everyone – especially since a lot of writing opportunities are literally competitions so, um, you sort of are – but in truth, other writers can be the best friends you can have. Because one of the […]
What cross-stitch taught me about writing As anyone who follows me on social media knows, after months of mocking other people for getting their cook / craft on in lockdown (SO MUCH SOURDOUGH), with crushing predictability I finally gave into the urge myself. I have developed an interest in cross-stitch that can be kindly described […]
So this week I hit what I had thought was an impossible milestone – 150 coffees bought for me on Ko-fi! I originally started this page (nearly 2 years ago) as a bit of an experiment. As someone who has always struggled a bit with impostor syndrome, and marvelled at the ability of my more […]
This blog previously appeared on my Newcastle blog, Prodigal Geordie “Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colours. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same […]
So, a confession, and one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to admit: for the past couple of years, I have lost all interest in writing. No biggie, right? There are worse things to admit, even to yourself. But when you’ve spent more than half of your life defining yourself as ‘writer’, what happens […]
Dark Dates 