More than Writers

  Writing is mostly a solitary activity, which is what I loved the most when I first started writing. Homeschooling four children and being around people all day meant sitting down to write in the quiet evenings was such a gift. No multitasking, no demands, no children suddenly overcome with emergencies that only I could save them from, like missing shoes or broken pencils. Then they grew up a little and so did the demands and difficulties, and finding solitary time was getting harder, and the peace and quiet was filled with the need to recover. No spare headspace for dreaming stories and I even struggled to write full sentences. As they’re all in various educational institutions this year, I find myself enjoying more quietness and peace. I am often reluctant to join groups, but find they’re such a blessing when I get there. We have our local writing group, Cotswold Scribblers, and this small group has been such a wonderful place to connect and be inspired. Every month we have ...

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay images. My title here may not be seen as good news by any writer.  It is still true though. Why did this thought occur to me? After a recent service (and I stress it was afterwards!), I was looking through my hymnbook. I’m with the URC. We use Rejoice and Sing . It has so much from the great composers (Bach, Handel, and Vaughan Williams amongst others such as Kendrick and the late Bishop Timothy Dudley-Smith). As for the words, each hymn is a mini address when you read them.  My favourite hymn, O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go, has my favourite line in it - I trace the rainbow through the rain . That has a lot of resonance for me and I’m sure for many others. It cannot date. Some things are always true.  My church recently had a Favourite Hymns service where we set a personal best - ten sung hymns, one recited (literally a last minute addition), had the notices, took the offering, there were prayers and readin...

Photo Author's Own Are you a detail-oriented writer, or do you prefer a broad-brush approach to your writing style? What do you draw on for inspiration? Imagine you’ve got the window seat in an aeroplane, coming in to land.  If it’s England, you will at first see a patchwork quilt made of many different shades of green and brown (that’s if you can see the land at all for the rain clouds!) Then, as the plane descends, you can pick out roads, buildings and finally cars.  An artist of the broad-brush variety might paint an impression of a landscape, much like seeing it from this distant view, whereas another might paint in such painstaking detail that it’s hard to distinguish from a photograph. There’s room for both approaches. I’m fascinated by how art, music and literature mirrored each other through the ages. Just think of the paintings and music of the Baroque era (detailed, orderly and harmonic), compared to the  Impressionists, where the music escaped the harmonic stru...

  There are so many random questions in my head this morning. Some I’m asking myself.    Some I’d rather like to hear your thoughts on. I’ve got my reader head on today really. But we all know we must read copiously to hone our writer skills. We also probably know that the more reading we do the less time we have to write. So… here we go.   Is it possible to have too many books? Discuss. Ah… the word ‘discuss’… what memories that brings back. ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’.   ‘Too many books…’ ?? answers on a postcard please. Or at least in the comments at the end.  Do you like to read (write!!) series of novels? Would you always feel you had to start with the first one? I always try to begin at the beginning. www.fantasticfiction.com , recommended some years ago by a friend, has been a boon in keeping me on track where I’m up to in a series. Not to mention a terrible tool of temptation.  How do you choose what you read next? I read only the ...

Many of you will know that I spent 30 years as a Christian youth worker, most of that time in full-time ministry. Needless to say, my heart still reaches out to young people and to those who support them—it feels like an eternal bond. Now, at the age of 65, I look back on a wide journey: from youth work to leading a charity to publishing books. Along the way, I’ve gathered a toolkit of experience. With retirement age approaching, the question I ask myself is this: what do I do with all of this knowledge? The answer is simple—I share it. I give it away. I do this through mentoring: coming alongside charity leaders, aspiring writers, and youth workers who are navigating challenges of their own. I offer this help because others have helped me on my journey—ACW included. I know the weight of leading, creating, and supporting others, but I also know the joy of having someone walk beside me. A few months ago, I visited a young Christian friend in a mental health hospital. He was there...

When I was a teenager, I used to get into terrible trouble with my Mum because I wrote in bed. Using a fountain pen. As I'm sure you'll understand, permanent blue ink on bedsheets was not appreciated! (Even though when my pocket money ran out and the ink looked like doing likewise, I diluted it so much it went from dark blue to sky blue and then virtually invisible!) I was reminded of this as I have recently rediscovered the joys of writing with a pen. On paper. Not in bed any longer but in a  comfortable chair by my French windows in the sitting room.  I usually write straight onto the keyboard and watch the words pile up on the computer screen. But the new book is a bit more complex than the last one. It is a murder mystery with layers of intrigue - and I have discovered that the only way to get all the threads straight (and the clues and red herrings neatly inserted in the right places) before I actually write the chapters, is to sit down and think them out on paper.  ...

  Escaping Criticism by Pere Borrel del Caso   How do you handle criticism? That might be a bit of a broad question. I might depend who’s giving the criticism and how sympathetically it’s delivered. But imagine this scene: you’ve sent the manuscript you’ve been working on for months to someone you respect. They kindly but insistently point out all the things that don’t work. What do you do? 1 throw the comments to the floor (or the equivalent with an email) and storm off in anger; 2 believe the remarks and decide the whole piece of writing is rubbish, as is your decision to write anything at all; 3 take some time to reflect on the comments and then consider them calmly. Of course it should be 3, we all know that. But let’s admit, that’s easier said than done. When we’ve spent weeks polishing a poem or a piece of prose, and we think it’s really good, we hope that the response is going to be, ‘wow, that’s amazing’. Not, ‘good premise, but x doesn’t really work and ha...

    Patience, purpose and a plan. I must confess one reason for going to the recent CRT conference at The Hayes, Derbyshire, was to spend time with other Resolute Books authors. We are scattered all over the country so in-person get-togethers are rare. We soon discovered a common sense of humour which led to a WhatsApp group and much hilarity over the few days of the conference. Do not ask how but one thread resulted in renaming titles of songs with the word ‘prunes/prune’ in them. Here are some: (In no particular order) I’ve got prunes, they’re multiplying.  Prune Lightening It’s raining prunes I heard it through the grape prune Livin’ on a prune Dark side of the Prune Pink Pruney Club I think I will leave it there. Like, the real fruit, our exercise provided (for me) a positive health benefit with all the laugher the above caused. Laughter reduces stress, boast creativity and increases energy. Great news for a writer. For a writer their creativity and en...

 Ghost writer: 'Someone who writes a book or article, etc. for another person to publish under his or her own name.' (Cambridge Dictionary) “Thanks. Just put the key back through the letterbox when you leave.” My friend was leaving the house after me, and had said she’d lock up. When I returned home a couple of hours later, the key was on the mat. The house was empty. But something had changed. In my study, I saw this: ALT: a doll sitting in front of a computer keyboard Sarah (yes, of course my doll has a name) does not usually sit at my desk, yet there she was!  It made me smile. I messaged my friend, asking if she was subtly suggesting I need a ghost writer?! Before I’d left the house earlier, I’d given her a pre-release copy of my  new book . Bit late for a ghost writer now….   When I moved Sarah from the chair, and replaced her with myself, I was still chuckling. Later, I thought about it some more.  I think I do have a ghost writer. ...

  Unusually, I have left my home city this week to travel to Bristol. As I get older, I find adventure, however low-level, less appealing, so it takes something that I really want to do to make me move. Our son lives in Bristol, and it was lovely to see him, obviously, but we also wanted to see Fran Lebowitz, who was appearing in the city. For those not in the know, Lebowitz is a New Yorker and a writer who has famously been what she calls book-blocked for decades. Her last book was a children's book called "Mr Chas and Lisa Sue Meet the Pandas," which was published in 1994.   Before these, she had written two books, which gained her literary fame and established her as an author. He has not written a book since.  Famously non-technical, she is not online and does not possess a mobile phone. She says that she writes with a Bic pen and that this makes her slow - too slow to produce another book, certainly for now. She is now in her mid-seventies, and despite having a ...

Photo by  Shelby Murphy Figueroa  on  Unsplash This week, I’ve started a new role, volunteering in the library at my daughters’ primary school. I’ll admit, I’ve always dreamt of being a librarian. That, or working in a bookshop. The ordered shelves; the studious silence; the smell of new paperbacks. The reality, of course, is very different, when a class of 8-year-olds comes piling through the door and heated debate ensues about whose turn it is to get which book from the most popular series.  For many years, I worked as a doctor, specialising in public health medicine. In the UK, rather than treating individual patients, public health doctors seek to protect and improve the health of communities. They look at the bigger picture, trying to prevent disease before it happens. This includes things like vaccination, promoting healthy lifestyles, and responding to outbreaks of infection. At different points, I worked with local councils, the NHS, and government on a range...

       I often wonder how to move forward with my writing, should I work on a book of devotionals, try an audio format or perhaps another avenue altogether? There are many opportunities, but it sometimes seems that they require far more than a gift of writing. The whole area of self-promotion and marketing I find very uncomfortable, leaving me feeling at a disadvantage.      Recently, I discovered a work of fiction, inspired by fact, that made me see things from another perspective. Jodi Picoult who is known for tackling difficult subjects, has written a number of historical novels as well as those set around more modern dilemmas.   I love reading fiction which opens my eyes to a historical era and teaches me. Picoult’s book ‘ By Any Other Name ’ did just that. The story is told through the eyes of two women. One a New York playwright named Melina who is struggling for recognition in a male dominated industry.      The second wo...

This month, Marion shares some thoughts on the ever-inspiring Jane Austen. The BBC’s decision to celebrate Jane Austen’s ‘250th  birthday’ has been wonderful. Programmes have revealed the background to her writing and they've serialised several of their archived films, including Sense and Sensibility, Pride and prejudice and Emma. It sounded good to me. Especially the thought of Colin Firth’s Mr Darcey… Life was very different when Jane was alive (December 1775 – July 1817). She was the seventh of eight children, having an older sister Cassandra and six brothers (James, George Charles, Francis, Henry and Edward). Her father, George, was an Anglican vicar and with her mother Cassandra they were a loyal, loving family who were part of the ‘landed gentry’.  Having six brothers, Jane would have known all about inheritance laws. Her novels reflect the utter unfairness of the male-line system which dictated that when a father of daughters died, if his daughters were not married to...

  As the UK slips into autumn and you reach for thicker jumpers, dig out your boots and lay in a supply of mandatory hot chocolate to fortify you thr ough all those writing hours, down here in South Africa, it’s almost spring. I know this because everyone is going on about it after a wet and miserable winter but also, more aesthetically, because I have spied blossom on the trees and signs of life in the vineyards.   Since I’ve recently had a delightful week in Stellenbosch, one of the best wine-making regions of the world (just sayin’), I’ve had the opportunity to see this up close. If you are not a wine-drinker for reasons moral, ethical, religious, or tastebud-related, you may find this post is neither your cup of tea nor glass of vino.   No problem; as you were. Personally, I find the whole process of wine-making fascinating.   White, rosé or red, it intrigues me that the same soil can produce a different flavour of grape each year according to weather and the ti...