More than Writers

Welcome to Mothers’ Day I am writing this after a few days full of making craft activities for all ages, to be used in today’s service. Finally I have five baskets set up, each with five different activities for five tables of 8 or so people.  This puts my first task this week - completing the final edits to my manuscript - into perspective. These edits are adjustments following the reader’s remarks. The reader is the one from the publisher. The trouble is that altering one thing creates an effect on everything that follows. I suspect I’m not the only writer who turns around after submitting the very final edit to find that the house has become a chaotic mess, self-care has gone out of the window so that hair has grown wildly and fingernails clatter even on electronic screens. Curtains are hanging off rails where curtain hooks are broken, Zooms have been missed and phone call messages left unanswered. The washing pile has morphed into a mountain.  Meanwhile, there are al...

 I genuinely feel that if you have put in all the work required to complete and novel (congratulations) it is a shame if it wastes away in your cupboard or on your computer. Therefore, I happily share the routes to publication with you in the hope it will help gain your book a larger audience. I previously dealt with vanity press, hybrid press and self-publishing. Now let’s look at traditional and independent publishers.               When people talk about traditional publishers, they are referring to the established system of getting a book deal. This involves submitting to agents, (usually with enough rejections to paper your lavatory walls) before/if you get accepted. The accepting agent will then edit your book.   The next gatekeeper is the publisher. Your agent will submit your manuscript to publishers. Again, many of these may reject your manuscript. If the agent finds one who accepts your work, a cont...

      Superstition has it that hammering a coin into a felled or fallen ancient tree and making a wish can rid you of illness and bring you fortune. The image at the top of this post, photographed on a walk, is from one such tree. It lies on the ground near the ancient clapper bridge, Tarr Steps, which crosses the River Barle in Somerset. When I took the photo, God’s name stood out in sharp relief from the other coins. It made me wonder whether the person who hammered in that particular coin did so with hope, with faith — or perhaps with both. Hope and faith are closely related, but they are not the same thing. Faith is rooted in trust — trust in the character of God. It rests in who He is, regardless of circumstances. Faith says: God is good. God is present. God is faithful — even when we cannot yet see how things will unfold. Hope, by contrast, leans toward tomorrow. It carries expectation. It looks ahead to the fulfilment of what has been promised. If faith i...

 As I’m subbing in on the MTW blog today, I thought I’d share what might be an unpopular opinion. :) I’m pro AI. Now, before anyone starts lobbing rotten vegetables in my direction, let me clarify a few things. I don’t think it’s okay to produce and sell an eBook generated by AI in fifteen minutes. I don’t think it’s right to submit articles or research papers that have simply been spat out by AI. I don’t think it’s okay to send marketing emails (see Paul Kerensa’s recent Facebook post) claiming you’ve read someone’s work when it was actually AI that read it. And I’m not entirely convinced about the idea of having an AI executive assistant either. (Someone I know has just “hired” one.) But I also don’t believe the problem is AI. I believe the problem is people. There will always be people willing to take shortcuts. People happy to claim credit for work they haven’t done themselves. People willing to cut corners and publish shoddy work. And that’s not new. Like most technological ad...

I am currently writing a book of adult stories based on the readings of the Church of England for each Sunday of the year. It’s complicated. Some of the stories come readily and they are the ones I did first, so now I’m working through the more difficult ones. This week I’ve been studying the Samaritan woman at the well and I couldn’t see how to write a story about her and Jesus – I still can’t, but that woman has been living in my brain all week. I was trying to see the situation through Jesus’ eyes and it wasn’t working, because Jesus understood the woman, he knew everything about her and exactly how she was feeling. I didn’t. How could I know what it was like to have been married five times and now be living with a man who wasn’t my spouse?  Then I realised that she had no friends. Anyone she had a relationship with had left her or rejected her, she was ostracised by the local women, and she had to depend on a man who could walk out on her at any time. She was rejected and lonel...

On the one hand, we’re in the season of Lent, where, at least nominally, we’re supposed to be giving something up, which all sounds a bit serious and sacramental. On the other hand, if the daffodils, primroses and crocuses are anything to go by, we’re definitely heading towards Spring. The evenings are lighter for longer, and the mood – well, mine anyway – starts to lift.  Even if we haven’t got there yet in terms of the vernal equinox, the meteorologists tell us Spring has sprung: a season for joy and lightness; a season for celebration of the return of warmer weather, lighter evenings and even the occasional trip outside without a coat. Sometimes, life can feel a little ‘mixed up.’ A little paradoxical. Despite what the news feeds try to tell us, life is not all bad all the time. In my experience, most of the time, life is lived in-between despair and euphoria. There are things in our lives, about ourselves, that we’d like to change – or have God help us change – but usually, eve...