More than Writers

I don’t know if you are like me but, increasingly, I find it takes me quite a long time to get into the groove of my writing; to really settle down and be productive. Quite often I am just beginning to grasp what it is that I want to say in my writing as lunchtime looms  – so my lunchtime has been getting later and later. After that break, I then have to get myself back into the flow; often I’m just getting back into it when it’s time to stop and pick our son up from school. Whether I have the opportunity to write more that day really depends on what my kids have on after school.
This week I had another interruption: I had really struggled to make headway with a devotional I am writing, but had begun to put thoughts down. I was really wrestling, as the subject matter is quite difficult, but I felt I was finally progressing… and then the phone rang. I looked at the number and recognised my parents’ so I picked up. What followed was an exceedingly emotional ‘conversation’ with my mum, wh…

I've decided that the only guarantee in life is that you can't guarantee anything. Life may be trotting along quite nicely and then something comes along to disrupt those well laid plans. The regular contributor to the 16th of each month is currently unwell, so I stepped in to help out. It was an honour to do so and I wish her a speedy recovery.

Yet, writing another blog post today was unexpected for me. Yes, I already write for another blog on the 16th of each month and rung out my creative juices on that. Or so I thought. As writers, we often have more creative ideas than we can ever imagine. If that sentence actually makes any sense. Anyway, we have a huge and awesome brain and we often forget to use all of it. A change of circumstances or something unexpected, if we let it, our brain will step in and give you the answer.

As well as being an author and the webmaster for the Association of Christian Writers, I am also the President of the Scottish Association of Writers. As…

I don’t know about you, but I find writing comes more naturally on a cold winter’s day than in the oppressive heat of summer. It is difficult to imagine Oscar Wilde or Virginia Woolf anachronistically tapping away on their respective laptops whilst sitting on a beach in shorts, sipping margueritas. Much more writerly to be wrapped up in one’s quilted smoking jacket, or staring wanly out a frosted window, communing with the muse and batting away witticisms and elegant metaphors faster than they can come at you.
Maybe it is because I’m housebound, but however much it is enhanced by circumstances, my naturally hibernatory, eremitic nature is far more comfortable writing from under the duvet in the winter. In the warmer weather, I’m reminded far too often of the outside lives other people with normal, healthy pursuits are leading.
All the same, there is something about being cosy that sits well with words. Reading, as well as writing, has something magically isolating about it. Far easi…