More than Writers

  Dear Thomas We thank you for sending us 'The Gospel According to Thomas'.  We are afraid that we are going to have to pass on this at the present time. We appreciate that this will be disappointing news but we have received numerous other submissions along the same lines and we have had to make some difficult choices. However, we would like to retain your writing tablets, because, if there was demand for a Gospel in Coptic in the future, we may review the position. Yours Eusebius   ********   Dear Nicodemus We thank you for sending us 'The Gospel According to Nicodemus'.   I’m afraid it is not for us.   Although we were wowed by your first-hand accounts of the trial of Jesus of Nazareth, we found the style uneven and disjointed and the narrative incomplete. Please note that we are not, at this moment in time, considering publishing another Bible. We are returning your stone tablets via prepaid and self-addressed camel. We wish you luck in seeking p

Lists are cropping up everywhere: What are your plans for 2022? What are your Aims and Goals? Personally, I’m reading frantically to complete at least one more book for Wendy’s Reading Challenge 2021! Expectations are funny things, aren’t they? I know it was one of the things that struck me the most when our children arrived. Their lack of expectation was tragic. Thinking back to our childhood and the crazily early wake-ups for birthdays, my parents groaning as we staggered in at 5, telling them it was our birthday and where were our presents? When we adopted, we expected to have those same glowing scenes. However, there was no expectation, at least not for anything good to happen. No early wakeups (thank you, Lord!), but no expectant sleepy baby faces either. The last two years with their ever-changing rules and cancellations have affected me and many others as well. Are we still looking forward to 2022 with the same enthusiastic expectation we always had? Are we carefully lining

  Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Which aspect of writing is your favourite?  I mentioned in a tweet on @ACW1971 I feel relief when I “hit the ground running” with my latest character because by this point I know them well enough to know they do have a story to tell. I’ve learned to accept it is their story. I am the conduit through which their voice is heard. That has proved, for me, to be the way to make sure my author voice doesn’t get in the way. What a reader reads is what my character feels, sees, thinks, and experiences. Writing to a strict word count for flash fiction helps a lot too. I must keep to the point as must my character!  I feel an even greater relief once I’ve got the first draft down because I’ve got something I can work with and improve. It will need improving - a lot!  It took me a while to accept the first draft is not meant to be perfect. It can’t be by its nature. You are, to quote the late great Terry Pratchett on this, “telli

I love that I write my post on the 28 th of the month! It is a time of anticipation for me to think of my blog posts for MTW and of course, my salary from where I work part time in a PRU school as a Tutor of RE, English and Literature. But today is more than the mere expectation of the month’s end. December ushers the year 2022. Like a mother carrying a child in her womb, she knows a baby is expected but she anticipates it will be unique in many ways! Christians all over the world have just celebrated the long awaited birth of the Saviour of mankind from his sins and spiritual death. However, the whole world is awaiting the birth of 2022 and the blessings it would bring. For a few others, it’s a time to indulge in the New Year’s festivities. What are you anticipating in 2022?   As writers, we are pregnant with what God has deposited in us and the world expects us to birth our talents. I respect every kind of genre [didn’t used to]. So whatever genre you write like dark fantasy,

Like Sarah in yesterday's post, I had such good intentions to write my blog for the 27th Dec well in advance and schedule it to be posted at the right time, well clear of the manic Christmas weekend.  This is what so many of you do really successfully and I so aspire to that level of organisation, but never quite achieve it!  So as my household retired to bed tonight at the end of this busy Boxing day, I headed to my computer, thinking what on earth can I write on at the end of this long day? I ran this thought and that thought through my mind but nothing seemed to quite gel, that is, not until I began to wonder . . . And what did I wonder?  I found myself wondering how it felt to be Mary on this 3rd day after the birth of her son?  So much energy had been poured out in getting to this place, the journey so long, the road so hard, the pain unendurable, the fear of what was to come constantly threatening to unseat her deep assurance of what she had seen and heard, what her own body

                                                                                                 (Photo: iStock) Last month I realized that my 26 th -day blog slot would fall on Boxing Day. I made a mental note to prepare in advance, before I disappeared under a mountain of gift-wrap and mince pies. So, that went well; suddenly it is late on Christmas Day, post-family celebrations, and I am only just beginning. Despite being a holiday for most in the UK, Boxing Day can be an anti-climax: an in-between space of slumping in armchairs, wondering what to eat, watch, play, or do next. Here in France, however, 26 th December is merely a Back-to-Work-After-Christmas day. In a country which boasts eleven Bank Holidays per year and frequently adds bonus days to “make the bridge” over a weekend, I can’t help but feel that French bureaucracy may have missed a trick here. Anyway, last-minute as ever was, here I am in front of my screen, visions of “Good King Wenceslas” dancing in my head at the

 It didn't register when I agreed to post on the 25th of each month, that I would have the joy of being the one to wish you all a Happy and Blessed Christmas Morning! I guess reading a blog post is going to be the last thing on many people's minds today, and I might even forget to post the links on Social Media myself. So I am going to keep it short and simple. A few years ago I unexpectedly woke up very early on Christmas morning. Earlier than the children even, although they were teenagers by this point so perhaps not so unusual. It was still dark, and I was glad of the few moments to sit and think and meditate. It would be all excitement and busyness soon enough, with stockings and gifts, and ham and eggs for breakfast, and the turkey to be put on for roasting, and church to attend. I turned to John 1, which is actually one of my favourite Christmas readings, and read it afresh. I had been going through a difficult time, and yet somehow I knew in those few quiet moments that

  Here’s a quiz based on Christmas events in various well-known stories. There are seven reflecting the cheerful and generous side of the season, and seven that remind us of the very real darkness into which the Light shines. Not all the answers are a single word or name. Light 1. Whose repentant pet brought him a cup of tea on Christmas morning? 2. What creatures sang ‘Who were the first to cry Nowell? Animals all, as it befell!’, and to whom? 3. Who gave away her best fur-topped gloves to a young star after they’d been Christmas shopping? 4. Who gave their Christmas breakfast away to an impoverished family? 5. Who asked some firemen who’d just quenched a dining room fire whether they would like anything to read? 6. When Lucy’s brother Tom got very excited about his presents and rather cross, who took him out for a walk in the snow, just the two of them together? 7.  What was (you may say) satisfactory? Dark 1. Whose dad spent Christmas in St Mungo’s Hospital with a bad snake bite? 2.

  More Than… by Rebecca Seaton We are proud of the fact that we are more than writers….but what is the ‘more’ and how does this influence our writing? Firstly, fundamental to being more than a writer must be our relationship with God. Our joy and fulfilment cannot come from our writing alone. If our relationship with God comes first, He is present in all areas of our life and our understanding of Him will naturally permeate our work, directly Christian in nature or otherwise. The other jobs we have are also important. There is a temptation to resent the ‘day job’ when we would rather be writing but I am definitely of the belief that the people and situations we deal with everyday give a depth to our writing. I have also been pleasantly surprised at how much people at work have been interested in my writing and this has led to some good conversations about things like the writing process, themes in writing and ways to encourage children and teenagers to read. My day job and writin

  A couple of weeks ago, I met with someone on Skype. It was the first time I'd used Skype for video calling and, as I was setting up for the meeting, I somehow managed to change my on-screen background. Rather than the cupboards in my study showing up behind me, it looked as though I was in a rather grand house. During our conversation, I held up a book I was talking about. The other person in the Skype call said, “I can’t see it.” I moved a little, but he still couldn’t see it, and he said; “It must be because of the mirror behind you reflecting or something.” There was no mirror behind me. Somewhat miraculously for me, I managed to switch off the background, and show him the book. But the background had prevented him from seeing what was there. As we approach Christmas and New Year, what is our background? Perhaps frantic rush to get everything ready, perhaps disappointment at changed plans, perhaps regrets, perhaps writing or not-writing, perhaps worries or pressure

Speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.                                                 Eph.5:19         Today is the shortest day, and brings the longest night.   Yet we all know dawn will come, and the sun (we hope in UK) will shine.     This year has been thwarted with difficulties, national labour and fuel shortages, across the world Covid numbers rise and fall, fires, floods, famines, earthquakes grow in number and wars and rumours of wars are causing people to flee their nations.   Yet Matthew 24 reminds us that such things are only the “birth pangs” heralding His return.       It’s a time not to fear, but to know God is our refuge and strength, and all of creation is groaning for the sons/daughters of God to take their place.   King David encouraged himself in the Lord, often playing his harp, his lyrics now the psalms.       I took a look at the lyrics of Christmas carols., A

When I come to write about Christmas, I often start with the thought that I have nothing to offer. Well, nothing that has not been offered already. Haven’t we all heard everything there is to hear, said everything there is to say, written everything there is to write?  I was recording interviews for an Advent series in our church. One of my interviewees is a wonderful poet, and what he had to share really struck me. He told me that each year he gets a fresh realisation that the child he grew out of being, is still within him.  He calls it, 'the heart's ambush.' That moment when he hears the first  Carol; how it has the power to unlock childhood memories and emotions, which connect us all. I’ve been dwelling on it for the last couple of weeks. And I deliberately pondered it as I opened by boxes of decorations. I love to find my familiar Christmas trinkets. Many of them have special memories or connections. I love the Carols I’ve sung for as long as I can remember and would m

  My daughter and her family have recently relocated from London to Suffolk. They’ve moved into a little village called Hoxne, which is pronounced “Hox-in,” for those in the know. It has a traditional English green surrounded by lovely old houses. There is an ancient church and a pub with seriously good food. At Christmas, the trees on the small green are decorated with magical lights and the doors of the homes show a variety of wreaths, the windows shining with candles on a dark night. Carols will be sung.But what is unique about this village is what is happening inside the small post office, which is also the village shop. You see, what is happening in the post office could only happen in a village where people know and trust each other. When my daughter moved in to the house just doors up from the post office, she was instructed by the post mistress that all the parents in the village traditionally bring the presents they have for their children to the post office by Christmas Eve.

Have you ever had the joy of being the recipient of a hamper? Especially if received unexpectedly, these tissue-paper-and-shiny-ribbon-encased delights bring such excitement. We received one once; amongst the more ordinary items, there lurked a cheese that was black and a chunk of nougat the size of a postage stamp - delicious none the less. This year our church has taken part in a wonderful campaign, partnered with Christians Against Poverty, to provide over one hundred hampers to people in our area, suffering the indignity of food poverty. Each of us who put together a hamper are praying for it to bring light and a blessing to its recipient. It got me thinking about Christmas hampers for writers: what do we most yearn for as writers? What might elicit a squeal of delight as we peel it carefully from under the tissue paper and glitter, lifting it into the light? I had rather too much fun imagining how they might be marketed: The “ Basic Writer Hamper ,” a welcome gift for the writer o