More than Writers

Summer is not a good time for writing.    Most writers regard this as a 'truth universally acknowledged'.   I know there are always those     stalwarts who always carry on regardless, but my productivity over the past couple of months has been pathetic.     I placed a few flash pieces at the beginning of July, but since then I’ve written diddly squat, even though my (paid) work has been on hold since the beginning of July.     Most people blame everything on Brexit, the Pandemic, the war in Ukraine and Boris Johnson,  but none of these apply to me.  We are hosting a Ukrainian lady but I cannot say that she is preventing me from writing.  So what excuses can I find?  Holidays.   They get in the way of writing, don’t they?  In the nicest possible way, though.  We had a wonderful time.  I was full of good intentions, to WRITE SOMETHING while I was there, but exactly when and how I ...

  (Pixabay Image. I don't have the patience to build something spectacular like this.) Do you enjoy simulation games? One of the very old computer games that I had on my first computer was Prince of Persia. In brown and black... the tension as the poor lad hopped along, climbed ladders and was confronted by sword-wielding men left you drained for ages. My favourite is The Sims. There are a lot of versions, and at the moment, with a new girl from our church, I’m playing Sims 4. It’s very emotion-driven, more than the other versions. The women in the game are not very fortunate. My first set-up family was a single teen mum, with her toddler sister. That was what we had decided to play, so I started there. Of course, the emotions weren’t very happy, although she perked up by the time her daughter was a teenager. The daughter married, and had six children, as teenagers can help to earn money towards a better house. Unfortunately, her husband was older, and he died, leaving her a si...

 Image Credits:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. It has been a busy summer. I’ve recently returned from my annual trip to the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School . Back in June, it was a joy to get together with other writers at the Worth Our Weight in Gold ACW Golden Jubilee weekend. Both were at the same venue - The Hayes, Swanwick. When I go to any writing event, what am I looking for? I’m keen to learn from the workshops (and when I run them, I hope people learn from those!). But I’m equally keen to chat with other writers. I’ve picked up so much useful advice over the years talking with other authors over a well earned cup of tea. I lost my fear of networking on realizing it meant chatting about something I love - writing - with someone else who understands that love - another writer.  The other positive thing here is no one writer can know it all and in chatting to others, you may well pick up something useful for your own future use. Sometimes it ca...

  I had wanted to follow in the trail of writing posts that encourage, advice, up lift or hon our writing craft. I suddenly had the brain wave to write something that will serve as a comic relief sort of. A game. After all, all work and no play makes writers and ACWers dull!   So, I propose 3 games!! You will agree that any one game might not be a best fit for us creatives of different genres, nationalities, taste buds and ages. The first game is to say below what bible story the picture below represents [no googling].       The second game is to list below the seven things that the Lord hates [no bible checking].   Our third game is to list below a pair of opposites you can imagine or in pattern like - Day and Night, Heaven and Earth, etc.   My example of the opposite game is: Protagonist and Antagonist.   I would love to see your own choices below. Blessings. Sophia Anyanwu is British Nigerian, lives in SE London and is an Ed...

Ever feel like you're repeating yourself? Ever feel like you're repeating yourself? (yes that was deliberate..)                                                        Image by Regina at Pixabay   This morning I sat down and wrote a 'guest post' for More Than Writers, as one of the little team who are available to fill in when someone else can't make their slot. I had what I thought was a good idea, and I thought I wrote it up quite well. However since I'm just an occasional contributor, I can never actually remember how to post a new contribution. So I looked up the last guest post I did, hoping for a clue - only to find it was virtually identical to the one I'd written today, just with a different lead-in... Back to Square One                      ...

Have you ever met a ‘Know-it-all?’  Perhaps I should say, someone that ‘think’ they know everything that there is to know about a particular subject.  They ‘think’ that there is nothing more to learn.  The problem with people with this type of attitude is that it is very unlikely that they will ever progress any further in life and if they are a writer, they will very soon hit a wall.  I have also found that people who are burdened with this mindset often believe Francis Bacon’s quote, that ‘knowledge is power.’  They are afraid to share their knowledge. This attitude is the polar opposite of the ACW culture of helping and supporting others.  Wendy H Jones is a great example of a writer who has helped countless writers.  She is not afraid to share her knowledge, yet she also admits that she still has much to learn.  Having recently signed a contract with a literary agent, she made a comment that she has learnt loads from them.  I was in awe ...

I still can’t quite believe it, but I now have two novels published. Never in a million years would I have imagined this to be a reality if you had asked me, even three years ago. Yet here I am, and I am so, so grateful. What an amazing adventure it has been and I wouldn’t change it. However I wanted to use this post to reflect on how different an experience getting The Pilgrim published has been. How much more difficult to The Healing , in many ways. So much so that the morning after my wonderful online book launch I felt so emotionally wrung out that I wrote a very raw and revealing blog post. I was going to share that post on this blog, but after prayerful consideration decided it would not be wise to do so. On reflection, and given all the encouragements I have received since the book came out, I think I can write about the experience with a much more balanced viewpoint. My hope is that my realness resonates with others but that it also encourages. We love writing, but writing isn...

I was sorry to receive an email, a few days ago, telling me of the death of Joe Story. At the time we joined ACW, Joe was  a member of the Committee; possibly Events Organizer, I’m not sure. I was by no means a special friend of his: I was contacted because I was on the mailing list for his daily expository notes, which I noticed had ceased to arrive some time ago. What a brilliant surname for a writer: Story. I only wish I knew more of Joe’s story, but I’m pretty sure it was a remarkable one. I know that he was an expert chef and had once worked in that capacity. This was the first thing I learnt about him, because at the ACW’s 40th anniversary celebrations in 2011 he not only made the cakes, but kindly provided a dairy-free one for lactose-intolerant members.  I believe that he worked for a while in a Christian bookshop in Northampton. More importantly, he was a church leader there and got involved in a big initiative to bring the gospel to some deprived parts of the city. I...

                               Writers as Good Stewards by Rebecca Seaton     The Bible encourages us to be good stewards, whether it’s the tale of the talents reminding us to use what we’re given or the example of Joseph demonstrating good stewardship to the pharaoh. Writing as a Christian means using all our resources well.     This could look different for each of us but I believe a key part of it is making the most of opportunities. What God gives us now is often the seed for where he takes us later. I’m a big advocate of writing competitions: I would be, I won second prize and got my book published through a competition. However, I have also entered competitions where I haven’t got as much as a mention. Is this a waste? I don’t think so. Composing a piece within a word limit and the competition’s guidelines has helped develop skills and discipline in my writing. A daily...

 “Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.”   Alain de Botton I’d add ‘books’ to this quote. I recently relived some of my childhood. My niece, Abbie, has discovered Malory Towers, a series of books about a girl’s boarding school, which I greatly enjoyed as a child. They were frequently read under the covers after lights out. I saw that Malory Towers has been made into a television series, a discovery which coincided with Abbie coming to stay, so we curled up together and watched episode after episode.  Malory Towers was written by Enid Blyton. I know Enid Blyton has a marmite-esque ‘love/hate’ element to her, and I imagine there will be readers of this blog who fall into each category. I loved her books. They fed my imagination. I, my three younger sisters, and a large toy dog, once spent an entire summer holiday ‘being’ the Famous Five. As a child, reading about magical worlds a...

“For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory [beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!      Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting."                                                                                                        ...