More than Writers

What do you do for inspiration for pieces when you haven’t been given a theme? Do ideas come easily or is it an uphill slog?  Personally, with my blog, I work better to a set structure, like the Five Minute Friday word prompts or the Jesse Tree Advent series I set for myself. Then there was the year long discipline I gave myself to write about one blessing a week, as much a spiritual discipline as anything for a jar-half-empty person like me. When I started on the morethanwriters blog, I planned to use the date as my prompt. That first month – 14 th February – was easy. I thought March would be straightforward too – my grandmother’s birthday – but I strayed from the discipline I had set myself and only now do I find myself returning to it. So what have been the significant events of this date in history? It’s a varied and fascinating list: 2017 Parliamentary citizenship scandal in Australia after the Deputy PM is revealed to be a New Zealand citizen (...

To my mind, one of the most important questions on any conference booking form is the one about any special dietary requirements. I confess that my instinctive answer is always: Yes, food – and lots of it ! When I was growing up, my dad, my brother and I used to have heated debates about who got to eat the most roast potatoes at Sunday lunch. Which is probably why, 30 years and three children later, I’m no longer as slim as I used to be. Calories? What calories? However, for the past couple of years or so, I’ve been trying to think more carefully about what I eat. (Apart from when we went to Brittany this summer, where the lure of cheese, crêpes and French cider was too much for my feeble will power.) So, I’ve felt rather exasperated for the past few weeks as our local supermarket has insisted on stacking huge tins of chocolates right by the entrance. This week, when I went in, the confectionery goodies had been moved. Hurrah! In their place were rows and rows of Ad...