More than Writers

I am always fascinated to watch a Domino topple challenge.  It can take many days to set up intricate patterns in order to watch a few minutes of breath-taking cascade.  Each domino piece is carefully placed in order to hit the next one and make it fall.  What would happen if the first domino fell too far away, nobody bothered to topple it, or it toppled in the wrong direction?  There would be a great anti-climax and disappointment. The same anti-climax can happen in our writing when we face rejection from publishers, magazines, competitions, critiques, etc.  Like the Domino Masters, you have painstakingly laboured over your creation.  Some of you may not have even started writing your manuscript, you just keep putting it off. We all have a domino to push of some kind or another.  This week, I pushed a new kind of domino, as I took part in a local arts festival.  I have made several attempts in the past to be accepted as part of the Nailsworth...

I learned something new in a sermon the other week. Actually, it wasn’t so much a new thing as something-I-should-probably-have-realised-a-long-time-ago. In fact, I shan’t even mention it here because ALL of you will have known it already. The fresh revelation has the power to change my life significantly if I let it but, until that happens, I thought I would write about some of my reactions. Those of you who read my blog monthly will know that my writing has been going through a Doldrums experience of late. It’s not that I’m not writing but that there isn’t enough wind in my sails right now. In and of itself, that should be fine – I mean, us writers aren’t machines! – but it’s the questions that spring from such seasons that cause the problems. One that I struggle to bat away with any sense of conviction is, ‘Why should I be writing when there are so many books out there already?’ Closely followed by, ‘What can I possibly add to the pile? (Subtext, ‘when I’m only me.’) So, I’m wri...