More than Writers

Image by Shima Abedinzade from Pixabay I’m suffering from writer’s block and have done so for a long time. Maybe for most of my life, although I have written many poems (a tiny handful of which have been published, in Christian outlets) and a few short stories, and at least one devotional. I think the block has several causes. A low-lying depressive state that has been with me my whole life. It heavily shadowed my childhood, and it’s dogged me as an adult, sometimes leading to acts of self-sabotage. I’m adopted, and some of this is certainly ‘adoptee stuff’ … but of course it’s not just adoptees who suffer from this. Another malaise is that I need to let my mind rest. Too much social media, too much pointless scrolling, too much ‘overwhelm’ from the barrage of news and opinions we are flooded with every day. Add to that my anxiety over the state of the nation and the world in general. I am genuinely concerned about the current fractured state of Western democracy and the mali...

We writers need all the motivation we can get. I have been inspired variously by books, friends, blog posts, magazines and solitary walks between trees, to say nothing of ACW and the wonderful posts and conversations there - online or otherwise. I also love watching films, especially films about writers, writing and all things bookish. Bereft of anything original or interesting to say about writing this month, a friend reminded me I'm always sending her details of films I've watched, and maybe I should write a post about my favourite 'films for writers'. So here goes. My top five films for writers (in no particular order - I love them all) are as follows : - 1. Stranger than Fiction "Everyone knows that your life is a story but what if the story is your life?" the lexter Synopsis I could watch this film over and over again partly because the story line is so clever and partly because Emma Thompson gives such a crisp performance as a frustrated writer ...

While wondering what to write for this blog, I started clicking back through previous blogs that I've written here and elsewhere, in search of inspiration procrastination.  In doing so, I found myself staring over Past Amy's shoulder at a finished blog post, and we had this conversation: If this was really Past Amy, her desk wouldn't be this tidy. Me: How did you do that? Past me: Do what? Me : That piece of writing there on your screen.  How did you manage it?  It’s really good.  It’s...it’s much better than anything I can come up with. Past me :  Really?  You think so?  I’m not so sure about it. Me : Are you serious?  Look, that bit there - I got a lump in my throat, reading that.  And that metaphor in the first paragraph?  So funny!  How did you do that? Past me : ( modestly ) Well, thank you.  I don’t know, I just...the idea came to me when I was hoovering, and then I thought about it for a bit, a...

I am really excited to have finished my latest novel - well, by 'finished' I mean that I have completed draft 8 or 9 and am about to knock the first three chapters into an even trimmer shape to send them off to a publisher.      But how do I know when or if I've finished?  My artistic mother had the same problem with her paintings.  Sometimes we would encourage her to stop daubing on more colour, anxious that she should avoid obvious areas of repainted landscape or clumsily altered shapes of her still-life compositions.     I am a poor finisher; of everything really.  Have a look through my huge kitchen cupboard one day (no don't, you might never come out alive!)  There you will find half-knitted baby clothes intended for grandchildren now in their late teens, an unfinished dress worked on for a long-gone graduation ceremony and somewhere in there is a barely-started patchwork quilt.  Then, not in the same cupboar...