More than Writers

I've found this to be true in my life. What about you? Amy Boucher Pye's post,  The Lord is my Publisher , on this blog got me thinking. To whom am I writing? I never planned to write a book, let alone write two of them. For me starting to write my first book was very much a cathartic and spiritual experience. I have written a spiritual journal for years as a way of helping me to work through my feelings and relationship with God. So when a friend, who knew what God had done for me, said "You should write a book" I decided to do just that.  I poured out what had happened into my computer, as a way of giving it to God and it really helped me to make sense of it all. I learned more about my healing and began to wonder how God might use me in the process.  However, I lacked courage to approach publishers with it and decided to self-publish. I have learned a lot of about self publishing over the last few years but the best thing I have learned is...

Member’s Showcase – Angela  Hobday Today we welcome Angela Hobday to the Blog. Angela, as you will know from her previous excellent blog post, writes as Annie Try. Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for the monthly showcase. I’m going to start with the quick fire round, so make yourself comfortable in our lovely virtual leather chair and off we go: What’s your favourite food? Salmon, roasted or pan-fried with fresh vegetables, probably – but I love traditional foods like roasts and shepherd’s pie, the latter with lashings of melted cheese on top. Favourite dessert is my daughter-in-law’s homemade ice-cream. It has the wow factor! What is your favourite colour? Definitely soft greeny-blues or bluey-greens. Sea colours. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be? There are loads of places. I enjoy islands or coastal places. Also I was enchanted by San Gimignano in Tuscany and want to revisit. I love Venice too. I have yet to see the Norwegia...

“This experiment will fail.” My husband John was adamant that it was more sensible to grow winter-hardy traditional English gooseberries rather than Cape gooseberries in our climate. However, I am not a fan of thorns and prefer fruit that I can pop in my mouth straight away without cooking and sweetening it first. Cape gooseberries are often air-freighted and expensive, so growing our own made a lot of sense. The marble-sized smooth orange berries in their papery calyxes are also really pretty. So what was there not to like? Whilst John also cares about saving money and the environment, he could not care less about looks. He considered scratches and slaving away over a hot stove a reasonable price to pay for homemade gooseberry jam. In the end we had to agree to disagree.   John planted a gooseberry bush; I bought Cape gooseberry seeds. It looked as if John was right at first. His bush grew, whereas my seeds didn’t seem to germinate.   I later dis...

Photo: le vent le cri, Flickr “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us… With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you … so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (Luke 1:1-4, NIV, abridged). My heart felt ripped open when my job as a commissioning editor at a large Christian publisher was eliminated. I loved my work in coaxing writers to pen their creations – books that only they could write – to God’s glory. But the international market couldn’t support my job and so I had to bid it – and my authors – farewell. As I was leaving, the head of publishing said, “You’ll never know how many people’s lives are touched through the books you worked on. They’re God’s ambassadors.” I’ll never forgot his encouragement, for he gave me perspective during a painful time. And indeed, as writers we’ll never fully g...

Today's post is brought to you by Wendy H. Jones As writers we are always trying to hone, and improve, our craft. There are many books on writing out there and I have several. This one I have found to be particularly useful. The Tagline for the book is More than 5000 overused words and phrases and alternatives to them. This, in a nutshell, is what the book does. But please do not be fooled into thinking this book is simple or would not be useful. It is a pure nugget amongst many books for writers. The book is divided into two parts: Part 1 - gives examples of the hackneyed phrases which have slipped into everyday English. It then goes on to explain why these are tired and outdated. It then goes on to talk about the different forms of English - uneducated, everyday and elegant - and how these can be improved. Part 2 - The bulk of the book is given over to this. This is where the 5000 words and phrases come in. These are provided in alphabetical order for easy refer...

  My writing self Thirty years ago when I first started working, I decided that most teachers fall into two categories – bossy, organised types or dreamy, creative ones. I concluded quickly, and reluctantly, that I was the latter. It was a lonely moment. There aren’t many of us. Even today most colleagues are the sort who have shredders and put next day’s date on the board. If I had a few extra minutes at the end of the day, I’d be double mounting a leaf rubbing or writing a model calligram (or stuffing my shredding pile under the bookcase). When the Head brings the chair of governors round, I’m the one cross-legged in a patch of sunshine cutting out ladybirds. I quickly learned though, that those who are respected in teaching, as in most jobs, are those who are organised – they plan ahead, they meet deadlines, they keep their word. They’ve set their emails to read “Science Co-ordinator” or “Phase Leader” under their name so they, and others, know who they are. ...

Blues - depression, low spirits from adjectival  blue  low-spirited. Late 14c. I thought long and hard about the subject of this blog, first, because on the face of it, it doesn’t have much to do with writing, and that’s what we’re doing here, right?  But also because it’s one of those subjects that We Don’t Like To Mention. A bit like Granny’s Little Secret, some things are best left undisturbed.  Disturbed: past participle adjective from disturb . Meaning "emotionally or mentally unstable", and used as one of the many euphemisms associated with mental health issues. Which is precisely why I’d like to talk about it today.  Now, quite frankly, mental health is a vast topic which I cannot hope to do justice, so I’m going to focus on the implications  for us as writers, as t here can be few who have not been affected, either directly or indirectly, by Winston Churchill’s black dog . It’s a well-known - if not yet fully understood...