More than Writers

We spent a day in Bath while himself and I were on holidays earlier this month, and decided to pop into the Jane Austen Centre on Gay Street. We don't go there every time we visit Bath, but I do love the place and was itching for another look around. We also went to Bath Abbey and I was notebook hunting as always, when I espied a book on the shelves called 'The Spirituality of Jane Austen,' by Paula Hollingsworth.* Now I consider my fiction to be gentle with positive themes. My characters get a chance for redemption, for the most part, and I would have thought my writing was far more spiritual than Jane Austen's (though of course not even almost at the outskirts of the environs of her talent). My thought has long been that Jane Austen's writing has little spirituality. In fact, considering her father was a clergyman, I believed her treatment of clergy such as Mr Collins and Mr Elton revealed a disinterest and low opinion of the clergy, Edward Ferrars and Edmund Be...

Isn’t it a challenge to find the right perspective when life’s inevitable troubles come our way?  I like to think I have got better at doing this over the years – and I had just the opportunity to practise, when our car decided enough was enough, at five o’clock on a foggy, August morning, whilst towing our caravan to Devon. I have to admit that breaking down whilst towing a caravan was fairly high on my list of ‘things I would prefer never to happen.’   Over the years, though, I have got better at panicking and catastrophising less and trying to find contentment a little more.   So, as we sat on the roadside (for five hours!) I challenged myself to really try to make the best of it, and not let a grumbling spirit muscle its way back in to ruin things. I found myself chuckling at the antics of my boys, who were finding it all a great adventure.   My youngest son broke into the song “I love my life,” by Robbie Williams, as he sat on his camping chair, wrapped in...

Authors Katia Adams, Will van der Hart and Andy Croft. Do you ever feel a little overwhelmed by how many people there are out there writing similar books/poems/devotionals/articles/blogs to you? I have struggled with this from time to time, and, if I’m honest, particularly when I see social media posts that seem to reveal that they are more successful than I am.  And yet I had a reminder just last week that we should celebrate one another rather than be intimidated.  I was at a publisher’s showcase event and, during each of the authors’ talks and again during the Q&A session, the subject of authenticity, particularly being real with each other as Christians, cropped up again and again.  While I am an introvert and so would never have dreamt of actually doing this, in my head there were countless moments when I wanted to jump up and say: ‘That’s my biggest passion. And that’s what  my  book is about!’ But then, within the ongoing conv...

You know that thing we're always being told, about how we need to exercise that writing muscle daily, that if we don't we might lose our edge and get a bit flabby? Well - that's true, that is. Mostly. My writing muscle has lost a lot of its muscley-ness over the summer. See, I can't even think of a word so I'm making one up instead. Instead of seeing a blank page as an enticing challenge, it feels more like a block - a scary white space I don't have a clue how to fill. I have good excuses. I was on holiday. I've been ill. My daughter is off to uni next week and I've been helping her prepare. I had a load of admin to catch up on in my online work and voluntary stuff. But in reality, I could have chosen to spend twenty minutes a day bashing something out in Word instead of scrolling through Instagram. I lost the flow. I'm sure I'm not the only one who isn't always the most disciplined in writing, although I'm equally sure many ...

For most of the past fortnight I’ve been fasting. Not from food, because I’m far too much of a wimp and being chronically ill with blood sugar issues, it would probably not be the best idea in the world. No, I’ve been on a writing fast. Most people go on retreats to write more, not less. But I found that I was putting a great deal of pressure on myself to write every day and whilst I was getting some done, it wasn’t flowing. It was starting to feel like a slog, like crossing something off a to-do list instead of something wonderful. So I just stopped. Over the course of the days I did not write, I realised some important things. I had been feeling for a while that I had lost the central focus for my work. Although I had a million* different, amazing, God-given projects, my heart wasn’t in it. It felt like a long, hard, slow, dirgeful trudge, with just the odd glimmer of grace here and there. I decided to let that go and start over. I prayed for the Lord to show me whether...

It’s the new TV season and some of my favourite shows are back: Strictly, Celebrity Masterchef, The Great British Bake Off. I love watching people demonstrate their developing skills to produce something wonderful. I’m a sucker for anything whose title starts ‘The Great…’ – Interior Design Challenge, Pottery Throw Down, Sewing Bee – let alone Sky Arts Portrait or Landscape Artists of the Year or The Victorian House of Arts and Crafts. I have a particular soft spot for judge, Keith Brymer Jones, for whom beautiful results reduce him to tears.  In America, 14 th September is designated Live Creative Day (it’s also National Filled Donut Day but that’s another story!). It’s a time to practise, share, and teach the creative arts, a day I feel that is made for writers and Christian writers in particular. Why? Well, for a start, the Bible is full to bursting with creativity.  There’s the overriding theme of God’s own creativity:   ‘O Lord , how ...

Hold This Moment… and Make a Note of It By Rosemary Johnson Mention the Br-word and you’ll clear any room in the UK within seconds.   So says everybody.   We’re all sick and tired of hearing about Brexit.   Hold these thoughts and make a note of them.   Who knows what people will be saying even a few months ahead? Times are troubled, and changing all the time.   We don’t know what’s going to happen days ahead, even hours ahead.   It’s tempting to hide one’s head in the sand, because it’s scary.   (It is.)   And to be bored with it.   (It’s very boring.)   We take sides.   Several ACW members are posting on Twitter in support of the Remain camp.   Nobody wants to own up to supporting Brexit.   Remember this too. Hold on to the term ‘Remoaner’, whatever your political persuasion.   If you write historical fiction, you will have spent hours looking up colloquial phrases in parlance during the period you’...