More than Writers

Count Our Blessings - image made with 3D book creator + Canva One of the things I appreciate most about being a member of ACW is the mutual support between writers. I also love delving down into the motivations and themes behind writing. Today I’m so pleased to be chatting here on the MTW blog with Fiona Linday. Fiona’s new book, Count Our Blessings , published by Onwards and Upwards, is out now. Fiona and I realised that we’d both written a book of short stories and poetry with the theme of hope, and thought it would be interesting to ask one another about our writing. I found Fiona’s book fascinating and compelling. Our styles and content are very different, yet both take the reader on a journey through the realities of darkness and towards glimpses of light. Fiona wrote a variety of short stories spanning decades, bringing out various societal issues which made for a challenging read at times, highlighting instances of injustice and oppression. Yet these stories were tinged with hop...

  How good are you at procrastinating? I am incredible at it - in fact, it’s   probably my best skill. I can work right through my ironing pile, eat chocolate, find a book I want to reread, even do other worthy things like washing up, putting up a book review or encouraging someone to do something important - which is really ironic. The thing is that if it were ironing I was meant to do, or cleaning, then I would probably keep putting it off. Sometimes I think about my W-i-P while I do mundane tasks, but if I’m not careful I will forget the glorious ideas I come up with while I’m cleaning the loo or decide they are not worthy of inclusion. But as I’m a retired psychologist, I should have plenty of ways to overcome this problem. I should be able to analyse my reasons for putting things off (Fear of failure? Tension? Anxiety? Loss of direction?) but I don’t think psychologists are generally well-known for successfully treating themselves.  Take relaxation. I have a ve...

 Last month, I began the tale of a Whole Day as a Proper Writer.  If you haven’t read it or have forgotten it (quite understandable, it’s been a month), you might like to revisit it before reading on. https://morethanwriters.blogspot.com/2021/03/today-i-am-proper-writer-part-1.html I dig out the notes I wrote for a week’s worth of talks at a Boys’ Brigade camp, Jesus The Ultimate Superhero, which I think has the bones to turn into an actual book. Of the three ideas for books that I have in my mind, this is the one that seems most easily accomplished because I already have the notes. So surely it just needs some elaboration?  At first readthrough, I’m both pleased and disappointed to find there’s a lot more material than I remembered – so how much can I usefully elaborate for this? Is there enough for a whole book? At the second, I notice how outdated many of the references are and a major question arises: Who is this book I want to write aimed at? Is it for men? Wom...

  As Thomas Edison famously almost said,  ‘ Writing is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration. ’  If that’s so, then why is it that finding inspiration often feels like the hardest part of any writing project? Who knew a blank page could be so intimidating? And even writing on a given theme still requires the inspiration of a new angle or a hook to draw the reader in.   If you’re one of those annoying fortunate people who never struggle with inspiration, please feel free to ignore the rest of this post and return to your current masterpiece (although if you’re willing to spare a couple of minutes to post your tips in the comments, that would be greatly appreciated).   For the rest of us mere mortals, here are a few suggestions on finding that elusive inspiration:   Read, read and read some more . Immersing yourself in other people’s words can kick-start your own creative juices.   Link-up with other writers . Admit...

 Welcome to part 2 of my Gloucestershire writers and poets. At this time of year Dymock is a pretty little village in the west of Gloucestershire just 4 miles south of Ledbury. In the springtime it is alive with fields of Daffodils. At the start of the 19th century, there was still a railway line that linked Dymock with London. The locals would pick the daffodils - even the young children missed school to do this - and the bunches would be sent post haste by rail to London for immediate sale. The daffodils still grace the fields in and near Dymock but now they aren't allowed to be picked, although you can wander through fields of them and enjoy the sight as we did. This easy access to London also brought a group of poets to the area for a very short while. Collectively these poets have become known as the Georgian or the Dymock poets.  Lascelles Abercrombie was the first to arrive from Liverpool with his wife and family. A couple of years later his friend Wilfrid Gibson and hi...

                                                      Do you ever ask yourself this question? I do, at times. What kind of writer am I? I want to be easy-going, humble, generous, welcoming constructive criticism, delighting in the success of others. In reality, most of the time I manage to be some of these. I am not so good at others. Occasionally, I go to bed with an intense dislike for myself because I failed to be that writer. There are people in ACW, and in the writing community at large, who seem to me to embody many if not all of the great qualities above. I call them 'open hearted writers'. They are just so good at talking about writing naturally, encouraging others, receiving advice gladly, championing fellow writers, giving of their time. Of course the public face never tells the whole story. Who hasn't rolled their eyes when receiving negative ...

Image by Tri Le from Pixabay I was approached by a lady who wanted help writing a memoir of a particular holiday from her childhood. She remembered it all quite clearly: the caravan park, the countryside, the mixed group of children she had befriended and shared adventures with. It had marked a turning point in her life. But it wasn’t the writing itself that she wanted help with. As she had started writing, she had realised there was one major item that she didn’t remember, and that was the kids themselves. She remembered the basic fact of their existence, but she had related to them with all the insight of a typical 11-year-old; which is to say, not very much. She had no idea about their inner characters; what made them tick; how they came to be on the same caravan site at the same time. And so, based on what she did remember, my task was to draw up character profiles for a selection of children aged 9-11, of different classes and backgrounds, all alive i...