A newsletterish thingy..
Every season, I write a longer blogpost, a bit like a newsletter, to have a chat about the previous season of doings.
Every season, I write a longer blogpost, a bit like a newsletter, to have a chat about the previous season of doings.
I appear not to have written a post on my reading since September last year! And that, my friends, is not a good thing.
In September of 2020, I remember saying it might be good, with my birthday and Christmas approaching, to receive book vouchers for my favourite stores. But no, it was not to be.
Instead, but just as appreciated, I received garden-nursery vouchers, which I have started to use this last week. Gardening for me is as much a passion as reading.
But also, summer came and I try never to go near the city during summer – a waste of my time, so I stay happily ensconced in our coastal garden by the sea. Which of course makes my Kindle and the all-important Amazon and Audible bookshops vital. Here, by the sea, where I can hear the waves and watch the seabirds, I have no need to drive into the city, park the car, walk through crowds to get to a bookshop. It’s all done with the click of fingers and buttons.
House is tiny.
It’s a small dwelling that was put together in fits and starts, bits added as the original owners decided they could afford it. It’s quaint, every room is on a different level and the rooms are small, but it is so perfectly idiosyncratic and the place just spoke to us when it was put up for sale 31 years ago by the original owner.
We renovated six years ago and opted to remove the old wood-heater because we knew that in our old age, the last thing we wanted to be doing was carting wood and dealing with the ash, dust and mess that is a wood-burner, despite the obvious charm of flame and wood.
Writing can be so demanding that it swallows one whole.
One can spend days sequestered with the doors firmly shut against the world. Even a day’s writing can leave one tired, eye-sore, with fog on the brain. We writers can look up from the computer, see family members and say, ‘Wha…, huh? Who are you?’
It’s a double life. One has mistresses, lovers, enemies and friends that no member of the family has any idea about. A secret life…I tell you, spooks and MI 6 have nothing on a writer.
So how do we anchor ourselves in reality and at the same time, fuel our creative fires? Inspired by Writers’ Unboxed, I decided I’d ask a few writer friends what they do to unwind and yet fuel their creative fires…
We all chase dreams. Some more than others. But the writing dream is one that comes with its own issues. In this honest and revealing post, Gordon Doherty, writer of spectacular Roman and Byzantine fiction explains how the profession of writing really tested him!
At last this wonderful anthology is available.
When I joined Inkslingers, I never thought I would be contributing two hist.fict stories to an anthology. How does one write a meaningful short-story that is historical fiction? So I sat and played with words and two stories emerged to creep into this anthology. So did some astonishing tales by others.