On Saturday ten days ago, Trish and I set out for Box End Lake. We were taking part in our 24-hour relay swimming marathon. Our team was eight strong. This […]
All writers are readers – and everything we read makes a difference, sometimes so subtle as to be undetectable, to our writing. I know that when I want to write […]
Next Saturday and Sunday I, and seven others – members of the Wet and Wild swimming group formed for just this purpose – will be taking part in a fund-raising […]
Whenever I read something that moves me, inspires me, or reminds me of the fact that all lives are messes and that therefore mine is no exception, I feel proud […]
What’s your Monday Writing Motivation? And how does it fit in with paleontologists? Palaeontologists have discovered, in the scrolls of rock that constitute a unique repository of ancient [...]
Monday writing motivation. Here’s a thought: what are characters up to when they’re not active in your story? Remember, they’re not human beings. A human being is busy with all […]
I’ve often celebrated the many gifts writing bestows on the writer: the sharpened eye, the joy that springs from creating something from nothing, the pleasures of devising the felicitous phrase, [...]
Introducing an episode of a series of short radio programmes recently, the presenter* said: “I’d like you to imagine strapping on a big eye mask. It completely covers your eyes. […]
Yes, of course literary conflict provides the driving impetus of all narrative. But from time to time every writer earns the right to indulge their desire simply to celebrate beauty […]
War talk is much in the air these days. We talk of “the war” in the way that our parents and grandparents must have referred, in their day, to “the […]
St Neots, a small town straddling the River Great Ouse a few locks down from Bedford, holds a market every Thursday in the town square. It was the site, in […]