What do you wish you could do more every day? Mooch around the shore line like a spoonbill, or amble about a gallery full of modern art, without intent. Drink strong, milky coffee and wander the streets of a city … Continue reading Wish List
November is National Novel Writing Month and, as I have for the last few years, I signed up. This time, not to write a novel that I then never look at again but, to work on a short story collection. … Continue reading NaNo Interrupted
It’s seven thirty-seven on a rainy Thursday morning, and I’m just about to take the first sip of my second cup of coffee. I don’t usually have a second cup of coffee, by this time I’m usually out walking, either … Continue reading Following a Thread
It’s difficult to know quite how to greet 2020, on the one hand I had a great 2019 which makes me excited for the new decade, on the other the human race seems to be committing mass suicide, which makes … Continue reading It’s Arrived!
Last week saw me running my first afternoon of regular, weekly creative writing sessions at the newly opened Peter Pan Moat Brae, Scotland’s National Centre for Children’s Literature & Storytelling. Which isn’t only for people under a certain age. We … Continue reading Where Stories Begin
I’ve been working through Benjamin Hardy‘s 30 Behaviours to Make You Unstoppable in 2019 in the hope it will help me find a way to achieve my life goals. I don’t want to be a millionaire or anything, I’d just … Continue reading Relationships and the Creative Practitioner
Having decided to try the Story-a-Week challenge, and write each week’s offering about a different character from the novel I’m currently working on, I sat down last Monday to decide which one. That was the easy bit. I chose Ellie, … Continue reading Story-a-Week: #1 Maggie’s Chairs
On our last day I woke up in bilious spirit, poor D had to raise all his shields, but full tranquility returned the second I walked into the Shape of Light, an exhibition of 100 years of abstract photography at … Continue reading London Notes #16
I don’t have the resources (temporal, cognitive…) to write a post at the moment; things seem to have become hectic. But I’ve just listened to a Bookworm episode featuring some members from OULIPO and think it worth sharing. You can … Continue reading Writing Beyond the Sonnet (& Other Conventional Constraints)
The Cal Arts course I’m doing has provided two prompts this week; the first: write a still life poem – pick an object and render it in verbal images as vividly as possible; the second: create a title from the … Continue reading The Madeleine of Banality and Other Titles
Eryl Gasper-Dick, still curious 