Thoughts about things I’ve written or read or heard or seen. An attempt to stay positive in a turbulent world.
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brainpickings and mindset
I’ve just discovered a website called brainpickings. I was noodling around on the internet, trying to find out something for one of my characters (what it was escapes me now) but I recommend brainpickings for the heart and for the brain. The articles are written by Maria Popova and they’re about, to quote her: Art, science, psychology, design, philosophy, history, politics, anthropology and...Continue reading→
DO YOU WANT ESCAPE or EXPERIENCE WHEN YOU READ FICTION? And: from food desert to food forest
I found this definition of the distinction between genre and literary fiction here: The main reason for a person to read Genre Fiction is for entertainment, for a riveting story, an escape from reality. Literary Fiction separates itself from Genre because it is not about escaping from reality, instead, it provides a means to better understand the...Continue reading→
Mindfulness, Fitzroy Square and Subversive (Guerilla) Gardening
A few weeks ago I did an Introduction to Mindfulness day at the London Mindfulness Project (whose rooms are in the astonishingly beautiful, Georgian Fitzroy Square, at No 6): No 6, according to the Georgian Society, has: Over the years … become associated with high-end Bohemian residents many of whom had and have prominent careers in...Continue reading→
A Valentine to Fear; and Visual Verse
In Elizabeth Gilbert‘s brilliant new book Big Magic (I reviewed it here) she acknowledges that we need fear in our lives, otherwise we’d be: Straight-up sociopaths … [or an] exceptionally reckless three-year-old … . But you do not need your fear in the realm of creative expression. She also writes: When people try to kill off their fear, they often...Continue reading→
Mistakes, for a new year
The first days of this new year have brought oddly mixed emotions. Happiness and gratitude that all those celebrations with friends and family went well, mingled with sadness for the absence of all those we used to celebrate with who are no longer alive. Memories of the dead weaving (wefting?) through the warps of our lives (and not always sadly). And then a...Continue reading→
Laurie Lee’s A Village Christmas, and other things
I read about Laurie Lee’s A Village Christmas and Other Notes on the English Year at dovegreyreader’s wonderful blog early in November and I’m hoping it will end up under our tree this year. I’ve already bought it for several friends.A perfect book for this time of year (Lee’s daughter Jessy discovered seven pieces by her father in the...Continue reading→
Leslie House, Fife; and the Daily Good
My great-grandmother Noël Rothes, whose life was the initial inspiration for my novel The Dance of Love, lived at Leslie House between 1904 and 1919. The house was burned to the ground while under restoration in 2009. It’s been the subject of at least two planning applications, but now stands derelict. But as I wrote in...Continue reading→
What it’s like to write and what it’s like to imagine you might write; and Suffragette
In Edith Wharton‘s 1925 The Writing of Fiction in the section called ‘Constructing a Navel’ – obviously a typographical mistake but one I like for its overtones of contemplation – Wharton writes about the creation of character in a novel: The creatures of that fourth-dimensional world are born as helpless as the human animal; and each time...Continue reading→
Mindfulness; 18 things creative people do differently and the ever-magical Elizabeth Gilbert
Mindfulness, according to The Mindfulness Project in London, is: A simple and very powerful practice of training our attention. It’s … about paying attention to what’s happening here and now (sensations, thoughts, emotions) in a non-judgemental way. It can interrupt the habit of getting lost in thoughts, mostly about the future or past, which often generate more...Continue reading→
How incomprehensible unworkable things inspire
Joanna Briscoe and Grace Paley caught my attention this month. They’re very different writers but I’ve just read articles about writing by both. Grace Paley died in 2007 but a friend sent me her thoughts on writing recently. Here’s an extract from an article, reprinted here): One of the reasons writers are so much more interested in life...Continue reading→