never knowingly without a pen
Happy New Year to you all. A very low-key New Year's Eve for me, a tiny amount of alcohol drunk, some good food, perfect company in the form of my husband, A., and - for him - a lot of taxi driving for our two young adult children who he ferried around through the night… Continue reading Belatedly, Happy New Year
Like Julie Mellor and many others in the Poetry Blogging Network, I try to put something up on this blog each week. Like Julie, I don't always manage it but, also like Julie, I thought I'd try again this week. I don't always have something to say so I wonder if it's worth blogging. At… Continue reading Notes from a Cluttered Desk
There she is, behind her radio, her jokey monkey, her burnout out candle, her re-purposed jam jars, her florid handsoap, her washing up liquid, her scraggy pan cleaner, abandoned paintbrushes, her clutter of children's claywork. There she is behind a basket of old receipts, boxes of matches, hair clips, unread articles, badges, key rings, fridge magnets, gravy-stained recipe books,… Continue reading What do the people opposite think of me?
Like many parents, my husband and I have always read with our children. When they were babies, we read fairy stories and nursery rhymes to them and gave them board books to chew and dribble over. Touch-and-feel books were popular, as were lift-the-flap books (usually reinforced with triple layer sellotape to cater for even the most boisterous of… Continue reading On continuing to read with your kids
What are your plans for the summer? Are things staying the same or do you have a project in mind? Maybe it isn't summer where you are but what are your plans, anyway? Here in the UK, I've been away from a regular, paid job since 1st May. This is intentional, I'm trying to use… Continue reading What are your writing plans for the summer?
I've been tidying up, in an attempt to make my writing space less cluttered and, inevitably, I got distracted. This time I was waylaid by some of my old notebooks. The ones pictured here are from 1983, when I was 21, living and working in Paris as an au pair - ah! Paris! *settles into a… Continue reading Reading old notebooks – and cringing
On the one hand the cliché of that title, on the other hand the article is off and running and you're reading it (thank you, by the way). On the one hand I will miss the friends I've made during the last 18 months when I've been reading aloud every week with people living with… Continue reading This Writer’s Life
Hello and Happy New Year to everyone. In our house we are variously curled up on sofas and beds, wrapped in duvets and fleecy blankets, still in our pyjamas or fully clothed, in coats, and wearing gorilla-shaped slippers, and scarves. (It's chilly in our house.) The teenagers might have overdone it with the fruity-flavoured cider last night, plus… Continue reading Write for an hour every day
I'm gratified by the number of likes, comments and visits I received to my Not Quite a Post post! It just goes to show that, when you've said you're on a blogging schedule (in 2014 I've been trying to post at least once a week, usually on a Sunday) it's worth plonking your bottom down… Continue reading On the value of blogging.
All power to your pen if you're taking part in National Novel Writing Month and attempting to write 50,000 words of a novel during November. I won't be taking part myself although I love the idea of sitting down at my computer and bashing out 50,000 words of prose. I love the idea of a… Continue reading On not doing #nanowrimo
Josephine Corcoran 