I’ve got loads of books on my shelves on the subject. I’ve got loads of emails filed away. I’ve even got my own prompts I could work with. But when I’m feeling uncreative I “can’t be bothered”.
I’m wondering now if this post should be called “Can’t be bothered” because I was pondering writing this when I bumped into a dog walking acquaintance who started the conversation off saying about wanting to be motivated but ended it with “I know but I can’t be bothered.”
It seems to be a thing with lots of us at the moment – “can’t be bothered”. Is it covid, lockdowns, change, anxieties of this shifting world, getting older, or something else?
Sometimes it doesn’t matter what it is it is just an “is”. I don’t know why I’m feeling uncreative but I just am. It could be that I am feed up for not having any freelancing work to do, but lots in the pipeline – which really isn’t much help. It could be that the novel I’ve been plodding on with 1000 words a day has suddenly become a chore. And actually when I read back through it this isn’t just me being negative but I have lost all the depth of intrigue that I had in those beginning 10-20,000 words. It has gone stale and is starting to look like I’m just rushing to the end.
But actually I do do something when I am feeling uncreative and “can’t be bothered.”
I am kind to myself. I let myself be – not in that negative way but in a way that says “this is how I feel at the moment. It won’t last forever.” So the other morning I sat in the backyard with my book and enjoyed the cat looking at the flowers. Today I took myself for a long walk and coffee not for the benefit of finding something creative to write about but just to let the wind blow through my hair. I accepted that this is where I am at this moment in time. And as a friend used to say “These things will pass”.
By being kind to myself hopefully these feelings will pass, hopefully in a couple of days I’ll be able to look at my story again, in a bit I’ll be able to do more than read and play solitaire.
So my advise to anyone whether it is just a feeling of “mmuuuggghhh” or something deeper than this – be kind to yourself, accept this is how you are at this moment in time and know that “these things will pass”. Also don’t be afraid to tell others whether it is by talking or writing. As the old saying goes “a problem shared is a problem halved” and I think that doesn’t mean the person you tell has to help you sort it out but it is just about being open and honest about how you are at this moment in time.
Lambs, Lady’s Walk, Montacute April 2022. Taken by myself
I was really surprised yesterday at the writing group I was running that the two ladies who were there had never picked wild garlic and so never cooked with it. I then told a dog walking friend this and she had also never picked and eaten wild garlic. Her and I are now off to do that later this week. But it got me thinking of how many things I take for granted and think everyone can do them.
But it also clouds ones view of things. I know I would not be great at helping people who struggle with money because I have always been great at budgeting and of making money stretch. I am not 100% sure how I do it but I just do. So for someone to say they just cannot budget would leave me confused. But also I cannot map read. No matter how many times my husband shows me how to do it, and he is patient, I just can’t seem to get my head round it. I still am amazed that the sea is at the top of the map here. We live of the North Wales coast so for many of you that will be obvious but to me – Nope!
Too often when we talk about things, whether it is how we budget, what we eat, or try to share our faith, we come from the place of what we know. So for instance faith-wise we know what we know about God – and that can be different for each person – but we talk about it from what we have experienced, how it manifests to us, and then get frustrated with others from that point. This with the ladies at my writing group has helped me to see this. They are both over 60 and to me everyone has picked garlic.
With the Christian youth group I’m privileged to co-run I have started to ask the young people questions based on the liturgies and phrases they use about God, about their faith, about the out-workings of it all. When you say “I believe in God the Father” what do you mean by that? Because I am a writer I get them to write it down. Also I think there is space to say things in writing that you might not say out loud.
So for me from these ladies and that they had made it past 60 having never picked or cooked with wild garlic I am hopefully learning that my experiences of the world are mine and have shaped how I do and see things but not everyone has experienced, done or see what I have or in the same way I have. So instead of presuming I will start asking and wondering and learning and finding out.
Perhaps if we all started listening, learning and asking questions rather than presuming and going our way then there would be less fear, less anxiety and less fighting and wars?
“Best laid plans of mice and men” or “make a plan so God can have a laugh” are very much what life feels like at the moment. So I made this plan and didn’t just ask Sarah of Everyday Words permission to post from her prompts daily but also blogged that I would. But I had also put those feelers out to get some part time work that was not writing.
Well firstly I did not realise that Sarah’s prompts would be so rich and so full of meat that I needed to spend time digesting them before I wrote anything, and then had to ponder what I wrote afterwards before sharing it. But also work has got in the way.
So this week I’ve run a writing group on Tuesday afternoon and then worked 6 hours Wednesday afternoon and am working 6 hours this afternoon. But also I have been pushing for creative practitioner freelancing work and had a meeting with the local mayor on Tuesday – in the pub which was a lovely way to have a meeting. The excuse was “supporting local businesses” which is the best excuse ever. Anyway from that there is something coming. Then a couple of other feelers I sent out are proving maybe not fruitful but possible. And I’d also done a great course with Writers&Artists and one of the follow ups was to have the novel idea we’d started on looked out. Well Natalie Young was so supportive of the idea that I want to run with it. She also said to commit to writing 1000 words per day.
So the plan of posting an Everyday Words prompt each day has had to go by the by for now. But today, even though it is the 7th April, I do have prompts from 3rd and 4th ready to share.
The prompt from the 3rd came from a recipe by Olia Hercules, a Ukranian cook and writer, using foraged food. One of the prompts was to think of a time when you went foraging but instead it reminded me of a home school trip with my kids in a field of wild garlic. Here is it – Foraging
Then the one for the 4th April I wrote yesterday whilst I was working. I had an hour where I was totally alone in the pub and because it was my first full shift I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. So I clicked up the link, which I had been pondering for a while. The prompt was to look at one of the last phrases which was “stupid with smiles” and to write from there. Well this is what I got. It is a bit raw and rough but I like it – Stupid With Smiles.
When will the next get posted? Well I’m hoping over the weekend but … tomorrow I’m catching up with a friend and have to catch up with housework, Saturday I’m attending a workshop and always come back with loads of poem ideas, and also I have a blog buzzing in my head around a Godspace post from earlier in the week so …. Now I know to hold my plans lightly I am saying that hopefully soon but you could be reading April prompts well into June the way this is going.
The Bridport Prize newsletter today asks people to send in their thoughts on “what it’s really like to be a writer”. So I thought I would make my thoughts public on here.
I hope that must of us will put down something different. And I think that is when we have achieved what it means to be “a writer”. To stop comparing ourselves with others and be the writer we are meant to be. Also for me to be a writer means so much more than – to be a published writer!
I’ve just read Stephen King’s “On Writing” and he says that one has to write 1000 words a day, but I am no Stephen King. My writing day also contains walking the dog, housework, cooking, shopping, supporting friends, looking for freelance work, planning and advertising writing groups. So I have more going on in my day than Stephen King.
I know of some writers who work outside the house full time, have a family and yet still are amazing and complete a book and get published. I am not like that. I get easily distracted by the shiny things – an email to answer, a WhatsApp from my kids or from a friend, a website I want to explore. I think if I’d been at school now they would have labeled me as ADD. I cannot sit and look at the keyboard waiting for a thought to transpire into a word/words/story. I flit off and check out Wordle or Solitaire or emails!
But on a walk, just me and dog, or in my car or led in bed the words come. Most times I cannot write them down, especially not when driving. But I trust that I will remember what I am meant to remember and will find the time to write it down when I do. I know one of the greats, but can’t remember who, said re-waxed the stairs in the huge house he lived in whilst writing one of his best known books. Wish I could remember who that was!
I am part of a group called The Write Place who meet in person in Frome but also meet on Zoom and just write. I knew them when I lived near Frome but not that I am over 250 miles away I connect via Zoom. Just we say a quick hello but then just get on and do the stuff. That does help but my nature is that, once I cannot think of anything to write I still get distracted. So good though it is for me it still cannot keep me staring at the screen waiting for that word to come.
But I love to write. I would say I’ve always written. I’ve always been a writer. I write to explore what I am thinking, to record an event, when something makes me laugh or cry or I feel passionate about. All these blog post are things I want to share with others. For me writing is a way to share my thoughts with others. I feel that if it’s written down then it has been a true thought.
I love to encourage others to write, which is why I run writing groups in my area under the name Barefoot At The Kitchen Table – barefooted so that one is connected with the land and the kitchen table because it is always where the best conversations happen. I could probably do more writing if I didn’t do this but I so love this. And I would say running these groups is also part of what makes me a writer.
So for me “to be a writer” means that I must write. And write I do though do get “confused” between what counts as writing. Take this morning for example – I was up at 6.30, wrote a plan for a short story I’m working for homework for a course I’m on, did 2 pages of “Morning pages“, then got dressed, walked the dog, read emails, had breakfast, wrote up the notes for my story, sorted the website I use for my writing groups and then am writing this. All writing and all part of me exploring me through my words but very little of it will be published but that is ok.
Being a writer means being ok with being me and who I am.
As a writer, not a dancer or a singer. I am going to steal this quote and give it a tweak – “Write like no one will read it, Write like you’ve never been badly criticised/lost your confidence/felt like it’s a waste of time, Write like it’s heaven on earth”
I am a writer who runs writing groups and writing projects. I spend a lot of my time writing. Some of which you can read on the pages of “My Writing”, other bits you can find here on my blog page. I also do all the exercises I set my writing groups. But I got to thinking – how do I write when I know no one will read it? Not as in journaling but just writing a story for myself.
I know we all talk of the first draft not being perfect, or of those exercises we do in writing group being rough. And I don’t want to aim for perfection and be criticising my work as I go because that would make it static and lose the flow. It was more a question of how do I write when I’m just writing for fun.
I am part of a group of writers who used to meet regularly in Frome but then who met online over lockdown and now are a hybrid of in person and online, which is great for me because I’m now living in North Wales. I find meeting with this group very beneficial, so much so that I pay a bit extra to be able to be virtually in their writing room during the week as well as the monthly Sunday gatherings.
Well this Sunday I had booked into write for the morning and felt I “ought to” be ploughing through my collection of short stories of the backstories of some of the women in some of the Mabinogion tales. But I wasn’t wanting to go down the angsty route that I had allowed these women to do down. So I had a choice – either make their lives less angst or write something else. I didn’t want to change their lives as most days I like where they are, so in the end I used one the wild writing prompts we’d started the session with and wrote about how this guy had become a male stripper and exploring his relationships. I will not do anything with this tale but realised that I was “writing as if no one will read it”. I found it fun and very releasing. I can also see how it could help with me how I construct short stories. But that wasn’t the point. I was just writing.
When I allowed myself to move into that place of “writing as if no one will read it” and letting go of all the guilt, negativity, criticism, inner voice telling me I was wasting my morning, and allowed myself to feel like it was “heaven on earth” I took my character on a great journey. Him and I had fun together and enjoyed our Sunday morning. He is now filed away with other unfinished pieces in my “Cloud”.
I still write well, keeping an bit of an eye on spelling – thank you Mr Redline Spellchecker. And I try my best with punctuation – though I have to say that is not my strong point. I blame the fact that I went to school at that time when punctuation was not taught. I’m still never 100% sure what an adjective is!!! 🙂
Also I realised that heaven won’t be heaven for me if I can’t write. If/when I get to heaven I want to hang out by the river of life, under those healing trees, with my A5 hardback notebook and the best pen ever, and write what I can see, what I feel, make up stories about the people I can see around me. But then if I feel like that then why do I not write all the time now? Have heaven on earth now? Because of feelings of “having to” produce something, use my time “wisely”, be “productive”, etc etc. But actually writing is my love, my big passion. I think via my written words.
For instance yesterday I had a Youthshedz meeting and the person I was meeting was late so I got out my notebook and pen and the plan for the next couple of months of the project flowed out of my pen.
So I am going to write more, for no other reason than to write. I’m going to enjoy hanging out with my characters whether others get to meet them or not. Yes I will still take pieces to competition or publication level but all the time I will hold on to the joy that I am going to “write like no one is watching … write like it’s heaven on earth.”
Challenge – how do you write when no one is looking? When maybe no one will ever read it? Or do you struggle with thoughts that there must be a reason why you are writing?
About three weeks ago I had a QEC session and my counselor challenged me on journaling. She said it was like putting all your stuff in the rubbish bin and then going back to check what you’d put it. I have journaled on and off for most of my writing life. I would say that it is where I explore my thoughts and feelings and with my pen come up with a plan for what to do with what I feel. Her challenge was that a feeling is a feeling and a situation is a situation but that with QEC we’re putting new beliefs into my world about how I am.
I have been going off on walks, just me and my dog, to places where I won’t see people to chat to, and I write. Some of which I have written up and can be found on My Writing page under the heading Artist’s Date Inspirations. From these random writings I come up with interesting realisations.
Yesterday I had been upset by something and reached for my journal to unload but stopped myself. I decided instead to use a postcard and write a short story which I have called “Autumn Foretells”.
Here is the postcard I used which is totally disconnected from anything that was going on yesterday
. Through this I was able to vent how I felt, explore thoughts and ideas and come to a point of being calm and relaxed. It is an interesting story and can be found on My Writings if you wish to read it. Note it is not true
So I did not look back through past events, did not explore how I felt and why, but took myself off on a creative writing route that did not “look through the garbage” and I felt much fresher and freer afterwards.
I must say when my counselor mentioned I did only slightly agree with her and also did not want to break a habit of a life time. But of course that is what QEC is all about – breaking those life time habits that we have brought up so we can be free to truly be.
Serendipity means – the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for; an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident; good fortune; luck
On Wednesday I had decided to take myself off on an Artist’s Date as recommended by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. On Tuesday night I’d had an important email regarding working with a school’s holiday club which needed admin tasks doing but I decided, as I am trying to “wear the cloak of a writer” – something that comes from the Warrior Goddess work I’ve been doing – I decided that the admin would wait until the afternoon.
Before getting the dog up and leaving for my Artist’s Date – which was going to be a walk from Beaumaris to Castell Aberlleiniog, some writing on the castle motte and then walking back again – I did some journaling around “Roots”. One of the things I wrote was “God will supply all my needs whether money, time, energy, direction, etc” Also things around trusting that I get done each day what I need to get done for that day. A sort of “give us today our daily bread”.
I managed to get a bit lost on the drive to Beaumaris, but found the car park and set off with my bag with notebook, water and a sandwich and the dog along the coast path. The weather was awesome. The clouds were low and were hugging the mountains across the water. I walked for a while and then thought I would stop and take a photo. That was when I discovered that I had left my phone in the car. And I had said to my husband that I would be fine on the walk because I had my phone with me!! Ok so it did help that I was walking a coastal path so just had to keep the sea to my right on the way out and then on my left on the way back! But it did mean that I didn’t know what the time was.
Even though I had journaled around trusting that I would get everything done in the back of my head I had thought that if after an hour’s walking I hadn’t found the castle I would turn back. Well now I didn’t know what the time was so I just walked.
I did find the castle, which turned out to be further from the coast path than googlemaps had said. But because I was working on “trusting time” I was at the top of the motte when the sun burned off the clouds. I wrote poems and bits for the story I’d gone to write in situ, but also as I came down I bumped into a man who had been involved in the restoration of the Aberlleiniog who told me lots more than was on the information boards which was so helpful to my story.
I would say my day turned out to be totally serendipitous. But it came from letting go of something that we all use so much now for so much – the smart phone – and trusting to God/the Universe/our own intuition.
Brene Brown in her Daring Greatly book, talks about believing we have “enough” and from the vulnerability to trust oozes. I trusted that I had “enough” time, energy and whatever, to have the time out I needed for my writing, and from it I was blessed immensely.
I’d love to share pictures from the walk but like I said I didn’t take my phone. And then when I got home there was an email from the school I’m going to be working with dates for me to work, and I did get all the admin tasks I needed to do before supper time!
Normally I would do my end of year review to coincide with Christmas cards I was sending, whether physical or electronic, but this year I have decided to wait until 31st December to post, and am even tempted to wait until midnight just in case. It is not that I am fearful but this has been an “unprecedented” year.
At the time I would normally have done this post I was still laid up with bruised ribs from falling off that horse though was starting to plan what I would write, and I suppose even Different Christmas was a lead up to that. But then just as I was in the planning stages for that my husband got shingles and has been very sore with that. Then on Saturday 19th Dec Wales announced that all was change for Christmas and we were going into lockdown again – though from the volume of traffic I would say that only means that pubs and cafes have now closed. Not sure if I can see much other difference on the roads. It is definitely not back to April’s sparse traffic volume. But then on Sunday my daughter announced that she had tested positive to covid and so, even though she wasn’t coming up here for the holidays it did mean she was going to have to spend it home alone! All this in just a week!
This has been the strangest of years. Even to the point that our cat went from eating biscuits to demanding that we feed her cat meat from a tin. She now has meat twice a day and ignores the biscuits that sit waiting for her to be hungry enough. If it hadn’t been for the local cat rescue places being closed all the tins that had been in the cupboard for the last few years would have gone to them but now she’s eaten them all.
Talking of pets – our crazy rabbit died in the summer, happily of a possible heart attack whilst he was sunbathing before begining yet another digging project. He was buried inside his own warren of tunnels that he had constructed over the four years he had been living here. He is still very missed and the amount of veg peelings in our food recycling bin has increased.
As with everyone 2020 started normally enough, though it was odd for us because my husband chose to stay home for New Year’s instead of going to a youth hostel with old university friends. So actually even the start of the year was different for us with us being together when we woke on 2020. We went away as always for our wedding anniversary at the end of January, which was followed by my husband going off for a week of intensive Welsh learning on the Llyn Peninsular. He managed to get away climbing with friends in Scotland at the start of March, but by the time he went away then things were starting to change and covid was being muttered about. We had two Airbnb guests, both in the medical profession, who went from saying it was nothing to worry about to slowly getting more and more concerned about it, to our guest from Burma having to cut short his stay so he got home before all airports were closed.
I was supposed to go on my regular March writing retreat but felt uneasy about going which was just as well because suddenly things got serious. So instead of being in Gwynedd I went Cardiff to bring my daughter to stay with us when the pubs closed. We bought her some walking boots the day before the country went into full lockdown. We thought we were going to be walking all over North Wales, but then the 5 mile rule was introduced and we finished up doing lots of walks around where we live. We have seen my daughter more this year, probably a good 4 months of the year, than we have since she went off to university about 7 years ago. I picked her up yesterday, now that she is over her coovid isolation time and will spend New Year with us and stay until this lockdown lifts. So even though we have seen so much more of her this year when it comes to everyone else – my son and our mothers and our friends – we’ve seen them less than normal.
My husband changed jobs at the start of lockdown and has now been working for his new company for 8 months and never seen the inside of his office or met any of his colleagues face to face. We are so grateful for our lovely big house and him being able to work upstairs in his own office. But his is the only work going on in the house because, with all the guidelines and restrictions, it is not safe to run our house as an Airbnb rental home for the time being. Read more about that on Humility. And since not having guests coming and going it has changed how I see the house and what it is for. For now I’m not making any decisions how things will look regarding Airbnb and room rentals in 2021, but I do know I see this place much more as a family home now than a business.
We did manage to get away for a flying visit to Somerset to see our mums and a couple of friends at the beginning of August and my son and his fiancee came up to us for a long weekend in mid August. Both times we were blessed with great weather. And we managed 6 days in Northumberland in late September, though because Northumbeland went into tier 3 we were not able to see one friend who had moved there a couple of years ago, and also a friend’s 50th wedding anniversary party was cancelled. But we did manage 6 days of walking, reading, and resting together.
As well as Airbnb all my work has stopped – no more writing groups, no more schools work, no more workshops in the library. All very strange. But I have been doing a lot of my own writing and a few of my blogs from here are being published on Godspacelight.com which is quite exciting. I have also been working with a young illustrator and we have a book called TheLittle Yellow Boat which is with BumbleBee Publishing in the process of being put together and published later in 2021. I will tell more about that once it is out in the big wide world. My plans for 2021 are to work on more short stories and other ideas and of course to blog more. I do not want The Little Yellow Boat to be my only publications. I have also been working towards an MA in Celtic Studies and have loved the modules about the Mabinogion, especailly the Four Branches. I am thinking of doing some stores around the women from the Four Branches.
Every year we do not know what is going to happen, but I think 2021 is probably the one where we have the least idea. Will the vaccine prove effective enough to bring back “normal” life? Will we have enjoyed some of the changes and not want “normal”? For some their business will never be the same again. Many will be bankrupt. For others there plans will be delayed and will be able to move forward a year or two later. But also within that not knowing are things we do have control over. I plan to continue with the Quantum Energy Counselling healing work I’ve been doing. I will work on my own writing and develop a body of work and look at being published. I will meet up with people when I walk with my dog and have great conversations. I will email my friends. And I will carry on reading. All these I have control over. As to whether I’ll start Airbnb rental again or whether I’ll be able to restart writing workshops and schools work, that I have no control over, so will hold lightly. Also I do have control over how I behave towards what is going on around me and I hope I can hold Joy and Hope in the right place and walk as God wants me to through whatever is thrown my way.
So how did I get from posting for myself to sharing?
From a workshop I did in my local library about a month before lockdown
I have always written. I remember as a young teenager writing stories and sharing them on the school bus with friends. I wrote a play about Thomas a Becket instead of an essay for my pre-O level history class, which I was told was great but I needed to get the language more in period. If only I could find that play now I would not change the language style but would go with it as it was – 11th Century drama with contemporary voices. But unfortunately is has gone. Even when I decided to do a degree later in life I went for history with creative writing. I am a writer but I have hidden that from myself. Or rather haven’t been willing to push through. I write lots but I very rarely push through and edit or try and find a publisher or a competition or any outlet for my work. But things have changed.
During lockdown I have had time to moan, to grumble, couldn’t find my creativity or my motivation, and also wondered what I’m going to do with the last third of my life. [I’ve had my 59th birthday during lockdown] But through it all I did journalling, emailing, started writing courses, met up with friends on Zoom silent writing gatherings [where we all sign on and say Hi and then mute and write for 2-3 hours then say how we’ve done and go have lunch]. But something was stiring.
I have a great friend who does amazing inner healing stuff. She lives in South of England, me in North Wales, so we meet via Zoom. She’s good at creativing a calming atmosphere over cyberspace. This last time highlighted my writing and I came away really believing that my calling is to be a writer. In fact to be an author. And from there things have started to open up. It isn’t magic. I have to do my bit. So I finished a story about “the truth of this virus” and have found a competition for it which means editing it from 3500 words down to 2000. I’m up for the challenge. I submitted 20/20 Perfect Vision to https://godspacelight.com/blog/ – and when you look you’ll see that they have edited it. Now if they had done that before I had had this time of both lockdown and inner healing I would have been hurt by it but today I am really pleased with how it looks. My work but their site, their brand.
I used to be afraid of editing especially other people doing it. I saw it as a personal attack, which is daft but that is how it felt. Like they were attacking me and not helping me with my work. As well as the editing on GodspaceLight I also recieved an email from a friend who has critiqued this “truth of the virus” story and again recieved in the manner it was sent – with love and support.
I have more work to do which I am excited about not overwhelmed; a children’s story that a friend is illustrating that it is my task to find a publisher; a fun bit about my husband builidng a eagle’s lair in his office which I shared the idea on a writer’s forum and have been given a website to share the story on; as well as this other post for GodspaceLight and the “truth about the virus” story.
And because of the clearing out of the junk that was holding me back from editing and completing any work I feel energized, creative and motivated. Finally I am stepping up into my calling – and funnily enough it is not all those other things i thought it might be 🙂 But that is for another post 🙂
Taken by me but I can’t remember where. This year I will be labeling my photos better 🙂
Tis the season of the have, should, ought. Sometimes in all this we miss out on the real reason for the season, which in many traditions has a basis for looking at light and celebration.
I have lots of decisions that are coming my way for 2019 which means that, to give them due consideration I will have to, in fact even now, will have to change how I live my life. I will have to give up on have tos, should dos and ought tos. I don’t have enough hours in my day. Some of the things I will give up are things I like but I am learning if I do this then I can’t do that.
I spent the last 10 days visiting family and friends this has meant that I haven’t done the usual Christmas newsletter or the run of Christmas cards. I have also been gentle working through “Finding the still point of your story” which again is making me look at what is important. Not that the things I can’t do are not important or the people I didn’t see, won’t send cards to are not important but that I have a finite time to do things and need to invest wisely. This means giving up being a member of the spa and not getting in my thrice weekly swims and saunas. This isn’t because I don’t like to go but because I want to take my writing more seriously I want more time to read and this will give me 3+ hours a week more to read.
I have not done the Christmas newsletter because I have decided that I want to message
Taken just now. These are the books in my study that I want to read. There are more in a box downstairs, in my bedroom and in the living room.
certain people individually because that is where I am at the moment. But I cannot message 100 people that could be on my mailing list so it will be just a few. That way they can get special messages. Not that there is anything wrong in newsletters. In fact I had one from some friends which talked of her storytelling and has led me to using her story to tell when I am an elf at Santa’s grotto on Saturday. For me well worth having 🙂
So in all this I need to look at how I lead my life, what I want to do in it and not get rushed around by should, ought, have to. I am learning well this week too because my son is home for 10 days, which is lovely, but if I want to still write I have to leave him on his own. I am also asking him to help with things like walking the dog so that I am not run ragged there.
So for me this time between now and the new year will be of deciding that I do and what I will have to put to one side. I want to take my writing seriously – which means I have to stop doing other things.
Aspirational Adventures 