So what did you do during lockdown? Made sourdough? Learned a language? Maybe after a couple of weeks and having done none of those things (don’t mention the sewing) I was feeling underemployed, because on an impulse I signed up to a project to learn and sing the whole of the Messiah by the end … Continue reading Handel’s Messiah, not just for Christmas! @messiahathome
Sometimes it feels like everything has come to a halt but in the writing world it there’s more to do than ever and I have had to distance myself from social media to avoid feelings of not rising to the task! However that doesn’t mean you need to do the same, so here are a … Continue reading Not everything has come to a complete halt
Like so many things, our Bath Writers and Artists calendar has had to be rejigged and our day of contemplating The Sea has been postponed. But with the coast out of bounds to everyone except its native inhabitants (how I wished I’d followed an urge to drive to Clevedon just before the lockdown!) what better … Continue reading A (virtual) day at the seaside
I’ve always been aware that there were Roman remains at Caerleon but somehow never managed to get there, so when I heard about a day out in South Wales with Bristol Bloggers which combined Caerleon with a canal walk, I jumped at the chance, and if the weather forecast wasn’t the best, all ten of … Continue reading From @fourteenlocks to @RomanCaerleon: several centuries in one day #overthebridgetowales
In June 2018, Nuala O’Connorwas kind enough to give me a copy of her 2015 novel Miss Emily when we met at the Bath Flash Fiction Festival I’ve only just got around to reading it and discovering that rare thing – a really lovely and satisfying example of historical/biographical fiction. A famously reclusive writer can’t … Continue reading Helpers and Handmaids: Miss Emily by Nuala O’Connor #historicalfiction #biographicalfiction
I don’t suppose it’s surprising that composing in different artistic genres and media should be simialr but these things always catch me unawares. Like on Sunday when I was half-listening to Elaine Page on Radio 2 interviewing songwriter Steven Schwartz. When he alluded to songs which tell a story successfully, something he also tries to … Continue reading Song and Story: a lightbulb moment on Radio 2. #writingtips #writerscraft #showdonttell
If you’ve never heard of it, Nanowrimo is an annual event in which novelists and aspiring novelists are challenged each November to write 50,000 words in the course of the month. It’s been going on for quite a while and although, November being a Novemberish kind of month, I occasionally make a private challenge to … Continue reading #Nanowrimo2019 – what’s the point?
