While we are self-isolating and only allowed to make essential journeys, I decided to share my favourite blog post for each year that the blog has been online.
2018 – Chester Zoo with Jayne I chose this blog post for the animals. I love animals and it’s always great to see them. I got to spend quality time with my good friend Jayne on this day and the weather was lovely. Plus the post has plenty of photos.
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2017 –Causes For Celebration I chose this post because lots of positive things happening to me at the time, including landing my dream job.
2016 –My Thirtieth Birthday I chose this because of a meal with family and friends. It is perhaps the best birthday I’ve ever had. And just look at the cake:
2015 –A Celebration of Love: Mum & Ian’s Wedding I chose this post because I have never seen my mum happier than on her Wedding Day and in the relationship she is in with her husband Ian (I call him my Papa). It was truly a special day and one to remember.
2011 – A Long FANTASTIC Bank Holiday Weekend I chose this post as I went to visit two of my bengal cats as kittens and the photos on the post are super cute.
The Signature of All Things is set over the lifetime of Alma Whittaker, a woman of means in the early eighteenth century, who is obsessed with the study of moss, unlucky in love, boggled by the altruism of her adopted sister and always on the search for answers in the natural world.
Alma’s journey is wonderful, fascinating and captivating. Alma’s journey and that of her father before her takes the reader around the globe transporting them to: London, Philidelphia, Tahiti, Peru, Tenerife, Hawaii and many places in-between.
Gilbert should be praised for her superb factual research within this novel and her ability to weave it subtly into her work of fiction.
Everything about The Signature of All Things is exquisite and exotic, yet bound together in familiarity by the experience of emotions that all human beings share.
Gilbert’s writing voice is engaging, warm and at times exciting. Gibert’s description brings the readers imagination fully to life. The reader can actually imagine being there alongside their new friend Alma.
The plot is intriguing, brilliantly plotted and has lots of very clever twists. The reader wont have read such cleverly plotted novel as The Signature of All Things in a number of years (I certainly hadn’t!). The expert unravelling of the plot and twists makes readers find it tough to put the book down.
Gilbert’s pacing is suitable for the plot and The Signature of All Things has 580 pages, so is slightly longer than the average novel.
Today, I’m going to be giving you a general life update (with photos). I’ve been saving to pay off an overdraft and as such I haven’t been out and about as normal. But a few things have gone on in my life recently.
I treated myself to some new bedding. I’d had the old bedding over a decade and it was time for a change. Here’s two of the three sets I bought:
New Bedding #1
New Bedding #2
I also have a Detroit set in various shades of red and white.
My cats are as vocal, mischievous and cute as ever. Here are some photos:
Russell sat looking regal.
My housemate took this photo. Not sure what he was interrupting?
There hasn’t been any decent albums out in ages. However Kylie Minogue recently released Golden, which I am listening to and enjoying:
I’ve watched a lot of rubbish TV on Netflix. I like programmes that I don’t have to think about, so in the main I’ve watched American documentaries set in prisons or following the Police on the streets. I’ve enjoyed watching anything and everything by Louis Theroux.
I’ve binged my way through Designated Survivor, all four seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise, all of the available Star Trek: Discovery and laughed my way through Russell Howard’s Recalibrate.
I’ve received my signed copy of Boys Keep Swinging: A Memoir by Jake Shears from Waterstones. I haven’t started reading it yet, but intend to do so once I’ve finished The Signature of All Things:
My signed copy of Boys Keep Swinging by Jake Shears, from Waterstones.
I treated myself to this gorgeous Tree of life Pentagram for wearing during rituals. It was bought from Inner Peace Holistic Therapy’s online shop:
How gorgeous is this?
Whenever I’ve not been too tired/exhausted, I’ve tried to spend time with family and friends. I’ve not done as much of this as I would have liked, but going forward I shall try to do more.
This is the second part in a blog post series, where I’ll be sharing some of what I’ve learned about creative writing over the last few years. The first blog post in the series was Creative Writing: Beginning.
1. Remember Your Aim
You should be writing something that entertains and is enjoyable to you and others. That’s all your creative work needs to do. It doesn’t need to be a work of literacy genius.
2. Your Writers Voice
Your writers voice is part of the art of creative writing. It will be influenced by Perspective, which I have wrote about here. It may change dramatically in different works.
Some writers try to emulate the voice of writers that they admire. This can be an interesting exercise and way to explore how those writers show their distinctive voice. To get the most out of this exercise, rather than passively read, you need to analyse how they crafted their voice.
Author Elizabeth Gilbert whom has written of many books, developed her writers voice by writing each of her books to friend or family member. Her writers voice in Big Magic, a book about living creatively, is warm, caring, passionate, engaging and captivating throughout.
Your unique writers voice will generally develop over time, with regular writing practice. The key point here is: practice.
3. Keep Going
Don’t let fear hold you back from starting, continuing or finishing a piece of creative writing. Even if, as your writing, you think it’s the worst thing ever written, keep going.
As author Anne Rice says in this video, ‘Just kick out the pages:’
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So keep writing, everyday if possible. Don’t be hard on yourself if you can’t manage everyday. Just write when you can. Whatever time you are managing to write, it’s better than not writing at all. Remember that if you keep going, eventually you’re going to finish. You’ll be bringing a new story into the world, which is wonderful.
4. Dialogue
Some rules generally apply:
Less is more.
Most people don’t talk to themselves. So don’t have characters do it.
It should be a conversation, not a monologue or full of large longwinded statements.
Don’t have a character explain to another character what happened in the last scene you wrote. It feels repetitive and tedious to the reader. One character can summarise to another character if absolutely necessary. But if the other character needs to know the details, then maybe he/she should have been in the last scene as a witness to events.
Only on rare occasions should you cut the end of dialogue, like this: –. If you do it all the time, the dialogue isn’t moving the story along and the reader will get frustrated that no character ever finishes a sentence. Plus regularly cutting the end of sentences will lose its value and significance.
Dialogue tags such as he said and she replied are useful to identify who is talking and how they are saying what they are saying. But the overall tone of the conversation should be clear from the words in the dialogue.
To improve your dialogue listen to the conversations of strangers in every public place that you visit. The dialogue you write should sound like that. It should have hooks. During the editing process, which I will write about in the next blog post in the series, it is useful to read it aloud to yourself or someone else.
5. Tense
Generally past or present tense is used. Future tense is rarely used. Once you’ve decided which tense to use, be consistent and use it throughout your creative work. Here’s an article that explains tense simply: Creative Writing – Tense.
6. Description
General fiction set in the real world needs less description than creative works set in other worlds. If your creative work is set in the past, future or another world consider: societal structures, culture, religion/belief systems, etc. Only tell the reader what they need to know.
Avoid writing cliché opportunities to describe a character or settings. One such example of a cliché opportunity is the main character standing in front of a mirror observing and describing themselves to the reader. It’s been done so many times, that it has become a cliché.
A good tip, when it comes to description is to make references. So for example, rather than writing: Jean drove off in her red car. Write: Jean drove off in her red Nissan Micra. Be aware that over time these descriptive references might date your creative work. Some descriptive references are so embedded into society that they could never date your creative work.
In my short story A Few Amazing Moments I deliberately used descriptive references to set the time in recent history that the various scenes were set in.
Perspective alters how you describe things. You can read more about perspective here. Pacing alters the amount of description a scene has. You can read more about pacing here. But the rule is: in slower scenes more description is allowed. In action or fast-paced scenes there should be less description. To much description or to little can significantly impact on your overall pacing.
7. Back-up Your Creative Work – Regularly
We’ve all heard nightmare stories about writers whom have lots their entire work because of a computer crash or computer dying on them. They either didn’t hit the save button or didn’t back-up their computer or both. I’ve lost large chunks of scenes in the past because I didn’t hit the save button often enought. I’ve also lost entire creative projects because a computer decided to die on me. So here’s the advice:
Hit the save button at the end of every paragraph.
This advice comes from Author Elizabeth Gilbert. In her book Big Magic, which have reviewed here, she writes about the danger of perfectionism.
If you aim for your creative work to be perfect you will drive yourself insane. No matter how much time, energy, effort and work you put into a creative work it will never be perfect. So rather than striving for perfection, aim for completing your creative work to the best of your current ability.
So many creative people, leave work in their desk draws, unfinished, because they don’t feel it’s good enough. Because they are aiming for perfection. Just take a second to imagine the number of superb stories that never see the light of day, let alone get read, because the writer is aiming for perfection.
9. First Draft
Congratulations on completion of the first draft of your creative work. But for a good writer, it’s not even half finished yet. The manuscript now needs to be edited, which may include some re-writing.
In my next blog post of the series, I’ll be writing about editing (including an editing checklist), feedback and publishing options.
Are you a Doctor, Nurse, Healthcare Assistant or Other Healthcare Professional? Or a Student?
Ways The Human Body Can Go Wrong covers every system of the body, what can go wrong when the body malfunctions or fails, symptoms (including why these happen) and cures/treatments available.
It includes knowledge around essential skills for Clinical Excellence such as Assessment, All Age Observational Norms, Models of Care, Communication/Handover Tips, the role of Specialities, Medication Tips, Dealing with Errors, Documentation Advice and a list of Useful Resources.
It is written in plain English, but highlights important medical terminology. It has been written at a level where someone from a non-medical background can pick it up and learn, but that it is still valuable to those with significant Clinical Experience.
My dear friend Roy decided to follow in his family’s footsteps and enlist in the Royal Navy.
I wanted to maintain our friendship, to continue to support Roy, to make him laugh and to entertain him. So I came up with the idea of sending him a weekly email on random topics.
These emails were on a variety of topics, always being entertaining, sometimes being interesting, sometimes funny and occasionally being serious.
Topics included: Jokes, Puzzles, Inspirational Quotes, Future Technology to Be Excited About, How to Fight A Shark, How to Woo A Turtle, Some of the Most Amazing Jobs in the World, Facts About Castles, Do Aliens Exist?, The Kindest Humans, A List of Cakes, 13 Weird Body Facts, 20 Super Space Facts, Ancient Egyptian Curses, 10 Weird Olympic Games, The Great Emu War of 1932, Quiz: Flags of the World, Legendary Characters from the UK and others.
My Royal Navy Friend is a copy of these emails. In total, there are 52 emails. Dispersed throughout the book are also Royal Navy facts and stories.
This workbook has been designed for anyone that is struggling with alcohol or has struggled with alcohol in the past.
It is written in a Motivational Interviewing style, one of the key therapies used to support people with alcohol issues. It has been designed using a trauma-informed approach and is strength–based.
What you will find in this book is more than just worksheets about alcohol. You’ll find all the tools someone needs to get into recovery from alcohol and stay there. It’s a therapy-based book, not an alcohol-based book.
SpellCast is a comprehensive compendium of spells, oils, charms and talismans. It is purely a book about magic, folk magic for the 21st century. The spells are ones that are tried and tested, with some that will stand the test of time.
In SpellCast you will read about the power of Instant Magic, of Banishment & Bindings, Blessings, Cleansing, Communication, Death, Employment, Finance & Money, Fertility, Friendship, Happiness & Joy, Health, Love & Relationships, Luck Magic, Protection, Transformative Magic and WishCraft.
This book will change your life. Your life will be abundant in all meanings of the word.
This book contains everything that you need to know about mental health and mental illness. Mental Health Wisdom is divided into three sections.
Understanding is section one and is all about the facts of mental health.
In section two, Empathy Through Lived Experience, the author shares his personal experience of mental illness.
Life Hacks is section three. It’s all about self-care and quick and easy ways to improve your mental health, prevent mental illness or relapse of mental illness.
Mental Health Wisdom contains everything that you need to know about mental health and mental illness.
Mental Health Wisdom is divided into three sections.
Understanding is section one and is all about the facts of mental health.
In section two, Empathy Through Lived Experience, the author shares his personal experience of mental illness.
Life Hacks is section three. It’s all about self-care and quick and easy ways to improve your mental health, prevent mental illness or relapse of mental illness.
If you find my blog educational or entertaining, please consider making a purchase or donation on Ko-Fi.
Hi Sofia, Thanks for the comment. I bought that in Glastonbury and he was a real find. I bought him…
Hi! I know this was posted ages ago and so a response may be rare but my dad has been…
Hi Ruth, Thanks for the comment. He might well have been. A x
Hi! Watching video and interviews with Charlie Watt, it had me wondering if he might have had Aspergers/ been on…
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A great introductory article on candle magic :)
Hi Sofia, Thanks for the comment. I bought that in Glastonbury and he was a real find. I bought him…
Hi! I know this was posted ages ago and so a response may be rare but my dad has been…
Hi Ruth, Thanks for the comment. He might well have been. A x
Hi! Watching video and interviews with Charlie Watt, it had me wondering if he might have had Aspergers/ been on…