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After yet another long hiatus from writing (fiction and blog), I’ve finally finished my MA in Public Relations and am slowly getting back into the writing groove! It’s not easy.  I definitely need to be more proactive and deliberate about blocking out writing time and setting goals.  But I did manage to start warming up my creative writing muscle again by entering a short story competition.  The Fortnum & Mason…

When I first became serious about writing, I was given the same advice I think most writers get – read these books, go on this course and attend that conference if you want to succeed.  These things can end up costing a lot of money though.  But that’s okay – isn’t it? – because they’re an investment in my writing career that will pay off when I get published… Seven…

  A couple of years ago I got an opportunity to take part in a fantastic project. A group of young researchers with a range of (dis)abilities, involved in a Barnardo’s project, wanted to investigate and share the experiences of similar young people.  They were trained and supported by academics from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) to conduct interviews and collect stories of resilience and transformation from other children…

It’s been 8 months since I last wrote on this blog!  That’s indicative of the fact that I’ve done very little writing in that time and none at all since starting my MA in Public Relations in September.  Given that this is the second time I’ve taken a long hiatus, I’ve had to think seriously about the point of the blog.  Getting published was all I pursued for five years…

The UK’s heatwave has finally broken (temporarily!) and as it’s a curl up on the sofa kinda day, I thought I’d give you a new blog post and a couple of quick reads!  At the same time as working on my main projects, I also like to dabble with shorter bits of writing.  They’re fun, they keep me fresh and they exercise different writing skills.  They’re also often linked to…

My mental health is better when I’m writing.  But also I write more when I’m feeling mentally healthy.  It’s a chicken and egg situation and I definitely don’t know which comes first.  But the bottom line is that writing is a good sign!! How is writing good for my mental health? I’m generally happy when I’m writing.  Exploring amazing worlds, hanging out with fantastic characters, having incredible adventures.  What’s not…

You might have noticed that I haven’t blogged for a very long time. Last year was a fight for my writing life!  In fact, the last two years have been a real writing struggle, as you can see from previous posts, and I got to the point where I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. The more I learnt about the publishing industry, the more demoralised and disillusioned I…

A few years ago I bought some Fink family discussion cards (which are just brilliant and I totally recommend).  They contain allsorts of questions that not only promote discussion, but enable you to discover a different and deeper side to people! My favourite question in the whole pack was “What would be your superpower of choice?” I didn’t have to think hard at all to answer that.  It’s mind reading. …

Words are powerful.  Music is powerful.  When the two come together they can create magic! Music can not only elevate good lyrics to greatness though; it can also, unfortunately, elevate crap lyrics through catchy (read: irritating) melodies.  You know what I mean – that song you hear in the morning that gets stuck in your head and you find yourself singing it throughout day even though you hate it! It…

I LOVE space.  Exploring it would be the ultimate adventure.  What we do know is awesome and beautiful, and there’s so much more that we have virtually no idea about.  In fact, I find it so mind-boggling that I can never find adequate adjectives to help me communicate the feeling it gives me!! NASA’s Juno probe survived another close sweep of Jupiter recently, sending back the most incredible pictures (definitely…