Recent Posts
Confident Writing
Return To Blog Listing
Join the conversation about what it means to write with confidence. Tips, suggestions, examples and a chance to make connections with other writers, readers and learners. Hosted by Joanna Young, The Confident Writing Coach - because our words count.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'reflections'
Your Writing Goals for 2009
Digging back through my blog archives for the Essential Lines piece, I came across a post setting out my writing goals for 2009. Gulp. Seeing as I do believe in the value of accountability, I thought I’d review them here, with you. Ahead of ...
2 Word Limit
What do you do when you reach a limit? Maybe that’s a limit of an idea, something you’re writing, a relationship, an aspect of your business, a period of your life. We hit up against limits all the time. I’ve been tussling with id...
Your Heroine’s Journey: A Digital Fairy Tale
Once upon a time there was a weaver woman. She spun yarn for a living, weaving words into tapestries of writing: telling stories, making announcements, sharing news. She spun words that the rulers could use to make speeches and make pronouncements....
The Art of Paying Attention
I am lucky enough to have a poet-photographer as one of my friends. She told me one day about the macro function on my camera (’do you have a button with a flower picture next to it…? Yes, that’s it…‘) [No, I really didn...
What I Learned from Blowing Up a PC
I was already feeling just a little bit stressed. Already that Saturday morning I’d finished sorting the clothes for our family holiday; made a detailed shopping list; left instructions on completion of the shopping, chores, organisation of the...
Sitting On Top of the World
When is a cheese sandwich not a cheese sandwich? No, it’s not a riddle, it’s the opening line to a piece I wrote when I was in Mexico in 2006. I had gone to the mountains for the weekend, to the Sierra Norte in Oaxaca (the state I was liv...
What I Learned From A Pavement Conversation
There were two minutes to go till the start of the first event of the conference. I was panic struck, paralysed with anxiety. I wished I was anywhere but there, in a hotel room in downtown Chicago. I sent a direct message to @amypalko on Twitter....
The Language of Love
Robert Hruzek asks: what have you learned from love? Karen Swim asks: do you have a favourite love poem? Somehow the two questions got entwined in my head. Love hurts. Love nourishes. Love tears us apart. Love composes symphonies, writes novels,...
Confident Writing: Highlights of 2008
A whistle stop tour through the highlights of the past year… January: A new design for the new year - thanks Cat! February: Leaps and bounds was the theme, inspired by the leap year, leading to one of my favourite group writing projects - My Lo...
Generosity: in 2 Syllables or Less
One evening, over dinner, the world collapsed around my ears. I phoned my friend. “I don’t think I’ll make it on Friday,” I whispered. “Are you all right?” she asked. “No,” I said. “I’m comi...
When Good Advice Goes Out the Window: Down The Writing Rabbit Hole
She generally gave herself good advice (though she seldom followed it) Chapter 1: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland I found myself down a writing rabbit hole the other week. I was trying to finish work on a book of writing tips, culled from th...
Words of Remembrance
Everyone Sang by Siegfried Sassoon Everyone suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delight As prisoned birds must find in freedom, Winging wildly across the white Orchards and dark-green fields; on–on–and out of sight. Eve...
Learning from the Writing on the Wall
This month’s “What I Learned From…” group writing project is what I learned from government. As I worked for the government in Scotland for just over 10 years my thoughts immediately turned to what I learned from that experien...
What I Learned From Writing Under Stress
We get used to thinking about stress as a bad thing. A negative to be avoided. And I’d probably agree - in fact I’ve turned my life round to get away from intolerable levels of stress that I just didn’t want to live with any mor...
