My husband and I run our own business from home. He is a photographer, specialising in landscapes and architecture, and together we work on ideas for ways of making a living - organising exhibitions, running workshops, and selling prints and greetings cards. This is his website.
We like the life we have and wouldn't swap it, even though it can sometimes be a struggle.
So, what are its advantages? Well, personally, I don't miss the stresses and strains of office politics or aggressive, power-hungry bosses, even if I do get misty-eyed when I remember the monthly payslip...
And I don't envy our neighbours when I see them drive off to work at 8 am. Given the cost of fuel at present, I do wonder how many hours a week they have to work just to be able to afford to get there in the first place.
And there are the little things. We can beat the crowds, by going out to places during the week, when there are fewer people around. We get to decide our own hours and can, if we wish, saunter into town for a coffee occasionally, when we feel like it. That's the theory.
But this lifestyle is also fraught with hazards, some of them almost serious.
Cash-flow for one. The work may be flowing in, but that doesn't mean the money necessarily follows in a hurry. This can put serious pressure on the bank account: will we be able to pay the mortgage on time? Happily, the answer is usually 'yes', but there have been times...
And there are more creeping dangers. We gave up the idea of weekends long ago, because we could opt for days off during the week instead. But it can be very easy to let work seep into that designated time off when you are responsible for generating every penny of your own income yourself.
But there is a lighter side to the perils of this kind of self-employment.
Some of our neighbours*, on the somewhat flimsy evidence that we might eat breakfast at 8.30 on a week day, seem convinced we're living in a state of semi-retirement! This has occasionally led to perfectly innocent comments, such as 'But of course, you have much more free time than we do.' Well, actually, no. No.
The high point, in a comic sense, of our work-related encounters with our neighbours came when my husband's first book was launched by our wonderful local independent bookshop, Cogito Books.
A lovely man from along the street came over and asked me: 'So, do you do any work?' (Italics his, not mine). I explained politely my own role in the photography business, but resisted the urge to tell him that we were both working ten hours a day, seven days a week.
I thought it was very funny. I did, honestly, or I wouldn't be telling you the story. The fact is that this man is a retired farmer - most probably used to getting up in the dark and doing very physical work for long hours - and therefore probably wasn't persuaded that what I do for a living is actually honest work. Perhaps it isn't.
We enjoy the life we have. True, it has its drawbacks, but we don't complain. This is the life we have chosen and we wouldn't change it for the world. True, it will never make us rich. In fact, another photographer friend once joked that the surest way of making a small fortune from this sort of thing... is to start off with a large one!
Boom-Boom, as Basil Brush would say.
* I would stress that we get on really well with all our neighbours. The whole street has a lovely feeling of community about it, and everyone knows everyone else's name. We're very lucky to have that.
Showing posts with label adventure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adventure. Show all posts
Monday, 25 July 2011
Tuesday, 19 July 2011
As if by magic... In celebration of 'Mr Benn'
I had so much fun writing about 'Bod' on this blog a while ago, that I thought I'd also re-visit Mr Benn, one of my other childhood heroes.
Mr Benn was created by David McKee and first appeared on television in 1970. Each episode of the series, beautifully narrated by Ray Brooks, sees Mr Benn visiting a little costume shop.
Assisted by a shopkeeper who appears out of nowhere, he chooses an outfit to try on (it always fits), and walks through 'the door which could lead to an adventure'. It invariably does, and that adventure always relates to the costume he has chosen (which is lucky, really: I'm not sure what good a wet-suit and diving gear would have been in befriending an unhappy dragon...).
In re-watching the entire series on DVD - strictly for research purposes, of course - I've realised with a touch of sadness how cynical we can become in today's society. At the opening of the series, Mr Benn has been invited to a fancy dress party, hence his visit to the costume shop. We are told:
Hmm. An asocial loner, then, with a penchant for dressing up. He also spends time watching the children in his street playing and queueing at the ice cream van. So, through today's eyes, perhaps not the sort of man you'd want hanging around your children...
But of course he is! That's just it. This series sparkles with a touching, innocent magic. One of the delicious things about watching these episodes now is that they remind us about the eyes through which we used to see as children, which is enormously refreshing for the soul.
So. Who is Mr Benn, and what are the features which make this little series so captivating?
Mr Benn lives at 52 Festive Road, a charming (Edwardian?) terrace, where everyone seems to be happy. We know little about Mr Benn's life. He wears a dark suit, smart tie and bowler hat, and has a handkerchief in his breast pocket - even on a Saturday. He looks as though he works in the City. But he never goes to work. Ever.
That doesn't mean he isn't useful to his community, though. Far from it. Mr Benn's adventures generally lead to his helping people, righting wrongs or offering suggestions for ways to make things better. He helps to reconcile the King with his exiled pet dragon; he cheers up a princess who is so lonely that she refuses to eat; and he encourages the townspeople to build bigger cages for the unhappy animals in the zoo.
In short, Mr Benn is gentle, compassionate, practical and diplomatic. He helps to make a difference.
One of the joys of the series is the beauty of its illustration. Each scene is vividly set in colourful watercolours, whether it be a castle, a jungle, a park or an underwater seascape. And the people are lovely too: they have gentle, rounded features and rosy cheeks.
The animation is executed simply but effectively. When characters are walking or running, we often see them only from the waist up, their legs concealed behind hedges, rocks or jungle scenery, depending on the story. This would have saved the animator a great deal of time and effort - having to produce all those legs moving would be very time-consuming.
I'm not sure I felt like this when I was a five-year-old, but now I find there is something unbearably poignant about the moment the shop-keeper reappears, signalling that Mr Benn's latest adventure is over. Without argument, Mr Benn steps through the door which takes him away from his adventure forever, and back to the fitting room. He changes back into his suit and tie. He goes home.
This bit reminds me of a scene in the film 'Field of Dreams', where Dr Graham walks over the threshold of the baseball field to save Ray's daughter, knowing that he can never rejoin his team-mates and continue to live his baseball dream. I find it heart-breaking.
Still, Mr Benn never seems to mind - he is always smiling when he's changed out of his costume and into his own clothes - so perhaps I should stop taking it so seriously and not worry too much.
At the end of each episode, Mr Benn is always left with some small memento of his adventure - a parrot's feather, a seashell, a box of matches with a picture of a dragon on it... and we feel all's right with the world.
There is an informative Wikipedia page, which includes a brief synopsis of each episode, and a website devoted to the series - As If By Magic - which has some lovely images. And the DVD contains the whole series, a true nostalgia-fest if ever there was one.
In Mr Benn's own words, to the shopkeeper at the end of an adventure, 'I look forward to seeing you again. Goodbye!'
Mr Benn is copyright 1970 David McKee.
Mr Benn was created by David McKee and first appeared on television in 1970. Each episode of the series, beautifully narrated by Ray Brooks, sees Mr Benn visiting a little costume shop.
As if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared...
Assisted by a shopkeeper who appears out of nowhere, he chooses an outfit to try on (it always fits), and walks through 'the door which could lead to an adventure'. It invariably does, and that adventure always relates to the costume he has chosen (which is lucky, really: I'm not sure what good a wet-suit and diving gear would have been in befriending an unhappy dragon...).
In re-watching the entire series on DVD - strictly for research purposes, of course - I've realised with a touch of sadness how cynical we can become in today's society. At the opening of the series, Mr Benn has been invited to a fancy dress party, hence his visit to the costume shop. We are told:
'Mr Benn wasn't really very fond of parties, but he did like fancy dress...'
Hmm. An asocial loner, then, with a penchant for dressing up. He also spends time watching the children in his street playing and queueing at the ice cream van. So, through today's eyes, perhaps not the sort of man you'd want hanging around your children...
But of course he is! That's just it. This series sparkles with a touching, innocent magic. One of the delicious things about watching these episodes now is that they remind us about the eyes through which we used to see as children, which is enormously refreshing for the soul.
So. Who is Mr Benn, and what are the features which make this little series so captivating?
Mr Benn lives at 52 Festive Road, a charming (Edwardian?) terrace, where everyone seems to be happy. We know little about Mr Benn's life. He wears a dark suit, smart tie and bowler hat, and has a handkerchief in his breast pocket - even on a Saturday. He looks as though he works in the City. But he never goes to work. Ever.
Festive Road - the Postman brings Mr Benn's invitation to the party.
That doesn't mean he isn't useful to his community, though. Far from it. Mr Benn's adventures generally lead to his helping people, righting wrongs or offering suggestions for ways to make things better. He helps to reconcile the King with his exiled pet dragon; he cheers up a princess who is so lonely that she refuses to eat; and he encourages the townspeople to build bigger cages for the unhappy animals in the zoo.
In short, Mr Benn is gentle, compassionate, practical and diplomatic. He helps to make a difference.
One of the joys of the series is the beauty of its illustration. Each scene is vividly set in colourful watercolours, whether it be a castle, a jungle, a park or an underwater seascape. And the people are lovely too: they have gentle, rounded features and rosy cheeks.
The animation is executed simply but effectively. When characters are walking or running, we often see them only from the waist up, their legs concealed behind hedges, rocks or jungle scenery, depending on the story. This would have saved the animator a great deal of time and effort - having to produce all those legs moving would be very time-consuming.
The elephants walk through the jungle, legs concealed by foliage.
I'm not sure I felt like this when I was a five-year-old, but now I find there is something unbearably poignant about the moment the shop-keeper reappears, signalling that Mr Benn's latest adventure is over. Without argument, Mr Benn steps through the door which takes him away from his adventure forever, and back to the fitting room. He changes back into his suit and tie. He goes home.
This bit reminds me of a scene in the film 'Field of Dreams', where Dr Graham walks over the threshold of the baseball field to save Ray's daughter, knowing that he can never rejoin his team-mates and continue to live his baseball dream. I find it heart-breaking.
Still, Mr Benn never seems to mind - he is always smiling when he's changed out of his costume and into his own clothes - so perhaps I should stop taking it so seriously and not worry too much.
At the end of each episode, Mr Benn is always left with some small memento of his adventure - a parrot's feather, a seashell, a box of matches with a picture of a dragon on it... and we feel all's right with the world.
'How nice... I'll keep them carefully, just to remind me.'
There is an informative Wikipedia page, which includes a brief synopsis of each episode, and a website devoted to the series - As If By Magic - which has some lovely images. And the DVD contains the whole series, a true nostalgia-fest if ever there was one.
In Mr Benn's own words, to the shopkeeper at the end of an adventure, 'I look forward to seeing you again. Goodbye!'
Mr Benn is copyright 1970 David McKee.
Saturday, 9 July 2011
Call me Ishmael... In defence of 'Moby Dick'
I'm quite a slow reader, and life is short. For this reason, long novels often put me off. I find them intimidating, and will more often than not go for a shorter option instead.
But if, given a truly bizarre set of circumstances, I was invited onto 'Desert Island Discs', Herman Melville's Moby Dick (600 pages) would be my book of choice. I would happily while away the hours with it, in my homemade hammock, enjoying some coconut juice and a cooling sea breeze.
Moby Dick is much-maligned: I've more often heard it criticised and described as 'unreadable' than I've heard it praised and celebrated. And the mission of this post is to stick up for this lovely book.
To summarise... Ishmael, our narrator, and his new friend Queequeg, sign on with the whaling ship Pequod, whose captain is the imposing and haunted Ahab. He has one leg missing below the knee, courtesy of a huge white sperm whale - Moby Dick. Ahab's quest for revenge on the whale becomes more and more fevered, until the great climax of the book - a three-day battle of wills between the whale and the crew of the ship.
But Moby Dick is so much more than a book about whaling. My first reaction on reading it, was that it was a sort of 'encyclopaedia of the sea', such is the detail with which it treats it subject. There are chapters dedicated to pen portraits of the crew-members, Nantucket and its inhabitants, the joys of chowder, and a comprehensive classification and description of different types of whale, all in beautiful, engaging detail.
And as with any great novel, all human life is here. The characters are richly portrayed and their relationships with each other are often humorous and touching. My favourite passage has nothing to do with whaling: it speaks of the friendship between Ishmael and Queequeg, who first meet when they are required to share a bed in their temporary lodgings:
Yes, this is a long book. But in its favour, the chapters are very short - many of them just a few pages - making it more manageable. And it really does reward our attention. It is full of humanity and tiny, fascinating details, and makes for really compelling reading.
I do like to include pictures on the blog whenever I can. But I don't have a picture of a whale. So here is another view of John Kindness's 'Big Fish':
If I've whetted your appetite and you think you might give the book the benefit of the doubt, I won't spoil the ending for you. I remember standing at a Metro station in Newcastle, half-way through the book, and an elderly lady saw what I was reading. 'I've seen the film,' she said. 'Gregory Peck. He gets him in the end, you know.'
Ah yes, but who gets whom...?
But if, given a truly bizarre set of circumstances, I was invited onto 'Desert Island Discs', Herman Melville's Moby Dick (600 pages) would be my book of choice. I would happily while away the hours with it, in my homemade hammock, enjoying some coconut juice and a cooling sea breeze.
Moby Dick is much-maligned: I've more often heard it criticised and described as 'unreadable' than I've heard it praised and celebrated. And the mission of this post is to stick up for this lovely book.
To summarise... Ishmael, our narrator, and his new friend Queequeg, sign on with the whaling ship Pequod, whose captain is the imposing and haunted Ahab. He has one leg missing below the knee, courtesy of a huge white sperm whale - Moby Dick. Ahab's quest for revenge on the whale becomes more and more fevered, until the great climax of the book - a three-day battle of wills between the whale and the crew of the ship.
But Moby Dick is so much more than a book about whaling. My first reaction on reading it, was that it was a sort of 'encyclopaedia of the sea', such is the detail with which it treats it subject. There are chapters dedicated to pen portraits of the crew-members, Nantucket and its inhabitants, the joys of chowder, and a comprehensive classification and description of different types of whale, all in beautiful, engaging detail.
And as with any great novel, all human life is here. The characters are richly portrayed and their relationships with each other are often humorous and touching. My favourite passage has nothing to do with whaling: it speaks of the friendship between Ishmael and Queequeg, who first meet when they are required to share a bed in their temporary lodgings:
... I had felt a strong repugnance to his smoking in the bed the night before, yet see how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them. For now I liked nothing better than to have Queequeg smoking by me, even in bed, because he seemed to be full of such serene household joy then. I was alive to the condensed confidential comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with a real friend.
Yes, this is a long book. But in its favour, the chapters are very short - many of them just a few pages - making it more manageable. And it really does reward our attention. It is full of humanity and tiny, fascinating details, and makes for really compelling reading.
I do like to include pictures on the blog whenever I can. But I don't have a picture of a whale. So here is another view of John Kindness's 'Big Fish':
A big fish! Not as tenuous a link as you might imagine:
Ishmael refers to Moby Dick as a fish, rather than a mammal.
If I've whetted your appetite and you think you might give the book the benefit of the doubt, I won't spoil the ending for you. I remember standing at a Metro station in Newcastle, half-way through the book, and an elderly lady saw what I was reading. 'I've seen the film,' she said. 'Gregory Peck. He gets him in the end, you know.'
Ah yes, but who gets whom...?
Monday, 16 May 2011
Eclipse
I've said this before: I really don't regard myself as a poet. Honestly, I don't. And yet, since I began writing in earnest at the beginning of this year, poetry seems to be what comes more naturally than anything else, and poetry seems to be the thing towards which I'm being inexorably drawn, almost against my will!
This is a poem I wrote a while ago, which I have recently re-worked. It was inspired by a trip my husband and I were lucky enough to make to Turkey in 2006, to witness a solar eclipse. I'm convinced that I could spend a life-time trying to put the experience into words and failing. So this poem might be seen as something of a work in progress! I hope you enjoy it.
This is another of the pieces I recently recorded for listenupnorth. com, an exciting spoken word website run from here in Northumberland. All the work I recorded for the site should be available in the next few weeks.
Eclipse
Yes, I can describe what happened
as our tiny Moon, audacious,
crept across the scorching springtime Sun,
stealing the light from the Earth,
cooling the air and casting steel-sharp shadows.
Yes, I can tell you I saw planets –
Mercury and Venus tenderly suspended there –
strung across an eerie, sunset Turkish sky:
dusk at lunchtime,
on the Third Rock from the Sun.
You want to know about totality?
Let me tell you about a sparkling diamond ring,
too beautiful to comprehend -
cheers and applause from an appreciative audience -
and too-soon disappeared for good.
And let me tell you about the phantom Moon,
visible in its dark invisibility,
powerful and awesome, disc on disc,
void over blinding fire, setting a feathery corona free,
to reach out, exquisitely
as my yearning does, to turn the clock back,
and inhabit that rare moment, just once more.
You ask me how it felt? Then you ask me
how it feels to be human, to be humbled and bewitched,
looking upward, looking outward, looking in.
This is a poem I wrote a while ago, which I have recently re-worked. It was inspired by a trip my husband and I were lucky enough to make to Turkey in 2006, to witness a solar eclipse. I'm convinced that I could spend a life-time trying to put the experience into words and failing. So this poem might be seen as something of a work in progress! I hope you enjoy it.
This is another of the pieces I recently recorded for listenupnorth. com, an exciting spoken word website run from here in Northumberland. All the work I recorded for the site should be available in the next few weeks.
Eclipse
Yes, I can describe what happened
as our tiny Moon, audacious,
crept across the scorching springtime Sun,
stealing the light from the Earth,
cooling the air and casting steel-sharp shadows.
Yes, I can tell you I saw planets –
Mercury and Venus tenderly suspended there –
strung across an eerie, sunset Turkish sky:
dusk at lunchtime,
on the Third Rock from the Sun.
You want to know about totality?
Let me tell you about a sparkling diamond ring,
too beautiful to comprehend -
cheers and applause from an appreciative audience -
and too-soon disappeared for good.
And let me tell you about the phantom Moon,
visible in its dark invisibility,
powerful and awesome, disc on disc,
void over blinding fire, setting a feathery corona free,
to reach out, exquisitely
as my yearning does, to turn the clock back,
and inhabit that rare moment, just once more.
You ask me how it felt? Then you ask me
how it feels to be human, to be humbled and bewitched,
looking upward, looking outward, looking in.
Sunday, 1 May 2011
Magic moments: Your table awaits...
I’ve been thinking about magic moments this week, those times, often unplanned or unexpected, which instantly become treasured memories. And I started thinking about a trip to Cuba my husband and I shared a few years ago, a (very well) organised small group tour.
It pains me to admit this, but at that time I was hardly writing at all, and didn’t even keep a diary of the trip. Tsk. So many wonderful memories lost for ever. But one very special one does still stand out.
We had been told one afternoon that dinner that evening would be a 'memorable occasion'. So it was that later in the day we found ourselves sitting in our mini-bus at the side of the road, ‘waiting for a signal’. This eventually arrived: two motor cycles swept past our bus, and our attentive driver immediately set off in hot pursuit.
I should explain at this point that Cuba is a Socialist state, where, supposedly, everyone is provided for, and free enterprise is both unnecessary and non-existent.
I’m not here to talk about politics, which is a tricky business and could get me into all sorts of trouble. So, for the sake of balance I will just say this: Cuba has a lot of problems, along with an exemplary education system, and excellent health care provision.
It also has a thriving and imaginative culture of free enterprise.
We drove for roughly half an hour, the rear lamps of the motorbikes glowing just ahead of us in the growing darkness. The bus eventually pulled over to the side of a remote country road where the motorcyclists were dismounting, and our intrigued little group piled out.
I’d love to be able to describe the scenery to you, but the fact is that the sky was pitch black by now, and in the absence of houses or street lamps, we could hardly see a thing. We were in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps it looked like this, in the day time - I honestly don't know:
There followed a ten minute walk along an uneven dirt track, lit only by the flash light of one of the motorcyclists. I must admit that it did occur to me at one point that perhaps we were being kidnapped and were about to meet our collective deaths in a nearby field, but I wasn't being serious.
Making our way gradually uphill, our dusty walk was eventually rewarded with the appearance of some farm buildings, and then one of the most magical sights I have ever seen. In a field, nestled in a little grove of trees, a long table was laid for dinner. A delicate table cloth flapped gently in the balmy evening air, and the whole scene was illuminated by candle light.
We dined on lobster that evening, not for the first time that trip. We ate from pretty, mismatched china, and chatted happily, our laughter drifting away into the night on a warm, gentle breeze as congenial as the company itself.
At the end of the meal, our friendly hostess presented our tour guide with a hand-written bill for our meal, watched as he checked it, and then... set fire to it with a cigarette lighter, to destroy the evidence of the transaction.
The atmospheric setting, the amiable company of new friends, and the creativity of our hosts, combined to create an unforgettable experience. And this spell could never be re-cast, even if the circumstances could be replicated. Because the magic of that night lay, in large part, in the element of surprise, of the gradual revelation of the delight that awaited us.
For your delectation, here is the Buena Vista Social Club performing 'Chan Chan'. Goodness me, but this sound brings those memories flooding back!
It pains me to admit this, but at that time I was hardly writing at all, and didn’t even keep a diary of the trip. Tsk. So many wonderful memories lost for ever. But one very special one does still stand out.
We had been told one afternoon that dinner that evening would be a 'memorable occasion'. So it was that later in the day we found ourselves sitting in our mini-bus at the side of the road, ‘waiting for a signal’. This eventually arrived: two motor cycles swept past our bus, and our attentive driver immediately set off in hot pursuit.
I should explain at this point that Cuba is a Socialist state, where, supposedly, everyone is provided for, and free enterprise is both unnecessary and non-existent.
I’m not here to talk about politics, which is a tricky business and could get me into all sorts of trouble. So, for the sake of balance I will just say this: Cuba has a lot of problems, along with an exemplary education system, and excellent health care provision.
It also has a thriving and imaginative culture of free enterprise.
We drove for roughly half an hour, the rear lamps of the motorbikes glowing just ahead of us in the growing darkness. The bus eventually pulled over to the side of a remote country road where the motorcyclists were dismounting, and our intrigued little group piled out.
I’d love to be able to describe the scenery to you, but the fact is that the sky was pitch black by now, and in the absence of houses or street lamps, we could hardly see a thing. We were in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps it looked like this, in the day time - I honestly don't know:
Tobacco-drying hut in Pinar del Rio province.
Photograph by David Taylor Photography
There followed a ten minute walk along an uneven dirt track, lit only by the flash light of one of the motorcyclists. I must admit that it did occur to me at one point that perhaps we were being kidnapped and were about to meet our collective deaths in a nearby field, but I wasn't being serious.
Making our way gradually uphill, our dusty walk was eventually rewarded with the appearance of some farm buildings, and then one of the most magical sights I have ever seen. In a field, nestled in a little grove of trees, a long table was laid for dinner. A delicate table cloth flapped gently in the balmy evening air, and the whole scene was illuminated by candle light.
We dined on lobster that evening, not for the first time that trip. We ate from pretty, mismatched china, and chatted happily, our laughter drifting away into the night on a warm, gentle breeze as congenial as the company itself.
At the end of the meal, our friendly hostess presented our tour guide with a hand-written bill for our meal, watched as he checked it, and then... set fire to it with a cigarette lighter, to destroy the evidence of the transaction.
The atmospheric setting, the amiable company of new friends, and the creativity of our hosts, combined to create an unforgettable experience. And this spell could never be re-cast, even if the circumstances could be replicated. Because the magic of that night lay, in large part, in the element of surprise, of the gradual revelation of the delight that awaited us.
For your delectation, here is the Buena Vista Social Club performing 'Chan Chan'. Goodness me, but this sound brings those memories flooding back!
Saturday, 12 March 2011
Welcome!
Hello, and a warm welcome to my blog.
At the beginning of this year, I determined to set out in earnest on a new career path as a writer. I've dabbled in writing before, but always met with self-made obstacles - chiefly a crippling lack of confidence - at which I invariably fell at the first attempt!
Well, panic has set in now. I've realised that I'm genuinely not getting any younger and if I leave this very much longer, I could end up old, unfulfilled and disappointed, and that thought really does horrify me. It's amazing quite how motivating a factor fear can actually be...
So, here I am, at the start of what I know will be a long, hard journey, but hopefully a happy, interesting one full of adventure too.
I hope that my blog will serve a number of purposes. I would like to use it as a platform for my writing, both fiction and non-fiction, as well as to share my experiences as a new writer, and my own hints and tips. I will also use it as a means to muse on the questions which occur to me from day to day, questions about the nature of life, being human, friendship, and anything else which happens to be exercising my imagination or passions.
On a much more (even more?) prosaic level, I'll be using the blog as a way of disciplining myself to write regularly. I've been reading extensively around the subject of writing, and the one message that comes back time and again is quite how important it is to make writing a habit.
I do hope that you will enjoy what you read. Please leave a comment if you'd like to. I suppose it goes without saying that warm words of reassurance and encouragement will always be welcome! But so, too, will debate and constructive criticism.
Thank you for visiting.
Sophie.
At the beginning of this year, I determined to set out in earnest on a new career path as a writer. I've dabbled in writing before, but always met with self-made obstacles - chiefly a crippling lack of confidence - at which I invariably fell at the first attempt!
Well, panic has set in now. I've realised that I'm genuinely not getting any younger and if I leave this very much longer, I could end up old, unfulfilled and disappointed, and that thought really does horrify me. It's amazing quite how motivating a factor fear can actually be...
So, here I am, at the start of what I know will be a long, hard journey, but hopefully a happy, interesting one full of adventure too.
I hope that my blog will serve a number of purposes. I would like to use it as a platform for my writing, both fiction and non-fiction, as well as to share my experiences as a new writer, and my own hints and tips. I will also use it as a means to muse on the questions which occur to me from day to day, questions about the nature of life, being human, friendship, and anything else which happens to be exercising my imagination or passions.
On a much more (even more?) prosaic level, I'll be using the blog as a way of disciplining myself to write regularly. I've been reading extensively around the subject of writing, and the one message that comes back time and again is quite how important it is to make writing a habit.
I do hope that you will enjoy what you read. Please leave a comment if you'd like to. I suppose it goes without saying that warm words of reassurance and encouragement will always be welcome! But so, too, will debate and constructive criticism.
Thank you for visiting.
Sophie.
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