Category: Creativity
-
Delight of a new story
It’s been a while, it feels like, since I tried to create a story out of nothing but my imagination. And yesterday was no exception, because in fact the reality of the lived experience was still so vivid that I could re-create it from real life, and cast it into story mode. So I did.…
-
The joys of flexibility
Different people have different perspectives; these differences are something to revel in, aren’t they? What’s one person’s garden shed is another’s man-cave, is another’s family shebeen, is another’s bespoke glamping cabin by which a self-sustainable lifestyle could be financed. We’ve had people looking around the place for the past fortnight or so. Often the eventual…
-
Joys of sharing . . .
I reckon that folks throughout the Allen Valleys have been loving James Little’s photographs for at least the past five years, if not longer. The very first one I clocked was his drone image of the enchanted setting for the Cricket Ground, and I loved it so much that I knew I wanted him to…
-
A slight discombobulation . . . perhaps a good stimulus
So I began the day on a different schedule: quick coffee, then a dash to the dump (aka Household Waste Recycling Centre) in Allendale so as to get back for my beloved to have time to return to the village for choir practice and the knitter-knatter group. But the rain was pouring down, and it…
-
Like a murmuration of sunlit clouds . . . ke-e-ep dancing!
The dance of starlings is awe-inspiring, as they gather together to swoop and dive, in a display that ostensibly befuddles predators. I thought that the clouds the other evening, as the sun set behind our sheds, seemed very reminiscent of that floaty swirling activity. Not to mention the lovely dance put on in honour of…
-
Invention delight
As I mentioned the other day, I’ve taken on a challenge to re-create a myth in poetic form. This in honour of the centenary of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses, itself an homage to Homer’s Iliad in which the Odyssey is recounted. My chosen myth over the past weeks has been the Inuit tale…
-
Thinking: ?Cognitive reflex?
I’ve been thinking this morning about the way a cognitive stimulus travels, the journey it provokes. We’re sending off a little package to our grandson today, a print-out of my historical fiction short story and an accompanying letter. Maybe he’d like to do some illustrations for the piece? The stimulus way back over a month…
-
Sharing a shortlist is fun . . .
Although my effort did not reach the vaunted heights of an actual cash prize (£50 for each of the chosen top four!), it was a delight this morning to see my little poem shortlisted among the top twenty submissions for this month’s Visual Verse challenge. As I mentioned in a previous joyful entry, I had…
-
The joy of research
I’ve been embarked on a short story in historical fiction mode that’s taken me back to Viking times. Every Canadian knows, or should know, about the early voyages of Leif the Lucky and Eric the Red, as they explored the coast of the new country they called Vinland. An excavation at l’Anse aux Meadows, on…
Roads to Joy 