Category: Creativity
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MOC joy . . .
I think it must take a certain amount of familiarity with the various LEGO components, and a lot of attention to the detailed construction guides in some serious sets, and possibly some attentive curation of components, before anyone is ready to embark on a project of their own design. I always found much of the…
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Revelations of family history
Creativity is its own reward, I keep reminding myself. You don’t need accolades or praise if you’ve created something that the inner artist loves. Indeed, critical or adulatory feedback can obscure the joy for the creator, as somehow the piece of work moves out of their personal sphere into the realm of the other audience.…
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Writing Workshop Day
But London is rather a long way to travel for a writing workshop day. Instead I’m heading off to Hexham this morning, a short distance of only 17 miles, to participate in a Bank Holiday Monday writing day under the auspices of Claire Lynn, who has been tutor and mentor for writing groups for many…
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Open-eyed wonder
Native to North America, the brown-headed cowbird (so named for its distinctive brown head, of course, and its habit of following bison herds when they were grazing across the great American plains) has recently been seen in the UK. Surely, however, an eager cowbird male would not casually travel to our garden to find a…
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Forsaking indolence . . .
Although some writing has flowed through my dancing fingers lately, I’ve been aware that indolence has crept up upon me and my daily discipline is suffering. So it was with some delight that I finally grappled with three fulsome critiques of my latest novel effort, and discovered that there’s really rather a lot of work…
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Never too late . . .
A decade ago, though it seems a lifetime hence, we made a return visit to Sicily. Our mission, should we choose to accept it, was to find the final resting place of a daughter of Northumberland, Florence Trevelyan, whose life had intrigued us when we encountered her bust in the public gardens of Taormina. Now…
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A summer break . . .
After three years participating in Writers Groups, one learns that the craft of writing is an end in itself. That’s meant, in my case, that I was not prepared, emotionally, to have a submission of my poetic efforts accepted by an editorial team in Cheltenham. At Wildfire Words, my three pieces, text and audio, joined…
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Drudgery is a fact of life . . .
I remember so well, back in the day, thinking about why I loved research. In so many ways it was the physical experience of planning, and then setting the experiment up, so that the waiting could begin. Anticipation and wonder were all very lovely, but it was actually the joy of asking the question that…
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Learning how magical realism works
Into each life, some sprinkles of magic faery dust sometimes fall. It’s all part of our story-telling sensibility, I reckon, these magical moments of understanding. I think, as resonant as metaphor, as compelling as an epiphany, these moments are also a big part of what makes us human. I’ve used magical realism with conscious effort…
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Sun trap!
So we sat outside for a little while in the late afternoon sunshine, thinking about old times actually. I’d already channeled my inner photographer, looking for angles and light, so I’d kind of pre-supposed the joy already. But it was a solace to sit quietly and think together. Is this situation the right way forward?…
Roads to Joy 