- Wondering what I should do with this blog…thoughts? Hello there, Can I ask a favour? This blog has been around a bit. It needs some freshening up. I mean, that header photo! The dinky staples! What do you think… * I was thinking about moving things over to Medium. Heard of it? Use it? Here’s my Medium Page.
- This is what my writing desk looks like (not pretty!) I work in chaos. Plus, I’m very visual and I need to see ALL my bits of notes and ideas and outlines in one bird’s-eye grasp. So I scatter them around me at my desk, or the floor, or (as is often the case) the cafe bench where I’ve set up shop for the morning. more
- It’s OK to do drafts I’m writing a book. A book that’s extending me in ways I probably wouldn’t have chosen. But I did. So here I am, strapped in, doing the work. I’m particularly attuned to insights about writing and the creative process right now. A few weeks back I wrote Just do it like a motherfucker. Michelle Barraclough shared this wonderful more
- A trick for writers and artists: create with low expectations I did an interview with ABC radio host Mary-Lou Stephens the other day, chatting about food sustainability. Before I went on air she shared she’s just finished writing her latest book (she’s written several) and actually loved the process this time, churning it out in just three months. What was different this time, I asked more
- What to leave out: The key to creativity I highly recommend long reading. Not least because of the lovely knowledge that unfurls from it. I also think that committing to a long read narrows, focuses, hones and gets you still. It’s the antidote to the frazzle of short-form toggling. It’s a Sunday afternoon thing for me, to read all the lengthy prose I’ve more
- Why do we write? Tweet? Blog? Anyone who blogs, or finds themselves really quite glued to their social media feed, asks this of themselves intermittently. I do. I have my answer now. I blog because I need to. It’s my dharma. The way I experience things is to pull apart the elements, to break them down, to cluster and to organise more
- Writing places in New York I do my best work on planes in economy seats. I do my best thinking waiting in the line at the post office. We all Get More Done in unexpected places, where the contrast flicks us into inspired action. Which is why it was pretty cool to be in New York for two weeks finishing more
- It’s better to feel normal about being abnormal I like Henry Miller’s mind. I’ve written about it before. He expresses without apology. His writing just…goes there; it cuts through and doesn’t pause to deliberate fruitlessly. It feels like freedom to just read his work. I came across these Henry Miller quotes just now. It’s from an essay he wrote on the musings of more
- don’t work nervously I am a little obsessed by the work habits of writers. And I love Henry Miller. And I’m very grateful for these little work mantras Miller wrote for himself. Mostly because it’s a reminder that everyone struggles to find the right mood, pace and approach to work, and the right way to balance work with more
- another (surprising) reason to exercise I don’t exercise to get fit or lose weight. I do it to get clear and clean in the head. And I do it every day, because I want to be clear and clean every day. As it’s a simple, do-able goal with an immediate outcome (I feel clearer and cleaner instantly, but I don’t more
