Don’t Get Stuck On The Sidelines

Sometimes when you start writing, people get uncomfortable about it.They don’t want to end up as a character on your page, or they’re worried you’ll start digging into stuff they’d rather leave buried. Some people get snarky, others get confrontational, others still will just refuse to engage.But sometimes, the most uncomfortable person is you.You know…

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Can You Let It Be Enough?

For the past few weeks, we’ve been bundling little Obi up into the car and driving out to the forest near our house for a big romp in amongst the pines and eucalypts. It’s too hot and busy for walks around our house right now, and going into the woods is serenity on tap at…

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You Never Know Who’s Watching

When I was about 17, insecure about my writing and not quite ready to believe that you could make a life with it, my English teacher, Ms. Rix, took it upon herself to set me straight. Ms. Rix was larger than life. She had the loudest wardrobe of anyone I have ever met. She wore…

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Is Your Writing Trying To Tell You Something?

You know how I’m always banging on about how writing helps you be better about recognising your feelings and doing useful things with them? Well, today I would like to cop to a big fail on that front. Over the weekend I got absolutely flattened by homesickness and Covid fatigue, and hand to God, I…

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There’s Mischief Afoot In The Universe

It’s Friday afternoon, the sun is shining, and as ever, there is mischief afoot in the universe. A few months ago, my sweetheart and I were talking about the nature of the universe. He’s a physicist, and boy howdy, does that crowd have opinions about this. Quantum mechanics — the insanity of tiny particles absolutely…

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Why We Despise Things That Are Easy

A little while back I wrote about all the narratives (*cough* excuses *cough*) that we come up with about why we can’t write just now. You know, all the reasons why it’s too hard, too time-consuming, too blah blah blah. All the reasons you don’t do it. And I meant what I said: we all make up…

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Writing Goes Where The Mind Won’t

I spent much of the afternoon yesterday reading The Right to Write by Julia Cameron — a collection of loosely related essays about the quiet, glorious magic of writing. Each piece was practically glowing with the trust she puts in her writing practice, the absolutely unshakeable belief that writing is her irrevocable birth right and that literally…

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What To Write When You Don’t Know What To Write

On Sunday morning, I got up early with a plan. I was going to get in an hour or two of writing, call my gran, and then set off for a day of adventuring. I was feeling chipper as I bounced out of bed and popped the coffee on. The sun was shining, the living…

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The Antidote To The Friday Funk

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get to Friday afternoon and feel completely empty. Tapped. Finito. Usually it’s because I’ve been blasting through every day, constantly racing my calendar, frantically ripping things off the to-do list. In that state it is very difficult to notice the small, joyful moments that would form a…

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No Mud, No Lotus

Years ago I was walking through a forest in northern Thailand and as I got further into the trees, I started to notice little plaques that had been tacked to the trunks. There was a monastery nearby, and the monks had been writing messages for passers-by to ponder. Some were funny, some were serious, but…

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