I have never attended a writing festival before. There was always an excuse. I didn’t have money to spend on such an extravagance, I wasn’t a proper writer (this one worked for many years until I actually got an agent in 2019), I didn’t have time, between renovations, working and looking after holiday makers (this …
My Jericho Writers York Festival of Writing 2022 takeaways Read More »
I haven’t been able to write of late. I type and delete and type again and delete again. I’m not sure it’s writers block – I know what I want to write about – it’s just that the writing feels bad. I’m trying to recycle a bunch of old essays, using old materials, old ideas. …
As some of you might know, I’ve been working on The Love Project for seven years. Wow! Seven years is a very long time. I’m not going to lie. I’ve had my fair share of periods of despair, discouragement and wallowing, as I was trying to balance the demands of work, moving countries, renovating houses, setting up a new business, being married and wanting …
A friend once told me a story about a woman who desperately wanted to get married at a particular (very expensive and very popular) venue. Say Chiswick House. Even though her then boyfriend hadn’t asked her to marry him yet, she went ahead and booked the venue for the next available slot which was in …
If you’re like me (i.e. a master procrastinator, a self-sabotage genius and a time waster extraordinaire), then you’re probably wondering what’s wrong with you, how come you can’t get off your arse and pull your shit together to do things that seem effortless to others (like, I don’t know, write a book, start a blog, record a podcast …
I didn’t really want to go to London. I didn’t want to return to the world of news and reality, commuting, delayed trains and, let’s face it, since it’s January after all, disgusting weather. I was perfectly happy in my bubble, perfectly content and embedded in my own slice of rural France for over two …
I realise that today it’s been one month since we moved to France and, yet, I still wake up in the morning wanting to pinch myself to test that I’m not dreaming. That yes, I did find a hedgehog sleeping in the chicken coop last night, that my cat actually comes running when I call …
I didn’t realise when I wrote The Love Project that the book isn’t about finding love. I had been miserably single for over six years and I thought that having a man in my life would fill the gap I had inside of me since as far I could remember. I focused all my energy …
Elizabeth Gilbert is of opinion that ”possessing a creative mind is like having a border collie for a pet, if you don’t give it a job to do, it will find a job to do – and you might not like the job it invents.” My border collie has been so shamelessly neglected over the …
The better you get at something (and/or the more time you spend on it) there are only two possible scenarios: Scenario no. 1: That something becomes really good in direct proportion with the time you spent on it and receives the external validation it craves and deserves (in my case, publication) while you, the author, …
