Wherever you are on your book writing adventure, you’ll find what you need here…
What to do if you’re just starting out on your Author Adventure: planning, preparation, and dealing with your Inner Dickhead
If you’re considering not writing your book this year, think again. If you’re tempted to put it off for any reason—please think again.
The world needs your story.
If you are any kind of a misfit—if you don’t fit into the straight, white, male, cis-het, neurotypical, elite world, or if you have a message and a mission that challenges the status quo—there will be others like you looking for someone who looks like them. Maybe your book will rock their world.
Let’s talk about running.
People think, because I am a trapeze performer and I am slim and have defined muscles, that I am also fit. They think I have good stamina and can do things that fit people do, like stride up a mountainous slope without getting out of breath.
If only...
The truth is, my cardio fitness is utter balls.
Protests vs riots. Assertive vs angry. Passionate vs emotional. Confident vs up-herself. Speaks out vs rails against.
How much attention do you pay to the language that seeps into your brain every day, through the radio, newspapers, social media?
How much do you understand about the effect it has on your thoughts and beliefs?
When I were a lass, Enid Blyton carried me away from my bedroom with tales of adventure and whimsy.
And also tales of schooldays that were so far removed from my own, I could barely imagine what it must be like. Mallory Towers and St Clares boarding schools, for one, a world where tuck boxes were a thing, and nobody seemed to mind that their parents had sent them away.
The short, sweet, and comprehensive guide to choosing a book coach who understands how to get your Big Book Idea out of your magical brain and onto paper
Around 3,775 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia, a man utters the words, “What do you take me for!” thus demonstrating that humans don’t change.
Nanni was angry. So angry, he went to the trouble of seeking out a scribe to write a letter of complaint for him — quite possibly the oldest letter of complaint we know of. Nanni had been cheated by a copper merchant, Ea-nasir, who had taken Nanni’s money and provided inferior copper in return.
There are some people who do not have a fear response. In the face of danger, they laugh and run towards it (literally).
One of the causes is an unusual genetic disorder called Urbach-Wiethe disease, which destroys the amygdala in the brain, and with it the ability to feel afraid.
None of us has any control over a global pandemic or other people’s behaviour or thoughts or actions. I don’t think we’ve ever lived through a time of such uncertainty. And yet I was trying to control it anyway. Perhaps you were, too. That’s what humans do; we try to control stuff.
Which is, quite simply, exhausting.
Last week, there was a row on my Facebook timeline.
Well, not so much a row, as a demonstration of white male privilege at its worst.
In the face of dozens of women sharing stories and actual facts and stats about discrimination and how unfriendly the world of engineering is to non-males and the ways in which the patriarchy damages all of us (not just women), one man explained to us how we're wrong.
Be grateful for what you can do.
Your body and mind (which are inextricably linked) are incredible. What you can do with them is wondrous.
Tight jumpers (I remember having a meltdown as a child because my mum made me wear a blouse with puffy sleeves, then put a tight cardigan on over the top. Got the panicky sweats just thinking about it now).
Woolly hats.
Woolly scarves.
Woolly gloves.
Wool on my bare skin (shudder).
Felt. UGH FELT.
Anything that feels tight under my arms.
I need to mind my business and keep buzzing onwards.
Not be swayed by what others are doing.
Remember this next time you're stuck. Remember it when something threatens to derail your plans to write. Be more like Beetrice, focused on writing your book.
