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- First drafts: allowing the worm to navigate the soils of your mind
- The boy whose butter I ate: writing from the inside out
- All a writer can ask
- Throwing away material without a sense of failure
- Playful child and iron teacher: the two halves of the writer
- What happens when a character’s skirt gets hitched in her knickers?
- It’s an anxious job, pulling out of the comfort zone
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Tag Archives: fear
What’s the one word that describes how you feel?
Nobody says anything at first. I look at the faces around the room – fifteen, sixteen year olds who are expecting to stand in front of an audience in a few days and read some of their writing. I wait. … Continue reading
Perhaps we touch, my muse and I
My first sexual fantasies, age thirteen, were set in a boys’ school. I was the housemaster’s daughter, visiting on a stormy weekend, where an overnight dump of snow had left us without telephone or roads. I had started a fever. … Continue reading
Posted in Essay
Tagged Creative writing, creativity, fear, Freud, Gabriela Blandy, how to write, Joyce Carol Oates, Love, muse, Relationships, Rousseau, Writer's block, Writing, writing advice, Writing process
15 Comments
The Dance of Avoidance
Go outside, find something – bring it back indoors, put it on your desk, write about it. I’ve done writing classes like this. Responses to this task rupture out of each other – each one, bringing two more, which in … Continue reading
Posted in Essay
Tagged Adam Phillips, editing, fear, Gabriela Blandy, George Saunders, how to write, obstacles, Writing, writing advice, Writing process
33 Comments
What’s the problem with being up a mountain with no phone signal or orienteering skills?
It has begun to rain. The wind comes in cycles – building, building – so that at its peak my body wobbles and I contemplate the steepness below me: images of tumbling headfirst down lumps and bumps, through sharp grass. … Continue reading
Posted in Essay, Memoir, Travel
Tagged Adventure, advice, fear, Feeling, Gabriela, Gabriela Blandy, Health, How to, Laurence Sterne, Memoir, North Wales, Thought, travelling, truth, Wales, Writing, writing advice, Writing process
31 Comments
Worry – what’s the worst thing you can imagine?
The year I turned eleven, I joined all-girl choir that my music teacher ran. It was called The Julia Singers. We met once a week for rehearsals and, each term, put on a show. There’d be a tea party beforehand … Continue reading
Posted in Essay, Memoir
Tagged advice, Apprehension, Autobiography, comfort, fear, Fear of Public Speaking, Gabriela Blandy, Memoir, nerves, Public speaking, stagefright, worry, Writing
53 Comments
Playful child and iron teacher: the two halves of the writer
I was nine when a new games mistress arrived at my school. She was a grey-haired woman, although she wasn’t old; I could tell because her eyebrows were black. Her bum was boxlike, giving an impression of very little waist. … Continue reading
Posted in Essay, Memoir
Tagged advice, editing, essay, fear, Gabriela, Gabriela Blandy, how to write, Memoir, Writer's block, Writing, writing advice, Writing process
39 Comments
Honesty, and how we might write
My thoughtful readers and all the pioneer bloggers out there have brought my attention to something. Firstly, the draw of honesty, and secondly, how we might write. Perhaps, they are the same thing. So far, my writing journey has lasted nine … Continue reading
Posted in Essay, Fiction, Memoir
Tagged advice, breathing, Creative writing, drama school, fear, Fiction, Gabriela Blandy, honesty, how to write, short story, Writing process
21 Comments
Gabriela Blandy - The sense of a journey 