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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
- Write of things you love
- Try to get ahead too fast and you might end up with your trousers round your ankles
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Tag Archives: Writing
Balls, heartbreak and the real Jane Austen
The fire throws its warmth across the room and one of the guests has stretched out on the sofa to sleep. Though Miss Bingley has a book in her lap her attention is on Darcy as he reads his own. … Continue reading
Posted in Essay, Memoir
Tagged Ball, Book, Catherine Morland, Darcy, Gabriela Blandy, Jane Austen, Jane Austen £10, Love, Memoir, Northanger Abbey, Pride And Prejudice, truth, Writing
25 Comments
The conundrum of being ourselves
During my second term at drama school, we had to face Shakespeare. All the students were frantic as agents from the RSC would be in the audience, scouting for new talent. There were tears after rehearsals. The toilets stank with … Continue reading
Posted in Essay, Memoir
Tagged Acting, advice, drama school, Gabriela Blandy, How to be yourself, Lifestyle, Memoir, Performing Arts, Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare, truth, Writing
44 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
Shouldn’t I be able to use all my published books as furniture by now?
I have recently been on a hunt for Alice Munro. When I reached the Canadian border the other week, a lady in the passport control booth asked me where I was heading. Goderich, I told her, grinning ludicrously about … Continue reading
Posted in Essay, Memoir, Travel
Tagged Alice Munro, Gabriela, Gabriela Blandy, How to, Natalie Goldberg, sense of a journey, short story, Writing
43 Comments
It’s an anxious job, pulling out of the comfort zone
I’m in the bedroom, packing – two days until my flight. I’m filling with familiar sensations. As my body is about to be relocated, it grips the life I’ve been living and through this act I see everything close up: … Continue reading
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
What happens when a character’s skirt gets hitched in her knickers?
Character is arguably the single most important component of the novel…nothing can equal the great tradition of the European novel in the richness, variety and psychological depth of its portrayal of human nature. David Lodge When I was ten, … Continue reading
Posted in Essay, Memoir
Tagged advice, Character, Characterisation, David Lodge, editing, essay, Gabriela, Gabriela Blandy, how to write, Memoir, short story, Writing, writing advice, Writing process
56 Comments
Trying to submerge a plastic bag with an air pocket
I have several recurring dreams. In one of them, I’m at university, faced with having to find a group to move in with for the coming academic year. But I’ve left it too late. Everyone has already made their plans … Continue reading
Posted in Essay, Fiction, Memoir
Tagged Acting, denial, drama school, Gabriela Blandy, how to write, Interpretting dreams, Letting go, Lucid dreaming, Memoir, Osteopathy, Recurring dreams, Resolutions, short story, Tension, Writing
34 Comments
Gabriela Blandy - The sense of a journey 