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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
The boy whose butter I ate: writing from the inside out
When I was fifteen, I wanted, with a desperate force, to fall in love. This desire was mirrored over a decade later – though it wasn’t love I was urgently wishing for, but a career as a writer. In the … Continue reading
Posted in Essay, Memoir
Tagged denial, editing, essay, Gabriela Blandy, how to write, Love, Memoir, truth, Writing, writing advice, Writing process
62 Comments
This is the year to land on your feet!
New Year’s Eve 2011, Dan and I are on a bus from Mount Barker to Perth. It’s full. People are already drinking, even though it’s not yet midday. Outside, the sun is vivid, passing through the window with ease, warming … Continue reading
Posted in Memoir
Tagged Australia, Cherry Picker, Fire Engine, Freemantle, Gabriela Blandy, how to write, Humour, Locked out, Luck, Memoir, New Year's Eve, Perth, Travel, Western Australia, Writing
30 Comments
All a writer can ask
The first Christmas I remember, I was four. My dad was working on a project in Malawi to develop coffee production for those with smallholdings. My mother took me and my brother out to Africa for the holidays. (This is … Continue reading
Posted in Essay, Memoir
Tagged Africa, Awards, blogging, Christmas, followers, Gabriela Blandy, Holidays, how to write, Interconnection, Malawi, readers, travelling, winter, Writing
32 Comments
A bus is at its best when it’s a taxi
Dan and I are walking over the bridge to the bus stop. It’s not yet six o’clock, but the winter darkness has the river hidden. Only the streetlights can cut through the black, casting golden beams across the sodden streets. … Continue reading
Posted in Memoir
Tagged Description, Gabriela Blandy, how to write, Memoir, Mexico, Story, travelling, Writing
24 Comments
A collage of trees
My father says that he’s going to chop down the pines in the corner of the garden. They have grown beyond the space, their silhouettes distorted from pruning over the years. Still, this has never stopped the pigeons roosting and … Continue reading
Posted in History, Memoir
Tagged Albany, autumn, childhood, Denmark, Denmark River, Gabriela Blandy, History, how to write, Karri, Memoir, memory, Pine, seasons, tennis, trees, Western Australia, winter, Writing
29 Comments
An unexpected comfort
I’ve been in pain this week. Over the weekend, someone I trusted said many hurtful things, including unkind words about my writing. I’ve noticed the days going by – a reluctance to post on my blog, even though it has … Continue reading
Posted in Essay, Memoir
Tagged Betrayal, comfort, Gabriela Blandy, Grief, how to write, Kahlil Gibran, Pain, The Prophet, Writing
56 Comments
The blank page is like a first kiss
I live in the student heart of Oxford. The supermarket is always filled with groups of young twenty year olds, wearing coats over their pyjamas – shopping baskets filled with jumbo bags of pasta. Some of them are discovering each … Continue reading
Posted in Essay, Memoir
Tagged drama, first love, Gabriela Blandy, how to write, Kiss, Oxford, Relationship, the blank page, the writer's voice, the writing process, truth, Writing
35 Comments
When you find yourself in a room with two strangers, having to fake an orgasm, it’s best to leave the country and change your life
I’m in the upper gallery of the Sheldonian Theatre, watching a graduation ceremony take place in Latin. Ad honorem Domini nostri Jesu Christi, the Vice-Chancellor intones, but I’m distracted by the fact that a few hours earlier I had to … Continue reading
Posted in Memoir
Tagged Acting, Audition, Gabriela Blandy, Graduation, how to write, Lisbon Story, Memoir, Mexico, Oxford, Photography, Poetry, Sheldonian Theatre, short story, travelling, Writing
21 Comments
The magical act of returning
The sky is beginning to drop its heavy white. Clumps of fog tumble down from the mountaintops into the valley where the cottage is. I stand by the window with my dad. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to … Continue reading
Posted in History, Memoir
Tagged Adventure, Battle of Camlann, Bedivere, climbing, Excalibur, Gabriela Blandy, happiness, Hiking, how to write, King Arthur, Llyn Ogwen, Memoir, Mexico, North Wales, travelling, Writing, writing advice
25 Comments
Maes Caradoc
For weeks I have been trying to explain to people how I came to be going to an isolated cottage in North Wales for a holiday. It was a friend of my dad’s who told me I had to go … Continue reading
Posted in History, Memoir
Tagged Adventure, Caractacus, Compass, Gabriela Blandy, Hiking, History, Holiday, how to write, Maes Caradoc, Map Reading, Memoir, Nant Ffrancon Valley, North Wales, Silence, Solitude, Writing
28 Comments
Gabriela Blandy - The sense of a journey 