Category: Creativity
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Manifesto for Living
As (some of) my children become teens, learn to develop relationships with others, forge their ideals and identity and face various challenges, I wrote this (along the lines of the wonderful Desiderata) as a guiderail for their journey.
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Serendipity Wednesday – Dust Motes and Wonder
My last post mentioned the Serendipity of social media and the internet and the interesting, informative and wondrous aspects of life it can put us in touch with. Having been working through some difficult times I’ve come to realise that Serendipity can be a source of great comfort and inspiration, bolstering resilience and nurturing spirit…
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Better Writing: Fuel your fascinations & inspiring authors
In my Creative Practice course, one of the exercises I give to writers is to write down their fascinations, what they are absolutely interested in, the things they love and the things they despise. Many of these powerful obsessions, interests, pursuits can become the basis of energetic writing. By starting with the times, places, artefacts…
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Creative Practice & Short Story Essentials Writing Workshop
As a psychology and communications graduate and over the course of several years writing this blog I’ve developed a great interest in the techniques and psychology of motivation and creativity. As a mother of four I have personal experience of juggling a busy life with creative endeavour. I’ve had many stories published in literary journals…
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Make them feel it – let the body talk in your writing
A quick one today as I’m trying to train myself into sticking (roughly) to a schedule in order to progress work on a couple of projects at a time (more on motivation soon!) On one of my projects I’m trying to inject life and tension into a novel that’s already in pretty good shape but…
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Why write: A more Humble and Sustaining Path
I’ve just finished Douglas Coupland’s Eleanor Rigby, a very touching book about human condition and it’s made me understand what I want to do as a writer. It’s not just about me finding a way to unburden and express myself but it’s also important to me to pay witness, yes to speak for the ordinary…
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New Year, New Writing Verve
Happy New Year and I hope it will be a terrific one for you personally and writing wise. This time last year I took the big step of committing to a creativity post each and every day of January and while I hope sometime to compile these and others I’ve written into a downloadable book,…
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How to write when kids just fight and other stuff
School’s out in this house and my eldest son whose twelve and a half has ‘graduated’ from Irish primary school so a nice sense of achievement and moving on. In terms of keeping my ‘Head above Water’ writing wise I’m doing my best to get up in the early hours before the kids wake to…
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Taking the time for the book you want to write
Today I’ve written an article including some Tolstoy quotes sent to me by a writer friend, exploring how to really take the time we need to write the book we really want to write. I talk about incubation, deep reading, George Saunders’ view that this slow writing demands a greater focus and integrity than our…
Alison Wells Author 