Category: Writing Adventures
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Never give up – The Exhibit of Held Breaths goes to Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair
In 2010 I began scribbling in a notebook, imagining a decrepit museum-gallery “I’m writing to tell you about a place where I worked many years ago and a particular exhibit – the Exhibit of Held Breaths. I recently revisited the museum-gallery after an interval of ages. It’s a grim place now; dust shored up in…
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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…
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31 Days Guest Post by Fiona Melrose: Poetry performed Alchemy on My Prose
One of the wonderful things about my 31 days of blogging on mental and creative resilience is how I have made the acquaintance of new and interesting people who are finding ways to enhance their own creativity and are trying new things. One of these people is Fiona Melrose. She told me how attending a…
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31 days: Writing Goals, how to achieve them & what if you don’t
This series of articles running through January will explore ways of keeping our head above water in physical, mental, emotional and creative areas. There will be creative challenges, competitions and giveaways. For the full background see here. To receive all the 31 posts, sign up for email notification on the sidebar. On twitter it’s at…
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31 Days: Incubation and how to find your novel’s Eureka moment
This series of articles running through January will explore ways of keeping our head above water in physical, mental, emotional and creative areas. There will be creative challenges, competitions and giveaways. For the full background see here. To receive all the 31 posts, sign up for email notification on the sidebar. On twitter it’s at…
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Childlike thinking makes for creative writing
The transition from childhood to adulthood involves a mental development that allows for more abstract reasoning, logical complexity, a greater awareness of consequence and an understanding of the nuanced dynamics of human relationships. However there are ways that childlike thinking can get us back to the basics of life and enhance our creative endeavours. Mindfulness…
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Do writing retreats make a difference?
I’ve just come back from my writing retreat of 9 days in Ballinskelligs, at the side of a cliff in a remote part and beautiful part of Kerry. This was a place where you could choose complete isolation if you wanted. There was a meeting house but it was discretionary as to whether you and…
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Head above Water: A mother’s writing retreat
It’s been busy here lately hasn’t it? All Housewife with a Half-Life and liveliness but it will become a little quiet here for a while. I’ve been awarded a writing retreat in Cill Rialaig, a writer’s and artists retreat of six cottages at the edge of the world, overlooking the sea in one of the…
Alison Wells Author 