Tag: Writing
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How to anchor your creative endeavor while juggling work, study and family with writing.
What is it like to try to pursue writing with a full-time job – (I work in Dlr Libraries) while doing a Masters (Library and Information Management with the University of Ulster – Distance Learning) , not to mention guiding and looking out for four teenagers/young adults and keeping connected with extended family, friends and…
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Creative resilience in the face of chaos
In the past this blog has focussed on how to keep going in difficult times during periods of upheaval, overload, uncertainty, loss and grief and in 2020 during the time of the Covid19 pandemic we have all these together. If we have not lost a loved one, we know of someone who has, we have…
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Social Media, Serendipity and Self-Compassion
While social media has many drawbacks including its skewed version of reality that can sometimes make us feel inadequate, it can offer up a whole lot of support (which it did, in my last post, and a heartfelt thanks to all of you who commented for that). Despite it’s obsession with cats, it can sometimes…
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On writing and raising children
It’s been quite a while since I posted here and for good reason. I’ve been making a concerted effort to bring many of my projects to completion. My novel The Book of Remembered Possibilities about the stories we tell ourselves about our lives and two women who need stories to survive is on submission, The…
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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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Writing: Motivation in the month of May and first drafts
I’ve decided to join the #15kinMay writing folk on twitter to progress a new project based on a flash fiction I wrote last year. This is a very visceral book and to me the book has always had a May feeling. I felt a great impetus last year to just write and write further but…
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31 Days: When writing is at the heart of us we will not let it go
I’ve been blogging for the 31 days of January on creativity and mental resilience. I hope to explore this area in the future but this phase is at an end. To access the rest of the posts click here. The pencil scratching on the page, diaries for years and years, a notebook thrown further and…
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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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Writing and Life: What to do when you just can’t
When my youngest child of four started school in September I thought that I would blog about that. After all this blog is called Head above Water, it’s about the years of juggling life and writing when the kids were very small. After almost twelve years, with all the children now in school I’ve entered…
Alison Wells Author 