Where Writers Go Wrong

Last night, I said goodbye to my “Get it Written” class who, since January last, have been beavering away at the task of completing a book.  

Some are now finished, some have completed first drafts, some have not got quite as far as they hoped when they started — but a core group has worked steadily towards their goal and are well along the way.

One of the handouts they took away with them was “Where Writers Go Wrong”.  In my experience as a writing mentor and literary agent, one

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Good Things from Cancer: #1

Everybody says you are supposed to fight cancer.  Newspapers carry stories of brave battles against the disease.  And Western medicine pulls out its biggest guns for the war – chemotherapy, radical surgery, radiation…

I am having all those treatments and more — but the battle metaphor just doesn't work for me.

When I was diagnosed, I had reached a point of my life where I was learning to love what is. To accept that whatever was happening in a particular moment was just as it ought to be — however much I might wish it otherwise.  To understand that what I called problems were often blessings in disguise.

This hardwon learning had me happier than I had ever been in my life.

So when

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No hair

It's the launch of “A Dance in Time” tonight and I have almost no hair.

I have almost no hair because I have been having cancer treatment and last week, it started to fall out.  In clumps.  (Great timing!)

So what to do?  I could wear a wig.  I could wear a scarf. I could wear a hat.

Except wigs are

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Beyond Belief

Beyond Muslim, Hindu, Atheist, Christian, Buddhist, Jew… Beyond socialism, nationalism, feminism, capitalism,  tribalism, communism… Beyond power, politics, money, identity, sex … Read more

A Crowd of Stars

Read WB Yeats' poetry with commentary by the muse

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Read Maud Gonne's words about the poetry she influenced