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Writer, book editor & writing coach

SS 1

A beautiful, heartfelt, tear-jerking read.

– Bookworm for Kids

Swan Song

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This is what sharing/publishing can feel like for

This is what sharing/publishing can feel like for a writer: dangling in a cable car, 90 feet off the ground, absolutely terrified.

The thing is, if we don’t do the scary thing, we don’t learn that actually, hard as it is, we CAN do it. And the more we do it, the less scary it becomes – and the more we believe in ourselves.

Not that I’ll be riding the London cable car again anytime soon. Once was plenty for me.

But I will keep publishing my writing, in my own way, even though it's scary. If I can dangle high above the Thames in a glass box on a string, I can share a story.

#writing #writingcommunity #writerlife #writinginspiration

Plymouth is my happy place, where I spent summers

Plymouth is my happy place, where I spent summers as a child, and near where we now stay each summer is Durnford Street – once, briefly, the workplace of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

In commemoration of the author practising medicine here in 1882, there are 23 Sherlock Holmes quotes inlaid in the pavement. My favourites:

"Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."

"Any truth is better than indefinite doubt."

Every time we walk down this street, I think: if I lived here, I'd polish the plaque outside my house until it gleamed!

#bookstagram #sherlock #bookcommunity #quotes

Finally, after 14 years, I made it back to my happ

Finally, after 14 years, I made it back to my happy place – the little, isolated cove near my grandparents' home where I played as a child.

My daughter and I had it to ourselves, and spent two hours climbing rocks, exploring rock pools, treasure hunting, and just sitting and gazing out to sea.

It's the most beautiful place to me. Age-old rocks worn smooth by the endless tides. Pebbles and shells and sea glass. The scent of seaweed; the tang of salt on the breeze. The sea and sky in more shades of blue and green than an artist's palette could hold.

Heaven.

(Though my daughter found the very steep walk back up from the cove less heavenly. Happily, a very kind taxi driver passing by offered us a free ride to the pub halfway up. Probably the shortest drive in history.)

Fellow mums, do you ever feel like motherhood hold

Fellow mums, do you ever feel like motherhood holds you back in your creativity?

I love my children more than anything, but mothering them has definitely meant less time, energy and headspace for my writing. And this is something I've struggled with. Some days I've longed to shut myself in a room, Virginia Woolf-style, and WRITE, DAMMIT.

But. I have come to see that motherhood isn't the barrier to creativity. Actually, motherhood IS creativity. It's creative work. Creativity floods out of me all day in how I mother, and it helps to shape their growing hearts and minds.

Do I wish I had written a stack of novels in the nine years since I published my last one? Absolutely. But instead of beating myself up for my creative 'failure', I'm seeing all of the creative work I've been doing over these years.

Fellow mamas, you are absolute powerhouses of creativity! Even if the page/canvas is blank, the stitches unstitched, the piano unplayed. For now.

#creativity #writingcommunity #amwri̇ti̇ng #writerlife #writer

From an early diary entry. Like many kids, I wasn'

From an early diary entry. Like many kids, I wasn't great at spelling. Or capital letters. Or punctuation. But I loved writing and I loved reading books.

This was the message I gave to children at a primary school careers morning today:

If you like writing, and you think you may like to become a writer, you can. YOU CAN! All you need is imagination, creativity, curiosity and passion.

The grammar stuff... it's okay if you're not brilliant at it. The more you read and write, the more you'll improve. Also: grown-up writers have people like me to help them with grammar.

This message always seems to go down well with kids. That and the novelty erasers I give out at the end of my sessions. Kids go WILD for small rubber burgers, cakes, penguins, hippos, etc., it seems.

#writing #writingcommunity #writinglife

Cream or jam first? I've asked a number of friend

Cream or jam first?

I've asked a number of friends, and each has their own take on it.

In the end, I went rogue with alternating layers – scone lasagne. I can confirm it was divine.

#britishsummer #sconesofinstagram

As part of my current ghostwriting commission, I h

As part of my current ghostwriting commission, I had a fascinating chat earlier about the British 'Make Do and Mend' ethos of World War II.

My client lived in London during the war, and she showed me blouses she had hand-sewn and embroidered then. The fabric? A section of a damaged military parachute.

It's deeply humbling to listen to her experiences of the war, and what it was like to be a young woman at that time and in the post-war years.

#amwriting #history #strongwomen

Picture: Cover of a pamphlet issued by the UK Government Ministry of Information, 1943. Artist: Jill Greenwood.

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