Guestbook

Got something to say? Feedback, ideas, artwork, insights, tips, tools, links, jokes, stories… all are all welcomed in the comment box here. Oh all right, gripes too, if you must.

10 Ways Twitter Can Make You A Better Writer.

Here are ten things writers need to do that are fostered by the constraints of Twitter and other micro-blogging apps:

1. Evaluate yourself as a writer. Who are you? What topics interest you? What do you want to express – in this tweet and over time?  If you haven’t asked yourself such questions starting out, you’ll come to them before long.
2. Make style reflect content. What writing style comes naturally to you — informational, snarky, amusing, inspirational? What style best suits your

   Read the whole post »

Help! Creative Assistance Needed.

Are you a reliable, skilled, tech savvy, social media loving, numerate, enthusiastic administrator/assistant who believes in the importance of creativity? Who wants to make a positive difference and is willing to go the extra mile when necessary to do so?

As dear old Doc Wayne Dyer has said, it’s never too crowded along that extra mile, but I thought that here, among you lovely loyal supporters, is the place to begin my search for that perfect someone.

If  this is not the job for you, perhaps you might  Read the whole post »

Keep it Secret to Keep it Sacred

Sharing your creative dream too early is a mistake. Later on, when it’s well established in you, telling others can help keep you on track. But in the early days, hug it to yourself.

Be like actor, Jeff Goldblum*, when he was a teenager: “I would take a shower,” he says, “and it had a door, not a curtain, a door, a glass door, which would   Read the whole post »

Are you a book owner or a book reader?

I’m moving house at the moment and I’m losing a lot of books. And a lot of people are shocked. “You’re giving away your books? Oh I just couldn’t.”

The same sort of response greets me when I tell people that I scrawl in the margins of books, underline words, draw big circles around salient paragraphs… “You what?”

At a reading once, a woman said to me, “That’s wicked and disgusting. Like   Read the whole post »

If I Made It, You Surely Can

“Consider the following,” says screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (Flashdance, Basic Instinct, Jagged Edge).

• “English is my second language. Some critics have said I butcher it.
• “I stole cars and carried a knife when I was a kid: I almost killed another kid with a baseball bat and almost went to jail.
• “I started drinking when I was 14 and was a functional   Read the whole post »

Create For You But Pitch To Them

“I remember pitching to adapt the sci-fi book Spares for Dreamworks a few years ago.

I started off gushing as usual about how much I loved the material. Within seconds, I pointed out that this could even be a second Blade Runner.

“There was a long pause and then a very polite response: ‘We were thinking of it more along the lines of Terminator 2.’

“The pitch ended very
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Jack Gilbert’s Creative Intelligence

“If I’m writing well it [ a poem] comes to an end with an almost audible click. When I started out, I wouldn’t write a poem until I knew the first line and the last line and what it was about and what would make it a success. I was a tyrant and I was good at it.

“But the most important day in my career as a writer wants was when Linda [his wife] said, Did you never think of Read the whole post »

The 7 Creative Principles You Must Know

Uncertain about what you’re creating? Not managing to make it happen? Going nowhere despite great effort?

The problem’s down to one of these seven principles of creation. And the good news is: the remedy’s within.

Principle 1).  Creative intelligence is not something we acquire, it is something we access. Your creative potential is innate, always there, but you’ve got to tune in. This is the fundamental principle, establishing that you are not separate from the creative, creating world.  The great Read the whole post »

Surfacing. A Poem.

Down by the river bank I see
a life-ring on a line,
and think of how we used to swim
in talk, your hands in mine,
our arms encircled round your wound,
that never-ending need.
Your life was so unfairly hard,
you felt, and I agreed.

So when low words leaked from your depths
and burst up, spitting froth, Read the whole post »