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10 Ways Writing Affects Your Confidence
So, you’re in the shower (your best writing ideas always appear suddenly when you’re in the shower). You’ve been in there 15 minutes but haven’t even touched the bottle of Original Source raspberry shower gel yet because you’ve just had your best writing idea yet. You lather up quickly, grapple for a towel, almost trip…
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3 Lessons from a Year of Not Writing
The gauzy illumination of fairy lights reveals the coloured spines stacked along every shelf and bedside drawer. There, a poetry book preordered the minute the writer announced it. Here, an anthology produced from a previous commission. And just there, a thoughtfully-selected collection gifted from a friend, with the tiny cursive note forever inked onto the…
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How to Perform Your Poetry Despite Nerves
When I first decided poetry was my chosen path with writing, I’d gone into it assuming poets were the reclusive ones. As far as I was concerned, it was the novelists who did the big readings and were thrust into the spotlight; poets were quiet creatures, letting the lines in their verse do the talking.…
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Top Tips to Overcome Writer’s Block
In my last post, I talked about the importance of stepping back and being kind to yourself if you’re finding it hard to write during these difficult times. Staring at the same four walls, not interacting with new people, and not embracing new experiences as you normally would will doubtless take a hit on your…
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Creativity in Crisis: Why It’s Okay Not To Make Art Right Now
The dry rustle of hands shoved into coat pockets is an act of protection, hugs are replaced by nervous nods, and to step out into the crisp sunshine more than once is to break the law. Social media is a flickering buzz of news articles, virus-related memes, and screenshots of Zoom meetings, a glass of…
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How to Overcome Self-Doubt in Writing
“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent Van Gogh Ever feel like you’re being watched? Perhaps you’re trying to crack on with that novel. Or maybe you’re perched on a bench, trying to capture the landscape in front…
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Writing and Running: Miles of Inspiration
“Most of what I know about fiction, I learned by running every day.” – Haruki Murakami It had been a long, self-defeating eighteen months of avoiding writing. During a particularly challenging 2017-18, poetry had stubbornly evaded and, unsurprisingly, angered me. “Read,” others had suggested. “Read until you feel inspired.” But reading did not make me…
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Shoot for the Moon – Why Romanticizing Failure Doesn’t Equal Success
“Most people fail in life not because they aim too high and miss, but because they aim too low and hit.” – Les Brown I started thinking about this during a time when the #100rejections hashtag had really taken off among the writing community on Twitter. According to those who were taking part, you should…
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Write What You Don’t Know: A Writer’s Experience in India
The taxi jolted us headfirst into the bustle of New Delhi, the swell and billow of rainbow-coloured silks, sweet oils cracking through the smoky air and a shimmer of grey heat rising to meet the dusty sun. These were the sorts of things I’d only ever encountered between the comforting fug of book pages and…
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The Artist vs the Creative Block
I don’t think that writer’s block exists really. I think that when you’re trying to do something prematurely, it just won’t come. Certain subjects just need time, as I’ve learned over and over again. You’ve got to wait before you write about them. — Joyce Carol Oates We’ve all been there. That moment of blankly…
Natalie Ann Holborow 