Sometimes quoted as, ‘murder your darlings’ other times as, ‘kill your darlings’ -- whatever your preference, the advice amounts to the same thing: don’t scrimp when it comes to editing. Take to your writing with a red pen and the eye of Marie Kondo going through kitchen cupboards that haven’t been reviewed in a decade, … Continue reading Murder Your Darlings
‘At the bottom of her heart, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like shipwrecked sailors, she turned despairing eyes upon the solitude of her life, seeking afar off some white sail in the mists of the horizon.’ My book group has just finished reading Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. Insights such as this into … Continue reading Far Off Fields
Today, June 16th, is Bloomsday. It has become aday for Dublin to commemorate and celebrate the life of Irish writer, James Joyce - because this is the very date, in 1904, when the events of Joyce’s novel, Ulysses, unfold. From 8am on the 16thof June, through to the wee small hours of the next day, … Continue reading Meeting Ourselves
I threaded my belt back through the loops of my jeans and fastened the buckle. Then I laced my boots, making a mental note not to wear them next time I flew; such a palaver of eyes and hooks and long laces to wind around my ankles before double knotting. ‘How about a cup of … Continue reading The Truth About Love
To pursue whatever you set your mind to with the joy of a six year-old child: that’s said to be how we should seek to live. This supposes that every six-year old child embraces all of life joyfully, which they probably don’t, as personality and nature come into play. Largely, though, small children do seem … Continue reading Innocence
Auden, Barrett-Browning, Cope, Dickinson, Eliot, Frost, Gallagher, Heaney, Ibsen, Jamie, Kinnell, Larkin, Mahon, Neruda, Owen, Plath, Qabbani, Rossetti, St Vincent Millay, Thomas, Updike, Vaughan, Wordsworth, Xenokleides, Yeats, Zephaniah. Who is your favourite? Feel free to reach beyond the 26 I’ve offered you; I was just playing the alphabet game, and, in doing so, left out … Continue reading Advent
“I knew it wasn't too important, but it made me sad anyway.” Holden Caulfield, character from J.D. Salinger’s, The Catcher in the Rye. I dressed and went across the road to a cafe that I sometimes visit on Sundays (only on Sundays). They keep the papers. I have a favourite spot, facing out onto the … Continue reading Snap Out Of It
I was at a lecture last night, part of the Book Festival. All about Muriel Spark, her writing, and how it was informed, sometimes even dictated, by disembodied voices that surrounded her, chirruping. In her more sane moments she believed she was having full conversations with her alter ego within. Other times, when she was … Continue reading In My Head
The desk at which W.S. Graham wrote his poems has found a home in Edinburgh’s Poetry Library. His chair too, though the seat has been put away somewhere, “for the time being,”the man told me. More suitably described, I think, as a table, it looks like something from a farmyard kitchen as opposed to a study. It’s … Continue reading Wheesht
I’m on the back foot, caught short, running out of time. It’s not the bathroom I’m in need of - not that kind of caught short. I need to read a book by 7pm this evening when the first gathering of my new book group is scheduled. (Question to self: why are you writing this … Continue reading Silence Is Golden
