Last week I realised something - my blog is ten years old! I started it back in October 2011 with this post: What the heck am I doing here?At the time I was training to be a hypnotherapist, but deep down I wanted to be a writer. The problem was, I had serious self-esteem and… Continue reading My blog is 10 years old! Now what?
A few weeks ago, I had my first Zoom meeting with my Golden Egg Academy editor. It went really well. By the end of our hour-long chat, we had agreed that I would work on several things: Reorder the first chapter so things happen in chronological order. (At the moment I jump about a bit… Continue reading A temporary spanner in the works
I am five weeks into my Writing for Children & Young Adults course, and something wholly unexpected has happened. Let me explain: When I was younger I had the confidence of a small gnat. So, I looked for ways to ‘better’ myself – NLP, hypnosis, meditation, visualisation... (It was a long list.) I also clung… Continue reading An unexpected benefit of writing regularly
What has simplifying my life got to do with writing my children’s novel? EVERYTHING! Up until recently, here’s how I was spending my days: Part time job as an assistant to a disabled teacher Teaching TRE classes (Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercises)Selling cards, mugs and prints in a local shopSelling T-shirts from my online shopWriting… Continue reading Simplifying my life in order to write
Exciting news: I have been offered a place on the Golden Egg Academy's fantastic 'Writing for Children and Young Adults' course! This means I am officially a mini Egg (you are only a full Egg once you’ve graduated) 😊 For the next 12 months I will be crafting my children’s novel under the watchful eye… Continue reading Writing News: I am a mini Egg!
Dr Seuss: The Lorax When you try to visualise your ‘ideal life’ or ‘ideal job’, does your inner critic jump in before you’ve even had a chance to get inspired or feel excited? Me too. My inner critic is marvellous at pointing out helpful things like: “You can’t do that!” “That would never work” “How… Continue reading A fun way to figure out what you REALLY want to do
Cave painting photograph © Maxime Aubert An interesting thing happened this morning: I got up at 6am and went downstairs to make a cup of tea. As I waited for the kettle to boil, I checked the weather (to see if a walk was on today) and the BBC News (to see whether Trump had… Continue reading Are you being guided by something?
I came across this recently in a book and I’ve been pondering it ever since: Steve Chandler is a transformative coach. He teaches his clients that situations themselves don’t cause our feelings. Only thinking can do that. E.g. Thrust a microphone towards a group of people and some will run a mile while others will… Continue reading What if our fears aren’t quite what we think they are?
I’ve just realised I’ve been doing something totally ridiculous. In the corner of my bedroom sits a pile of notes for the novel I am writing/not writing (depending on which month you ask me). Every time I look at this pile (see photo above), I feel stressed. The pile itself cannot be the problem.… Continue reading Creativity, stress and made-up pressure
Like many people, I wrote poetry when I was a teenager; pages and pages of torment and angst! Then I grew up and stopped writing poems. I'm not sure why. Maybe I ran out of angst :-) But recently, little poems have been coming to me. I say 'poems'; they're more like mini affirmations really.… Continue reading Poetry and the great unknown
Katherine Bassford 