Anything Worth Doing
Advice in the form of pithy little statements is—and has to be—of a general nature, not applicable across the board. I know that logically, but some sayings are so deeply ingrained they might as well be encoded in my DNA.…
Valerie
Letting Myself Be Stuck
I can't think of anything in the novel writing process I've struggled with more than the days or weeks of being stuck. Writing is full of impossible bits, and I don't think I'd do it if there was anything else I liked doing half as much, but accepting the moments where I can't just push through might be the hardest thing of all.
Attention, priorities, tying off
A while ago I listened to a Dutch mystery podcast called De Brand in het Landhuis, in which the host tries to find out what happened to an eccentric aristocrat who died feet from his front door when his mansion went…
No more summer
Through and even before the pandemic I'd relied on changing seasons to create a pattern I could fall into. The changing angles of light; the first day of wearing my winter coat; the smell of spring when it was just starting. Even the things that made me mounful, like short days and the end of a year, still helped mark the time. There was the looking forward and the looking back and the attempts to be present before inevitable changes came again.
Inspiring mediocrity
In the month of resolving to be, live, and work better, Shady and I decided to give my parents’ long-maligned roomba a chance to prove itself. My dad’s livestream set-up in the dining room was torn down prior to his…
An exercise in liking things
At long last the nostalgia and poignancy of Peter Pan made sense to me, instead of swinging wildly between too-childish adventures in Neverland and too-serious depictions of adult life outside of it. In Peter Darling I found my handholds into a world I'd wanted to like but never really managed to get into.
Pandemic travel time
I kept waiting for someone to stop me and say: “What are you doing? Why are you traveling right now? Go home.” The only time someone asked me where I’d be staying was back in Edinburgh, and there was no follow-up. After months and months of staying in one place, it felt like I was breaking the law.
Mission Improbable: from idea to first draft
Hello again world! I promise not to angry vent this time, despite the deep everything-ness of everything. That way lies madness. This way? Just a simple blogpost about writing, attempting to demystify the process. Last month I was talking to…
Noise on busy streets
A while ago I was doing research on online movements and my friend Elaine (wonderful writer & person) described posting on social media as shouting things on a busy high street. There might be a sense that you’re talking to…
Falling into our verjaardagskalender
The ongoing isolation heightens emotions I'd know how to handle at other times. The whole thing feels like being a teenager again, with that sense that something is fighting to the surface of you and your body isn't big enough to hold it.