Week 3. Day 7. Cosy up

When I was a child, most Sunday nights – the best ones – were heralded by the opening notes to When You Wish Upon a Star. That music – and the image of the cartoon Tinkerbell shooting across the screen – was a signal for a Sunday evening ritual. Pyjamas. Cushions. The...

Week 3. Day 6. Looking back to look forward

How are you getting on with the daily prompts? Are you finding your way to your creative instinct? Are words arriving on the page? As always, be kind to yourself. I keep thinking about an interview Tim Winton did with the great Andrew Denton years ago in which he...

Week 3. Day 5. Snake goals

Several years ago, I taught a group of novelists who were struggling a little with that old ‘I can’t seem to get it written’ problem.  Listening to them, it became apparent that each time they failed to hit their ‘target’ (usually a word count), they panicked and...

Week 3. Day 4. What made you a writer?

I was at a dinner a year or two ago when the man sitting beside me asked, “What made you a writer?” Barely pausing to swallow my soup, I began my origin story, the very one I’ve told at many writers’ festivals or in interviews, over many years. It’s the story in which...

Week 3. Day 3. Getting lost to get found

I am known for having a very poor sense of direction. You know when people say, “You can’t possibly get lost on that route?” I take some pride in being the person who absolutely can get lost on that route. Once, I got lost on a canal. Sometimes, my lack of direction...

Week 3. Day 2. Compassion for ideas

Long before Alan Garner was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, he wrote novels which informed the imaginations of a generation of British children. And after The Owl Service and the Weirdstone of Brisingamen were published, Garner wrote other books. While he wrote, he...