writing and writers – Page 2 – don't confuse the narrator

across the world

As anyone who sees this on a desk top and looks beyond the posts to the surrounding information will have realised, I do a lot of writerly things other than this blog. There’s the Modern Pagan Prayers project, other books and author mentoring, as well as online courses and occasional workshops.

Apart from the workshops and book mentoring, which actually need me to show up in person, most of the activities can just tick over without any input, so it’s all fairly relaxed: I don’t go out of my way to market the books and courses – they just sit somewhere online and get found (or not). So, occasionally, I receive a small quantity of “passive income”.
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bars, boards & blocks

It sees to be a long time since I wrote something new. In early 2020, when the pandemic first started, I wrote a number of new poems, inspired by new lockdown habits and experiences. Then my friend Lucía asked for my assistance with prayer writing and the Modern Pagan Prayers project was started.

There are three books in the series, now – a total of nearly 100 prayers, most of them completely new, with just a handful repurposed from poems I had written previously. There were also a handful of pieces that were rejected as they were too much like poetry and too little like prayer. An average of around two new pieces a week is definitely not something to be ashamed of.
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Rosmerta, the Most Providential

“Write what you know” is how the saying goes, but I think that’s a little limiting. I don’t think you should write from a position of ignorance, but if you want to write about something you don’t know much about, you can always read up on it before you do the writing.

I’ve often said that one of the things I like about this blog is the discovery that comes with doing research and fact-checking – the serendipitous learning that happens along the way.
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greetings & valedictions

Years ago, I learned to type. As in, I learned to use a typewriter. And I learned the correct lay out for business correspondence, with the sender’s address at the top right, followed by the date and then the recipient’s name and address on the left.

Whoever the letter was going to, it always started with Dear, then a phrase with reference or topic, if required, centred above the body of the letter.
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what the dickens

Yesterday I mentioned that there are things I read on the internet that bring me up short. But I don’t do all my reading on the internet and it would be unfair if I omitted to say that the same is true for things I read in books.

I’m not going to haggle over whether listening to audio books is actually “reading”; I’ll leave that discussion for another day. So, for the sake of the current discussion, I’ve recently been slipping between reading a Ruth Rendell during meal and coffee breaks and listening to a wonderful dramatic reading of Barnaby Rudge while I’m out and about. It’s the latter that has stopped me in my tracks and made me rewind on several occasions.
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