Posts Tagged "books"
Rainy day stories and a big bag of children’s books to win
Me and the boy are starting to settle into a new winter routine. Busy mornings at pre-school for him, and study for me, and then home early afternoon to crash. Afternoons spent kicking leaves are becoming slightly less fun, more soggy than crunchy, aside from the odd bright day, with temperatures dropping and more rain and dark dark dark coming quicker and gloomier. But truth is, although I’m missing more time outside, I’m loving our afternoons, (for the most part, don’t quote me on that one on a day I’m begging for bedtime. Ahem.) Curtains get closed early and our sofa is now a permanent nest with cushions and blankets. Kai is usually content to play on whatever adventure he’s dreamed up that day (mostly involving transforming robots and lasers at the moment, I have to say), and I knit, or clean, or work a little and we chat our lovely secret, in-joke chat and make each other laugh and fend off the grumps with snacks and painting and other indoory things. There’s definitely a touch of hibernation-mode kicking in – even I’m going to bed earlier. There’s something about winter, inbuilt in us, that breeds sitting, and hunkering down, and, oh and stories. Yes. It is definitely a time for books, too.
The people from the new Tesco Magazine Kids’ Book Club got in touch lately to tell me about their new site and share news, specifically, of the Kids’ Book Club videos that they’re starting to preview. On them, a host of famous celebs such as Alison Steadman, Caroline Quentin, Sanjeev Bhaskar and Meera Syal, read aloud some of the best new kids’ books, accompanied by the books’ gorgeous illustrations. The first videos are up now, with lots more planned, and cover the whole spectrum of toddler, pre-school and primary-aged children, from picture books, right up to chapter books for older kids. As well as videos and reviews, the site shares news of new books, exclusive author content and parents’ resources. Honestly, it’s brilliant. And I’m not usually quick to endorse things.
Read MoreWriting Workshop – The girl and the jam jars
She sat in front of two jam jars, one smelling faintly of pickled onions and the other so old she couldn’t even remember what had been in it. With looped lines she wrote two labels and stuck them on, one on each: Missing and Found. And then she sat with the pen in the end of her mouth and thought hard.
With a sigh, it was easy to write the first one, her hand moving to fetch a slip of paper she had cut, writing in careful, neat capital letters, folding the paper to drop it into the Missing jar. Best to get that one out the way, and no need to dwell, was there really. Those thoughts had been thought before. She could bury it under other things missing, to help forget about it for a while. And after all, she doubted that particular aspect of her life would be missing for that long. “You’re just in there temporarily, okay?” she said aloud, reaching for another slip of paper. Right, what else was missing? She prodded the word in her head, but found it unbudging. Words sometimes like to take on the character of resistant old toads, she had found, so she shrugged, fair enough, we’ll come back to that one then.
Read MoreThe Writing Workshop Returns!
I don’t know about you but I miss the Writing Workshop. Actually, not just that: I miss blogging. I seem to have forgotten how a little bit. I’m a bit buried under layers and layers of thought and feeling and not sure what to do with it all. And, after all, that’s what blogging is FOR, or at least, it is for me. It’s about teasing out those strains of thought and emotion and experience and finding a way to translate them on to the screen.
Images provide a wonderful way to do this, which is why Tara’s Gallery is so lovely, but I miss the words too. Writing is such an intrinsic part of blogging and words hold so much power. I want to find that power again.
I very much needed the break, but I think it’s about time I got back in the saddle. And to help me do that I think I’m as much in need of my writing prompts as you are.
So let’s do this. Time to begin again.
Are you ready?
For any newcomers to our Workshop, here’s how it works: each week I’ll give you five writing/blogging prompts. Pick one, pick two, or do them all if you’re really keen – it’s up to you. How you respond is your choice. You could write 10 words or 1,000. You could share a real-life story, or make one up. You could write a poem or just free-write without thinking too hard and see what happens. It can be funny; it can be serious; it can be emotional. It can be whatever you want it to be. The only rule is to enjoy writing your post and get something out of the process.
Prompts each week take their inspiration from blogs, current affairs, daily life, or just whatever I happened to be thinking about that week. If you’d like to suggest a prompt for a future workshop then send me an email or catch me on Twitter – I would love to hear your ideas.
And remember! We’re not looking for perfection here! Just have a go! The best way to get better at writing is PRACTISE. All the best writers aren’t afraid to write badly. So turn your inner-critic off for a while and just see what words come out.
For our first week back in business I have chosen prompts inspired by titles of books on my book shelf. I’ve provided some interpretations as a guide but don’t let these restrict you if you’re feeling creative.
1. Catch 22 (by Joseph Heller)
- Are you feeling stuck with no discernible way out of something?
2. Coming Up For Air (by George Orwell)
- Write about a time you found peace after a difficult time. Or, alternatively, write about breathing spaces. What helps you re-charge?
3. On Beauty (by Zadie Smith)
- Tell us about finding beauty somewhere unexpected. Or about what beauty means to you.
4. Past Secret (by Cathy Kelly)
- Do you have a secret from your past you are brave enough to share?
5. The Book of Lost Things (by Joseph Connolly)
- Write about something you have lost: emotionally, physically, or metaphorically.
Now here’s what you have to do. Write your post and publish it on your blog between now and THURSDAY. On Thursday come back and use the widget that will be up to paste in the URL of your post to share. Then take some time to read some of the other entries and leave some comment love! We’re not here to critique – just to have fun and support each other in our writing experiments. So be kind please. Anyone who would like to submit something via email, or even anonymously will be more than welcome to do so. I’ll post them on the site here and include the link in Thursday’s round-up.
See you on Thursday!
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This Writing Workshop is brought to you in association with Mama Kat’s Losin’ It – who’s lovely author came up with the concept and runs her own workshop in the U.S.
Read MoreAvoiding Thought
“Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought.” - Arthur Helps
I had forgotten this very specific type of hunger, the kind for reading. For books. It has been a long time since it rose up, making my fingers twitch for the feel of fresh pages. Leading my feet into bookshop after bookshop, just to touch spines and sit, reverently amongst book shelves, like I’m sat in a great cathedral of imagination and possibility, which, I suppose, I am.
I feel like I’m just re-discovering the taste of fresh water after drought. And I am lapping it up greedily. Book after book after book. I am back to the echo of my fourteen year old self, leaning forward over the kitchen counter with novel in one hand and a hastily made sandwich in the other. I am back to eagerly retreating in to the dark sanctuary of my duvet as soon as I am able, back to the dance of turn and twist as my body finds the perfect combination of head on cold pillow, with book supported, flipping to lie on my stomach until the ache of my wrists and neck move me back again.
I had forgotten the intoxication of it. The draw in and IN, words running through eyes and brain like a rich torrent. The slow double -blink as you look up from the page, fantasy worlds overlapping with real life in a disorientating double negative.
And I had forgotten how, at times like THIS, how the inner world of stories and mysteries and romance and impossibility can quickly become more appealing than the real life outside, especially in the times when Kai is in bed and the house is quiet. How much easier, for a while, to take on the personality of somebody else. Their thoughts, their words, when your own seem so confusing and hard to bear.
In books suffering is noble. Pain is beautiful. Lives, however hopeless, have a meaning and a narrative and a progression. People talk one at a time, and their thoughts are written out alongside their spoken words. When something is too harsh, it is softened by metaphor.Time and distance are fluid, with long spaces traversed in an instant. Chapter, page, even gaps between lines and words provide an instant pause button to take a moment to stop and reflect, to rewind and re-read, or to close up that life with a slam of covers and sleep and sleep until you are brave enough to re-open.
Yes. It is no wonder I would rather be a little lost in my books than too awake to reality just now.
So if you are not a book, than forgive my struggle with engaging with you. I am trying. I am hearing your voices, reading your beautiful comments and your messages and it is a little like that slow double-blink again. I am not sure whether I am looking up from the page or down into it, awake or asleep, sat on my sofa or some pale girl in a story book. I’m a little lost in the in-between. But that’s ok. I won’t be here for long and it is, at least, safe and uncomplicated which is what I need just now.
I appreciate you, though. Thank you for your words and your thoughts. Even if I don’t reply they mean a lot. I am glad you are there.
Now. Back to the book. Today I am a clairvoyant battling with the demands of the dead and it sounds a little like being a mother with a toddler.
I’ll see you soon.
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