Composting, Baking, Walking: Growing Narratives

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Natalie Goldberg has written a lot about the concept of composting (in publications such as Wild Mind, and Writing Down The Bones) and creative practice.

So it’s about letting ideas filter, allowing characters to grow, permitting narratives to form at their own pace.

Psychologists (such as Sternberg and Lubart) have analysed the role of creativity in society and businesses.

But there is something so simple about moving from the mind to the body in the act of baking…..and you get rewarded for it too. Yes, let those ideas compost, get that body moving, free up your mind, leave those ingredients do their thing and, if you can, get out into the air; let those feet do the thinking.

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Later you can enjoy that apple slice and experimental something with the left over pastry and apple. And when you’ve had the coffee and slice, it’s time to return to the work. You will probably have a few lines to get out of your head.

Happy baking. Happy walking. Happy writing.

 

The Reading Life reviews short story “Sybil’s Dress”

Mel Ulm’s blog about books, literature and writers The Reading Life, rightly declares itself “a multicultural book blog, committed to Literary Globalism”. It often provides insight into short fiction from around the world. In one of his recent blog posts he reviews my short story “Sybil’s Dress”, published this Spring in The Cabinet of Heed (Issue 19).  Mel kindly describes it as “a marvelous story”, one which prompted him to find out about the real Sybil Connolly.

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Mel Ulm’s The Reading Life

 

Book post, choice, and privilege

I’m currently reading the enthralling Her Kind by Niamh Boyce (Penguin: London, 2019) and looking forward to welcoming Niamh to my Writers’ Chat series shortly.

Meanwhile I received wonderful book post this week:

  • James Baldwin If Beale Street Could Talk
  • Hiro Arikawa The Travelling Cat
  • Mario Levrero Empty Words
  • Sinéad Gleeson Constellations

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The hardest task will be which book to dive into first – – the choice of creative non-fiction essays (ones which beg to be savoured), the mind of a cat (the pull of life, there), urban scape (and that wonderful way Baldwin has with words), handwriting & notebooks (rather close to the bone). And I think, then, about the privilege of choice and wonder if I should write for a while.