Mr Squidge's New Toy

 Last October, our cat, Timmy, died. 

Since then, we've noticed rather more birds in the garden, and I've strung feeders round the garden and put out mealworms and seeds regularly. We also put up a couple of bird boxes on the wall of the tree house.

So far, we've seen an overwintering blackcap (male); a pair of grey wagtails (which are actually mostly yellow); a pair of wrens; several robins; blue tits; coal tits; sparrows; great tits; blackbirds; and the ever-present pigeon.

Our visiting male blackcap, on birdcam

The blackcap seems to be camera shy, always choosing to ground feed when the camera's aimed at the bird table or table-feeding when the camera's aimed at the ground feeders. We were just lucky with the photo above...

There seemed to be lots of blue tit activity around the bird boxes - they seem to like one more than the other, perhaps because it's a natural log-fronted one, and the birds will poke their heads inside the hole, checking out whether or not this des-res will be what they need this spring. 

Mr Squidge rather enjoys watching them. So much so, he bought himself a birdcam. Not one that goes inside the birdbox, but a motion-activated trail cam. As a result, we now have several locations around the garden where poles have appeared as camera mounts, and regular 'what's on the camera?' sessions where we see what - if anything - we've caught on film.

One thing we noticed from the videos and still pictures is that the robins are distinctly different in appearance. One has a white patch to the left of his/her red chest, the other has a white patch to the right. A third has a white patch on their wing.  The lilac tree station is preferred by the flock of sparrows which roost in next-door's holly tree, but can only be filmed on a still day. 

Anyway, here for your enjoyment, a couple of clips from the bird table... I may well become a Twitcher in time...

I used to think blue tits only ate from feeders

Mr 'White patch on the right' Robin
 

When your book comes to life...sort of

 In just the last week, I've seen pictures of two things that could have come straight from Tilda's world. 

The first is this amazing picture, posted by a friend of mine 'Down-under'. 

Ronnie does tours of her local area, and this is a shot of the ruins of a guest house - Chateau Napier, in Leura - which was destroyed in bushfire, 1957.

But I looked at it and - assuming you've read Tilda and the Mines of Pergatt - I saw the doorway in the forest that I'd imagined and written about. Admittedly, my invented doorway also has a door within it, but it was exactly how I imagined the setting...

The second time Tilda's world came into sharp focus was when the National Trust magazine dropped through my letterbox. Mr Squidge was flicking through and I nearly jumped out of my chair when I saw this inside;

Now, I don't know about you, but my first thought was - Lady Duska! Pergatt's colour is green, and the dress is covered in gemstones...

I read the article about this dress and, it's even more impressive than gems - all those glittery 'gems' are the wing cases of irridescent beetles. And it was made for a theatre production of Macbeth - this is Lady Macbeth's gown.

I do so love it, when you find something real that could fit so well into the fantasy... Don't you?

Finding out you're a social writer

I've realised that I'm perhaps a rare breed - I'm a social writer. 

That doesn't mean I like to write in a roomful of people. I still have to be alone pretty much of the time, scribbling in notebooks or tapping away on the laptop to actually get words and ideas down and work out what's going to happen to Tilda while she's in Nargan (Book number 4 of the series - making slow but steady progress). 

What it does mean - for me at any rate - is that actually, I think what I enjoy most about calling myself a writer is having the opportunity to talk about writing and books and helping people with their writing, based on my own experiences. 

Now, as we all know, the coronavirus restrictions have prevented much of that kind of opportunity from happening; it affects the everyday, not just writing. I haven't been into the school library to talk books with students since last March, haven't been into any schools to do a creative writing day, and I miss my little writing group with all the different prompts we used to challenge ourselves with. 

There have been moments of interaction of course - the virtual zoom launch for Tilda and the Mines of Pergatt, for example. Dropping off signed copies of the paperback to local readers or the Post Office for another. But on the whole, my motivation to write, on my own and within my own four walls because there are simply no other options for venue in a covid-riddled world, simply isn't as strong when I don't have the opportunities to interact with other writers and readers. 

It's made me wonder what I like more - writing stories, or meeting the people who read what I've written or who I might be able to help? 

Thing is, I wouldn't have one without the other, would I? 

So on that note, I'd best get back to Tilda. I left her in a coach, on the way to Nargan... 

Now where did I put my pen?

And so it ends... So long, 2020.

 2020.

The year no-one expected. The year where the only certainty was uncertainty. 

We've been fortunate, Chez Squidge. Of course life has been different. We've had disappointments over scuppered plans, had to attend funerals online, adapted to restrictions on everyday life like everyone else. Our situation could have been much, much worse.

And because of that, at times, we've felt guilty. Sitting at home while others went out to work in keyworker roles didn't feel...enough...to help make things any better. 

I took to posting (almost) daily positives on facebook - forcing myself at times to look for something good to set against the relentless doom-mongering of the press, the conspiracy theorists, the ill-informed naysayers... 

I discovered Pet Portraits by Hercule; Foil, Arms and Hog's sketches; binged on Battleship Galactica and Bridgerton.

My street developed a stronger sense of community as we all made sure everyone was OK, had a street party for VE Day, put up Advent windows, and sang carols.

We discovered the joy of growing food, watching the birds, spending time without rushing from one  thing to another because we were forced to stop and take stock.

I knitted socks. Over thirty pairs of them. And taught someone else to knit them too. I also knitted 45 stars to hang on my fence in the run up to Christmas for people to take - and they did.

I wrote a creative writing book, launched the second of Tilda's adventures and finished writing her third. I helped to edit a friend's anthology of short stories. 

There's other stuff too - like a short holiday to Wales in October, family homemade pizza Fridays, making musical pipes... 

In one way, there's life BC and there's life AC. But we haven't got to the AC yet. We're in a strange period of inbetween-ness, where the virus is still here, still impacting dreadfully on life, and we're not yet seeing the benefit of the vaccines (which are nothing short of miraculous, given the time scale in which they've been developed) although my dad has had the call to get his next week...

2021 is fast approaching. There'll be no resolutions from me, only the steely determination to get through this awfulness by being kind to myself so that I can reach a point where I can hug my parents and distant family members again, and life returns to something approaching what it used to be.

I don't know what kind of 2020 you had. I hope that you got through it, whatever it threw at you, and that you're able to face the new year with at least some hope in your heart, and raise a glass tonight to better times. 

Coronasocks - the sequel

 I knitted a lot of socks in the early days of the lockdown. It was the only thing keeping me busy when my brain felt like it was in turmoil from all the strangeness of those early days.

Over the summer, I gave them a rest - partly because I have so many socks of my own, I couldn't justify knitting myself more.

But of course, the nights are drawing in. The weather is getting colder, and coronavirus is rearing its head again as England prepares to move into a new, national lockdown for a month, possibly longer. 

Seems like a perfect time to start knitting socks again, actually.

This time, they are for other people. 

I bought the wool (lots of it!) and have a variety of sizes to knit for - from a size 1 to an adult size 12! Most are bigger than what I knit for myself, so they're taking longer, but I'm OK with that. Two pairs have already gone to my mum, and two pairs are ready to be posted. 

I've also given a sock-knitting lesson to a neighbour - she picked it up really quickly (most people struggle to start with when they're trying to handle four pins at a time) so I'm looking forward to seeing how her socks turn out. 

I also seem to have set Squidgeling J off on sock knitting too, although she's found a rather novel way of knitting two socks at the same time on a magic loop, combined with a much more technical approach to making her socks fit perfectly, which takes away all the guesswork. She might have to give me lessons the next time she's home. Assuming of course, that's possible with the new lockdown.  

Great, eh? 

Only problem now, as we head into November, is that I've now lost count of how many pairs of coronasocks I've knitted to date! I haven't been taking pictures of them all, so I think - THINK - that I'm currently on my 23rd pair!!! I have one more gorgeous colourway to knit for myself at some point, but that will have to wait as I still have about four pairs to knit for other people first.

At least it'll keep me busy...

Fenced off

 Mr Squidge and I were hard at work the other week, replacing the fence in part of our garden. 

The fence was put up about seventeen, eighteen years ago, so it's lasted fairly well. It did have a few adventures though...

The gentleman who used to live next door used to be very much a DIY kind of person, so there were a lot of assorted pipes and slabs and bricks in his garden, often leaning or fallen against the fence. So various bits got a bit...broken. 

Elsewhere, the fence had a bit of an incident with a couple of policemen; Mr Squidge recounts the tale of how, one afternoon, several polica cars pulled up in the street, and the officers were moving up and down the road and trying to look over gates in driveways. Realising they needed to get into the back gardens somehow, Mr Squidge let them into ours, and the officers had a bit of a Hot Fuzz moment, and leapt over the fence. It never fully recovered.

Then there was the badger. There are several badger setts near us - some on nearby allotments, the others disturbed after houses were built on what used to be the cricket pitch. Badgers aren't stopped by fences...they just...push. (Mr Squidge did his best to barricade them out with old slabs, roofing tiles and railway sleepers, but the damage had been done.)

So yeah, we needed a new fence. Thanks goodness none of the posts had rotted - they were still really sound.

After discussion with our new neighbours - and a lot of skip-filling on their part, bless 'em! - we bought replacement panels and trellis to put on the top.

The old panels came out easy enough, but then we had to dig up all the brambles growing along the fence line, and cut back overhanging branches etc. The first few panels went in easy enough - I stood one end, Mr Squidge the other, and we hammered them down into position. Fab.

Only problem was, we made the mistake of starting at one end of the garden, then moved to the opposite end to fit a panel that needed to be cut down, leaving a gap in the middle. And of course it had to be that the last panel we fitted needed to be cut down - on both ends - to make it fit the gap. 

We got it done though. Took us the best part of two dry days. We filled two builder's bags with brambles and branches, plus two trugs, a compost bag and a bucket with weeds. 

It looks fab. 

And we've even left what we're calling a 'wildlife gap' underneath it. 

*wink wink, could've hammered it down further but didn't*

Now all that's left is to fill in the empty spaces in the border with bedding plants the rest of my family gave me earlier in the year...

Good and Bad News

So in spite of my best laid plans, I haven't blogged for well over a month. I have my reasons...

The bad news is that our cat, Timmy, passed away. Unfortunately he was diagnosed with FIV, or Feline Immunodeficiency Virus, when suffering from a nasty infection due to infected gums. (This can be one of the symptoms of FIV, and knowing that he's always been a cat prone to teeth and gum issues, Timmy was probably infected quite a few years ago, but neither we or the vet suspected it.)

The vet advised pulling Timmy's remaining teeth because they were in such a bad state (he'd had some removed a few years ago) and hoped that with sufficient antibiotics, we could get him over the infection, ease the pain his teeth had been causing him, and he'd be fine. 

However, the infection was too severe, and in spite of the best endeavours of our vet, Timmy didn't have the immune system to fight it. We buried him in the garden, under the golden rod that he used to love sleeping in when the weather was hot. Of course we're sad, but we know he's not suffering any more.  

There are several bits of good news to counterbalance the bad though.

The first is that Mr Squidge and I managed a few days away in North Wales. I spent many of my childhood holidays there, so it was a real trip down memory lane. The house we'd booked had patio windows overlooking Snowdon, and it was wonderful to see the Weather (Welsh weather deserves a capital 'W'!) sweeping in from the sea and over the mountains, sometimes blocking them completely from view. Add to that same view Ffestiniog steam trains crossing the causeway at Portmadog and the tidal estuary, and we were set. I made the sand squeak and had a paddle at Porthor; walked across the headland to Porth Dinllaen and the Ty Coch pub; picked stones off the beach at Llanbedrog; wandered round Portmeirion for the first hour with barely anyone else there, and had takeaway from Borth-y-Gest nearly every night.

It made me realise that, not having had a holiday for the last three years, I was pretty fed up with my own four walls, and really needed a change of scene. 

A few pics of our time away...

The wonderfully magical Portmeirion

That peak, right in the middle? Snowdon. It was in sunshine on one occasion.

Porthor...or Whistling Sands. Complete with windbreak!

Porth Dinllaen, and the queue for drinks at the Ty Coch beginning to build...

The view from the end of Nefyn Golf Course. 

TRAIN!!

A gorgeous evening walk around Borth-y-Gest, with painted clouds

We took Sparky, and apart from a few miles on the motorway, did everything by electric. 

This charging post is at the Caenarfon Morrisons, but we were also able to charge - for free - 

at National Trust car parks several times. 

The other bit of good news is that I have signed not one, but TWO book contracts with Bink! One is for Tilda #3, which is going to be Tilda and the Tombs of Kradlock. The other is for my little - although it seems to have grown, rather - non-fiction project, but I'll blog about that separately. 

At least you'll be able to follow the next stage in Tilda's journey, probably sometime next year. Something to look forward to, in light of the year 2020's turned out to be and shows no sign of letting up...

I live in hope. And writing!

Catching up...

 Goodness - HOW long since I wrote a blog post?! 

Well, here's one just to bring you up to speed on what's been happening since the middle of July...JULY!! And we're now in September. Blimey.

First off, I hope that wherever you are when you're reading this, that you are still safe and well, and coping with these strange times and any restrictions you may currently have imposed upon you and yours. Life seems to consist of wash hands, wear a mask, keep your distance! And its all very samey as one day blurs into another. 

But we're still here, and there have been some exciting things happening since you last dropped by...

Tilda and the Mines of Pergatt was launched, the competition was won, and at some point (Californian wildfires permitting) there will be a video compilation taken from the launch for me to share with you.

We've discovered some printing issues with Tilda and the Mines of Pergatt - I discovered several copies with pages missing, pages cut short, and even shifting text... If you had a print copy and you have any issues with it, please do let me know. 

Tilda #3 has been delivered to Bink. They like it, I've got a couple of kinks to iron out, but nothing humungous. No idea when it's likely to be published - I'd guess middle of next year at the earliest.

I've begun a non-fiction project, and am slowly working my way through it. Problem is, there's so much stuff I could include, it's hard to know where to stop! I'm working little and often on that one as the story begins to settle in my head.

I've NOT begun to work seriously on Tilda #4 yet, mainly because of the non-fiction project, but also because I have been doing some paid editing work for a friend I reconnected with recently. I won't say too much at this stage, but I am very excited to be working on a collection of steampunk short stories he's putting together. I have to say I wasn't sure about being paid for the editing to begin with, but the more stories I've worked on with M, the more my confidence has grown. It's a bit like when I started doing author visits - I daren't charge because I didn't have the experience, but I need time to prove to myself that what I can offer has value and is worth paying for. It helps that he writes well and between us, we've knocked the collection into very, VERY good shape.

I am hoping to attend a couple of book fairs later this month...although the UK has today introduced a legal limit on social gatherings of no more than six people, and I've no idea how that will affect the planned events. 

What else? Squidgeling T has gone back to his new house in Manchester ready for a new uni year, while Squidgeling J goes back to Bristol later this month. Have to admit I am nervous, as both Squidgelings are in the age range most affected by coronavirus infections at the moment. In other family news, my Dad celebrated his 80th birthday with a socially distanced weekend of visits from various family members - and had three cakes, one to celebrate with each of his children's families. Not quite what we'd originally planned for him, but still a lovely occasion.  

And that's about it for the moment. I promise it won't be as long before I post my next blog!! Although something more exciting has got to happen for me to write about, first...

A Tale of Two Versions

As every author knows, you often end up with multiple versions of a novel's manuscript on your computer. Mine go something like this;

Version 1 is the really rough one. Often doesn't have much formatting in it, no speech marks, sometimes notes instead of proper sentences.

Version 2 is the first polish. Fills out the story, gets formatted, looks much more 'proper'. Usually ends up hanging together as a story much better. 

Version 3 is often the 'voice' version, where I really get into my character's head and often rewrite sections from their point of view. It's really where the story comes alive, and often the one that gets sent to beta readers - or the publisher if I'm feeling really confident about it.

Well...

You remember I had a bit of a rough time just before Tilda #2 was published and launched? (It went great, by the way - a few issues that others might like to learn from, but I'll blog about that another time).  I was working on Version 3 of Tilda #3. I'd found a few glitches and worked out some issues, but took a break from the third novel to give Tilda and the Mines of Pergatt a really good start.

After the launch, I picked Tilda #3 back up - and realised that, although I had begun working on a third version, at some point I'd switched to Version 2 of Tilda #3 to continue working on. 

This means I now have a beginning of Tilda #3, Version 3 that's been tightened and put into Tilda's voice, and a middle of Tilda #3, Version 2, that's had the same treatment. 

You'd think it would be simple to fix - just combine the two bits of the different versions and carry on, yeah? 

Nope. 

Cos when I was working on Version 2 more recently, I was grappling with some issues that had implications for the earlier part of the novel - and I went back in Version 2 to change them. This makes it VERY complicated to use Word's combine/compare function, and I decided not to go down that route for fear of complicating matters even further.

I'm left with two versions of the same novel, neither of which is the most up-to-date on its own.

This has resulted in me printing out a hard copy of Version 3 and transferring any sections I changed in that to Version 2 on the computer, mainly because Version 2 is the larger file which suggests there is more content in it. The result is Tilda #3, Version 4. 

It is slow, painstaking work to correct. Every now and again I come across a section and I don't know which version has the most recent changes in it - both sound OK. As a result, Version 4 - in places - has ended up with something entirely different again. Hopefully it'll all come together in the end. 

I'm just thankful I realised before I sent anything off to the publisher... 

Half a polished novel, anyone? 

At least I don't have this many versions on the go...

Soxploits - or a Coronasock update

The pace has slowed, but I've not stopped knitting... 

Since I last wrote about my soxploits, here and here, I've knitted even more. Think I might need help for this unusual addiction, cos I counted how many pairs I have in my drawer, and I reckon it's almost three dozen! Makes it easy to do a full wool wash of socks though.

Anyhoo, onto what I've created more recently. 

The first pair I knitted since my last update, I didn't keep. The wool was a bit of a pig to knit with for a start and I knew if I wore these, I'd remember the issues I had with them rather than enjoy wearing them. Strands of wool are twisted you see, and sometimes the 'twist' goes opposite to the way you naturally knit, in which case your lovely smooth wool begins to separate into thinner strands. Or the twist goes with the way you naturally knit, and in some cases ends up twisting the length of wool back on itself. As it did in this case. (Sometimes you can prevent this from happening by starting your knitting from the middle of the ball, but as I couldn't find that end in this particular ball, I was stuck.)

Anyway, the number of times I had to dangle my socks in thin air to allow the wool a chance to untwist itself... Ugh! The colours didn't knit up how I expected them to, either. The label states no two socks will be identical, and that's fine, but the stripes of each colour were so wide, one sock ended up green and the other pink. Didn't like that, either.

Fortunately, a neighbour had asked me to knit her a pair of socks (and for sock-knitting lessons once we're allowed to meet up) and as her feet are the same size as mine, I gave her these.

The next sock project was for a friend I met at Charnwood 2016; Bridget had two pairs of West Yorkshire Spinner socks already (you can buy them direct from the company) but she asked me for another, long enough to be welly socks. So...Passionfruit Cooler was the wool she chose, and when it arrived I got knitting. I used a different pattern this time - one which uses a 3.25mm needle instead of the 2.5mm I'm used to, because as this was a longer sock than I'm used to knitting, it might speed things up. 

When I got to the toe of the first sock I posted it to Bridget, to check the sizing. All good, so when she posted it back, I finished the toe off, knitted the other sock and sent them off. They looked a bit odd, because they were knitted all in rib; it's a very stretchy pattern but the garment always appears too thin to fit when it's off a body. I chose rib because I'd wanted to be certain that, if my tension was a bit off on the different sized pins, the socks would be more forgiving when worn. 

Pair number eleven completed.

My rainbows on the left and
Bridget's welly socks on the right.

And then I knitted my rainbow socks... Squeee! Again, West Yorkshire Spinners wool (they are my new favourite brand, I think) in shade Rum Paradise. And yes, I know it's pink rather than red before the orange, so it's not a 'proper' rainbow, but I just love the colours. 

I had to get a bit clever on these, otherwise the stripes would have been wider and then all out of sync when I got to the bottom of the heel and beyond. So I ended up only knitting three/four rows of each new colour down the heel (lots of ends needed to be sewn in as a result!) and by luck rather than judgement, it all worked out so my colours continued in sequence. Hooray! Pair twelve...

They are gorgeous to wear...

 

And then I went on to pair thirteen. I should've guessed there'd be problems, by the number. The lovely plain purple merino is gorgeous to knit and shows lace beautifully (I'd already knitted two pairs in this brand of wool) but could I get the lace pattern I wanted to knit right? Could I heck. I eventually chose a 'zig-zag cable' pattern, which isn't a true cable at all, and they worked out fine; the end result was worth the hassle.

 

And onto pair fourteen... Another WYS pair, in either English Rose or Peony, I can't remember which! It's a lovely pinky-purple tweedy effect when knitted, but boy oh boy. Previously I'd knitted almost a whole sock in it before deciding I didn't like whatever pattern I'd used and pulled it all back. The wool has been sitting in my wool bag now since before Christmas, and I've not felt inspired to do anything with it. The time felt right to have another go.

I found a basketweave cable. Didn't like the look of it. Tried a lace pattern. Didn't like that, either. Tried another...aaaargh! Nothing looked right! I needed something that complimented the tweedy effect, but...then I started playing. I made up a pattern, based on a widened and elongated moss stitch and at last, I was off. And finally, I have socks I like!

 

My next two pairs will be for an old uni friend and her partner, who live down-under; they'll be odds-and-sods versions so I'll share them when they're done, cos I never know what they're going to look like until I get going on them!

At least you won't be bored reading about socks again any time soon... There's some news to be posted later this week about an official book launch event for Tilda and the Mines of Pergatt, so keep your eyes peeled for that, and get your competition entry in soon!

Bye for now!

That sinking feeling...

I was in two minds about posting this, because it deals with a rough time recently which resulted in a few issues around the publication of Tilda and the Mines of Pergatt. 

However, I decided to go ahead and share this with you because it's another pointer towards how hard writing and publication can be when you're not completely focused. I have to say that I'm really thankful for the support of the team at Bedazzled Ink in this, which made it possible to still meet the intended publication day; they cover pretty much every aspect of the publication process themselves, and I didn't make their job easy with this particular novel!

So what happened?

In January, I received the edit from Bink. I worked through that OK and sent it back a few days later for the typeset to be prepped. Bink also worked on the cover design (which I LOVE!) and the blurb, so although there was radio silence for a while, I knew cogs were turning furiously behind the scenes.

Then - COVID. The world went a bit mad, and my head wasn't good with the weirdness of everything. I fought the panic attacks of my first post-lockdown shopping trips, stayed at home, and kept on editing Tilda #3 while I waited for the typeset of Tilda #2. 

We settled a bit more into the new 'normal' and got to May 8th...when my father-in-law died. (Thought to be Covid related, but not confirmed).

Things got a bit blurry after that, as you can imagine. And in the middle of that particular cloud of grief, the typeset arrived. I worked my way through it, using it as a distraction, and sent it back on the 20th.

But something was niggling at me. There were a couple of places in the novel where I felt I'd not explained things properly or there was a lack of consistency with the first book. On the 22nd, I emailed Bink to say that, as much as it pained me to say it - we were at the typeset stage, for Power's sake! - I didn't think the book was ready to be published. Could they give me a bit more time to address the issues?

Bink might well have had a facepalm moment in the office, but they never hesitated; I was given a week. 

In hindsight, I realise I was not in a good place mentally - haven't been for a while - and probably should have given the edit much more time. The Black Dog that people talk about had actually been loping alongside me at a distance since well before January; since lockdown he's been an awful lot closer at times, and I finally recognised him for what he was. I'm still up-and-down a bit, but on the down days, I allow myself the time I need to do something that doesn't involve concentration...

Back to the book. 28th May saw my typeset notes returned to Bink. A day later there was a revamped typeset back with me for final read through and I still found things to change! Mainly cos I'd missed them before, but also as a result of the changes I'd asked for previously. (I wonder if there is a record of how many times something's been read and changed and faults are still being picked up?) 

Either way, on the 1st June, Tilda and the Mines of Pergatt was published digitally - hooray! Paperbacks would follow! All done!

Not quite. June 9th, I had a surprise delivery; I videoed myself opening the box!

And then, as I began to take photos to post on the Scribbles, my heart sank. I realised there was a typo on the spines... The title was Tilda and the Merjan. Talk about being in the clouds one minute, and dashed to earth the next. My first reaction was, what would readers think if they'd ordered books already and they arrived with a duff spine title? 

But within 24 hours, and even considering the time difference between us, Bink were on it, had made the changes, sent the cover flat to me to double check it, and the new cover version was on its way to the printers. 

If you do receive a copy with the wrong title though, hang onto it - I'm reliably informed by Bink that some book collectors pay good money for copies that have mistakes on them. So when I'm rich and famous, you might be able to cash in! I have forty of them myself...they will either have a corrected 'patch' added to the spine, or be sold as is - both cheaper than a 'proper' copy - at some point in the future...

It's all been a bit mad, but we've come through and out of the other side and I'm still smiling. 

At least I've learnt to recognise the Black Dog so I can take steps to keep him at a distance in future - or not tackle important stuff when he's trotting at my side.

Coming out the other side of covid-19

So after almost 8 weeks of lockdown, the UK is beginning to open up.

There are very different views on this, as you might imagine. Some want things to happen quicker, to get the economy going again. Others are saying it's happening too fast, considering how many people have already died and combined with the fact that the all-important R rate is so close to 1, it will take very little to allow the virus to take hold again.

My own personal view is that as a country, we should have acted firmer, quicker. We should have continued testing and tracing in the early stages. We should have taken notice of predictions years ago that a pandemic was bound to happen sooner or later, and we should have been better prepared for it when it came.

However, hindsight's a wonderful thing.

Suffice to say that Family Squidge are very much still staying at home at the moment to see what happens in three weeks time... We have been bereaved once because of Covid-19, and we don't wish to experience any more losses.

So how are we coping?

We've settled into a routine of slow starts and late nights. As the Squidgelings continue to complete uni assignments and revise for exams, we tend to do our own separate things during the day and come together every evening for dinner. The highlight of the week is pizza night - often on a Friday - when Mr Squidge makes the dough and we all choose our own toppings. It's better than any takeaway!

I'm still posting daily positives on facebook so that even on the toughest of days - when I have no motivation or feel I've not achieved anything - I can look on the day and find something good. There's only been one day when I really couldn't find anything positive, and in posting that very fact I found it; the kindness and care of friends.

I'm still struggling to write. This is partly due to increased interruptions from the family, but mainly because I can't seem to concentrate. My brain seems to want to flit from one thing to another, which means that I have knitting, colouring, writing, quilting, and embroidery projects on the go at the moment. I'm plugging away a little at a time when I do have the brainpower and focus. I've been doing some critique for a couple of friends though - somehow finding things to improve is a lot easier in someone else's work than in my own at the moment!

Church is problematic. I've had times in my life when I've felt far from God - the advice is usually 'pray harder!' At the minute I feel as though I'm relying on others to pray for me, as I can't find the words. It's not as though there isn't any church at all - I've been astounded and moved by the way the church has mobilised itself to continue to meet the spiritual needs of Christians and the practical needs of people in communities at a time when the physical buildings are closed. My own church has a weekly online service, which is great, but it's not the same. Might never be the same again...

And I think that sums up this point of the pandemic in a nutshell for me. It's a very different life we're living at the moment, and we're nowhere near 'out the other side'. We've perhaps jumped over the first hurdle, and are beginning to adapt, but life will be lived on the edge for some time to come yet.

Photo: New Scientist

Grief

A lot of you will have already seen the post on facebook which said that my father-in-law died last Friday. Thank you to everyone who has sent love and condolences - it's very much appreciated.

As you can imagine, trying to deal with a death in the current crisis under the restrictions is a little harder then it would normally be. Even without the fact that we are 200 miles away from where Mr H died. It's very, very sad. And very, very strange.

If I'm not here very much over the next week or so, that's why.

Be back soon. x

Once a writer, always a writer?

I've recently joined a facebook group for students who went to my primary school in the 70s and 80s.

There are some amazing memories being posted - strange how names and events come back to you when you see the photos of old schoolmates. I found a few photos of my own, and although I recognise many faces, I don't often remember the names that should go with them... It's still something I struggle with, if I'm honest. I can remember you and things I know about you, but not your name. (In fact I can forget a name within moments of being told it...)

Anyway, in reminiscing and looking for the photos I found my old junior school reports, which cover Years 3 to 6 in modern schooling. What became apparent in reading them was that, from early on, I was writing stories, reading lots, and generally being creative rather than mathsy or sporty.

It was especially interesting to read about my writing...

Y3: Katherine thoroughly enjoys reading. Her creative writing is imaginative and carefully expressed with colourful descriptions and good vocabulary. She has learned to join her writing, but now tends to be rather untidy occasionally.

Y4: Katherine reads very well and seems to enjoy reading both to herself and aloud. She puts her spelling and vocabulary to good use in her creative writing, which is always lively and interesting, and sustained at length.

Y5: Creative English has been outstanding. She is able to express feelings and details and shows a sympathy for her characters. She writes lengthy stories and her punctuation, grammar and spelling can be so accurate that they hardly need correcting. She has an extensive vocabulary and her work is most enjoyable to read.

Y6: In her creative English work, Katherine is highly imaginative. She produces lively, spontaneous poetry full of descriptive phrases. Her stories are lengthy and follow a well developed plot. The excitement generated by the dialogue and the action shows that Katherine derives much pleasure from writing her stories. Punctuation, sentence structure and use of paragraphs are excellent. Her extensive vocabulary reflects her love of words and the depth of her reading.

Reading them actually made me a bit sad.

While the reports indicate that I've always loved reading and writing, and that I used to write decent stories even as a child, the reports make me realise how much of that joy and ability I lost over the years that came after.

When I think of how many years I've spent, re-learning the art of writing stories after a decade in a microbiology laboratory and another ten as a stay at home mum, there's a little bit of me that can't help wondering whether I should've tried harder to become an author earlier in my life. Especially now that my current ambition is to have published all five of Tilda's stories by the time I'm 60!

Mind, having said that, I'm also a believer that things happen at the right time; I know that if I'd not changed focus to science and worked as a trainer in microbiological awareness, and if I hadn't spent so many years training as a guider, then I wouldn't have developed my presentation, workshop and  and speaking skills which have been so vital to my school visits and talks. If the physical act of writing stories had all come too easily, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to seek out help, and as a result, make such wonderful writing friends. If I'd never offered to help listen to reluctant readers at my children's school, I'd never have even thought about writing stories for other people to read.

Maybe, sometimes, you need to let a talent rest, so that you can rediscover it later? But not just rediscover it - rediscover it and combine it with a few other skills you've learnt, so that it develops into something even bigger and better?

I wonder what 11 yr old me would have said, if you'd told her back then that one day those creative writing stories would mean she'd one day be published and passing on her love of writing to children her own age?

Fighting to find some focus

Life is still very up and down, isn't it?

I've taken to posting my daily positives on facebook, because otherwise it's very easy to only see the limitations and negatives of these strange times.

Writing feels incredibly difficult at the moment. Not the blogs so much - they've almost gone back to being an online diary, like in the very early days of the Scribbles. But the novels...

I thought that as we have all this enforced time on our hands, I'd set about editing Tilda 3. Unfortunately I seem to be making things worse, not better. I can only do small chunks at a time, which isn't helping the story to flow. And yesterday... I had a particularly tricky scene to rework. I can see the action clearly in my head, but trying to write it from Tilda's deep viewpoint? By the end of two hours, it felt as though I was walking through treacle. I'd only got through two pages, and neither of them felt very improved.

I couldn't seem to get into Tilda's head at all, and it made me wonder whether there's an element of coronavirus crisis causing it? We're all going through so many changes so quickly in the current crisis, maybe I can't actually lift my subconscious focus from myself? Not that I'm being selfish - more that, like at other times when Life has got in the way of creativity, Life at this precise moment feels really big and scary and the effect that has is to shut down any creative juices that might otherwise be flowing. Survival mode, rather than comfy creative mode?

Except creativity hasn't shut down completely. I'm knitting socks again. They're relatively quick to knit, can almost be done with my eyes closed, and they don't require much brain-power, so it feels an easier outlet. The only difference is that these 'coronasocks' are being knitted for other people because I've got a drawerful of them already and don't really need any more...

Red white and blue for Squidgeling J, purple and green for E 

I'm also colouring in, which is why I took delivery yesterday of Jacqui Grace's book, Images of Hope. We all need hope at this time, don't we...? But I also like Jacqui's style and find it restful to create something unique, based on her work. Again, it's something I can do without using much brainpower.

One I did earlier in Words of Grace Devotional also by Jacqui

One waiting to be done in the new book

Hopefully, as this new 'normal' gets more normal, the focus will come back. I'll keep on trying to edit in between the colouring and knitting and who knows - maybe Tilda 3 will turn out OK in the end.

If not, maybe my next book will be all about knitting socks.

Stay safe and well. 

The Rollercoaster that is COVID-19

Last Wednesday, I felt remarkably upbeat. I was getting creative, and felt like I was coping with the changes we were seeing in society because of Covid-19.

However, things don't feel so rosy any more.

Every day since then has brought new restrictions, new closures, new ways of 'being'. The Squidge family has done their best, but it hasn't been easy... Personally, I've found myself very much more up-and-down. I have experienced an overwhelming mixture of emotions, often in just one day. Here are a few of the strongest.

Fear. Mainly of the unknown - when will we fall ill? How bad will it be? When will UK life be locked down? Will the NHS cope?

Sadness. We have had to deal with the limitations which need to be enforced at church - there's no public worship, and we've seen weddings cancelled and funerals limited.

Gratitude. There are lots of folk doing Good Things for friends and neighbours, or trying to give people access to activities online, or helping to calm and reassure those who are finding things difficult.

Worry. Almost constant, for family and friends who are vulnerable due to age or underlying health issues, or for those close to us who have been classed as key workers and continue to put themselves at risk of infection.

Anger. Directed against people who ignore the restrictions and guidelines which have been put in place to try to protect those who are most vulnerable and who are going to be working hard to protect us.

Disbelief. Life will probably never be the same again. We will always live with B.C and A.C - before Covid-19 and after Covid-19.

Joy. Seeing rainbows in windows, sharing comedy videos with the Squidgelings, taking a (safely distanced from others) walk and seeing signs of spring in my own and other people's gardens.

Panic. Needing to go out for some basic supplies like bread or cereal, and seeing empty shelves or no way of keeping a safe distance from other customers in a crowded store.

One minute I feel calm and content, editing Tilda 3 or colouring in my devotional book or reading or knitting. The next, it all comes crashing in again - the reality of what we are faced with - and I find I can't stop the tears from falling.

So yeah, it doesn't feel like a good place to be at the moment. But as one friend told me, when I posted I was on the verge of a panic attack after a trip to the local Aldi, talking about it all helps and there ARE things I can do to protect my mental health.

For anyone else who's struggling like me at the moment...you are not alone. Isolated, yes, but not alone. Do whatever you need to, to find the light in these dark times. In fact, I shall be lighting a candle in my window at 7pm tonight, to remind myself of the ultimate Light, Jesus.

Look for the light, and call out the darkness so it doesn't get a grip - on you, on your emotions, and on how we face this crisis together.

Love to you all. Stay home and stay safe.

Photo by Marc Ignacio

Creativity, faith, and COVID-19

So...the world's a very different place at the moment. COVID-19 is affecting all of us in different ways, but it is significantly changing our lives. I don't intend to say much more on that, other than stay safe and well, readers, if you can.

I do intend to say something about creativity and faith in these times though.

Creativity keeps me sane. If you're a regular reader, you'll know I knit (socks mainly - got two pairs on the go at the moment!), quilt (there's one needs quilting), draw (occasionally) and arrange flowers, all on top of writing. To that end, I will have plenty of projects to work on if - when? - the UK goes into a stricter lockdown period.

If you're a regular reader, you'll also know that I'm Christian, currently a churchwarden, and my faith is important to me - although I tend not to write too much about it here.

You may well have seen that the Church of England has suspended all public services at the moment; on the one hand, that is a huge relief as leadership teams all over will have been thinking how best to protect what can be in some parishes an elderly and vulnerable church family. On the other, it's challenged us to become more creative about keeping in touch and continuing to provide spiritual support when public shared worship is not possible. Some churches are live streaming services, others (like my own, hopefully) will have sessions where the building is open for personal prayer. We are still trying to work it all out...

But this blog is about combining my faith and my creativity, so it's about to get more personal.

Over Lent, my church has been running a course based on the Psalms. If you're not familiar with them, they are songs and poems which encompass every aspect of human emotion and human life, and can be a source of great comfort. Angry? There's a psalm expressing anger. Fearful? Ditto. Full of worship and thanksgiving? Still got one.

Anyhow, I didn't sign up for the course, but decided to attempt a Bible Journal, sketching pictures brought to mind by various verses within both the psalms that were being used on the course and from the lectionary psalms (the daily readings). Now, I don't claim to be an artist. At best, I can replicate something I see - a copyist. But I've had a go...

(If you don't recognise the words for the Psalms, it might be because I have The Message, which I find more accessible...)

You might be asking why on earth am I blogging about it now, when I don't usually blog my faith 'stuff'?

It's me, being creative. If you are reading this, and you are a person of faith, I hope it encourages you, or provides an idea for engaging with your faith in a different way. I'm going to carry on being creative, and every now and again I'll share the results.

Mind you, that means you might also get pictures of socks or quilts or short stories, too!

Stay creative, Scribblers.

Keeping Yourself Motivated (When Your Writing Needs a Retreat - Part 3)

The second workshop with Isabel Costello at the retreat was about Motivation, and followed on from Inspiration the previous day. It was based around a series of workshops that Isabel already runs with Voula Tsoflias, called Resilience for Writers, but the skills - once learned - can be applied to any life situation.

The definition of motivation is much easier to pin down, and less subjective, than that of inspiration; 'the desire or willingness to do something; enthusiasm.'

Now, I've had slumps. Times when I simply can't be bothered to do the thing I know I need to do. It's lost it's spark; I've fallen out of love with it; someone has prevented me; I don't want to do it, or Life gets in the way. So this workshop really helped me to think through what motivates me - and how I manage to claw myself back from setbacks.

First, we were asked WHY we wrote. The reasons were many and varied. My own were to encourage children to read, and because fantasy is a chance to leave the real world behind and immerse myself in another place. And because I enjoy creating those other worlds...

Some of the other reasons were;

• I enjoy it
• characters can do/say the things I can't
• I can broach difficult situations
• I can't not
• I love words
• it's a safe place to be somebody else
• to connect with other people
• because no-one else is me.

NOBODY said 'to get rich and famous.' 

Have you ever listed the positive qualities of your writing? I bet most of the time you end up saying 'it's not my best. It's not very good. It's probably rubbish...' We were challenged to write down three good things about our writing. The qualities were very personal, and in some cases demonstrated how difficult we find it to accept that we do things well. Was it because we were women and not used to 'bigging ourselves up'? Or our British restraint? 

Having listed these positives, how often did we allow ourselves to think those thoughts? My answer was 'every time I read a badly-written book.' But even then, it's not very often... So what ration of time did I spend taking time for positive reflection compared to negative criticism? Well...let's just say 'could do better.'

To build on the idea of being positive about our writing, we were invited to recount our proudest or happiest writing moment. They were; 

• being anthologised - it was like being made a saint. (This one resulted in the person being referred to as 'Saint X' for the rest of the day - but we all knew what she meant.)
• finishing a story - this is a huge one! (So many people 'have a story to tell' but never actually write it or get to the end of it once they start it.)
• a friend reading the author's book about a family issue which subsequently gave the friend hope for her own situation. (How often does sharing our own hard experience help someone else?)
• overcoming the fear of having dyslexia to reading aloud for the first time in a writer's group. (Fear can be an old, old friend...it's good to be able to kick its butt every now and then.)
• winning a competition at a comedy festival. (Always a fabulous moment.)
• when the agent read the author's book on the train, and ended up laughing so hard, the man sitting opposite her moved away. (What more could you ask for, when writing comedy?)
• attending an assembly, watching children act out a story they'd written collectively, based on a character created by the author. (Still gives me the grins, years later!)
• the debut novel launch party! (Celebration most definitely in order.)

We decided we should celebrate our fabulousness - and visualise success to make it happen.

And that's where the resilient thinking comes in. Because we're used to focusing on the negatives - I'll never get published, I'm a rubbish writer compared to..., things will never get better - and our negative thoughts make us feel bad and then we act in unhelpful ways, (albeit not always consciously) we need something to help us 'to recognise and adapt unhelpful thoughts and beliefs to recover more quickly from setbacks'. 

It's based on CBT - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - which encourages you to change the way you think about how you feel, and change the way you feel about how you think.

This was demonstrated by Isabel asking us to place different words relating to feelings into quadrants labelled: negative emotions, high energy; negative emotions, low energy; positive emotions, high energy; and positive emotions, low energy. There was quite some discussion during this activity, and it got quite emotional as certain negatively charged words struck a chord with us. Once the words were down - there was no right or wrong answer as to where they should go - Isabel relabelled the quadrants. They became zones of survival mode, burnout, inspired, and recovery. As you might expect, all of us felt we created our best work when experiencing feelings that resided in the positive emotion areas, although most of us associated this with 'recovery' feelings rather than 'inspired' ones. The trick was to recognise your own personal sweet spot, and do your best to move yourself from either of the negative quadrants back into it. 

All of us looking very thoughtful, trying to decide if the words were in the 'right' places
(Moira's photo) 

There was also a lot of discussion around what happens to put us into the negative emotion areas. Husbandly interruptions featured highly (!), with social media a close second. There were much bigger issues mentioned too - lost publication deals, unsupportive friends, family crises - which were obviously situations that lay outside of our control.

What DID lay within our control was how we thought about all of them. Yes, we would acknowledge the situation and the pain it caused, but we didn't have to let it dictate what happened afterwards. 

This has to be something you learn to do, because it requires a certain level of self awareness and that isn't always an easy thing to develop. For a start, in order to be more self-aware, we have to expose our vulnerabilities - one of the retreatees likened it to picking a scab and allowing yourself to bleed - and the places where those vulnerabilities stemmed from. That's not an easy or comfortable thing to do, but if it's understood why we might be feeling the way we are and can then rationalise our catastrophic thoughts as a result, perhaps we stand a chance of changing our actions that follow into something more positive. 

I think I'm already fairly resilient-ish regarding writing. For example - I've picked myself up after rejection. Sometimes, I admit, I got depressed and didn't write. At others, I got angry and thought 'I'll show you'. I know which worked better for me... I realised that it's easier to apply to writing - because that's more in MY control. I find it harder to apply the same principles to situations in my life when I'm not in control of external factors and I'm more emotionally affected, but I'll keep trying.

Going back to motivation then...resilient thinking can help keep you working on a project - like trying to get a novel published and it taking ten or more years (StarMark!) to achieve. But it might need something extra too. Here are a few things that were suggested. 

Make a list of achievable goals. Especially if, like me, you write a long list of BIG things and end up feeling overwhelmed. Break it down into smaller chunks, cross off part-jobs. Or - and yes, I do this! - add completed jobs that didn't originally feature on the list, to the list, simply for the satisfaction of crossing something off! 

Set a time limit. Tell yourself you're going to write for an hour. That's all. Just an hour. And then get on with it. The Writing Room offers extreme versions of this - you set yourself a goal for the session in a room full of writers, and at the end you see what you've achieved. 

Set a word count instead. Doesn't matter how many, but be realistic about how many words you think you can achieve in a specific time period. And if it proves to be too high, don't feel bad about changing it down until you hit a number that seems to be working out for you.  

Visualise your success. It does work, because your conscious and subconscious brain try to come into alignment, but you need to remember that what 'success' means is different for everyone. What is your personal measure of success?

Celebrate the steps along the way, not just the destination arrived at. End of a chapter, a thousand words, finishing the first s****y draft...

And finally, a personal faith-based example of my own; years ago, I was struggling to pray in a particular way. A visiting minister preached about how he'd had exactly the same problem, and shared the advice he was given. 'Pray in the way that you CAN,' he was told. 'Not in the way that you CAN'T.' 

Ultimately, I reckon to keep ourselves motivated in writing, we each need to write in the way that we can, not in the way that we can't. And to do that successfully, we need to be able to recognise both what keeps us in our personal positive sweet spots, and what we can do to make it easier to get back there when life takes us to the dark side.

So here's to finding the silver lining in every cloud, and keeping going when things get tough.

Finding Inspiration for Your Stories (When your writing needs a retreat - Part 2)

The first of the workshops provided by Isabel Costello as part of my recent retreat was about Inspiration.

As a writer, I'm often asked "Where do you get your ideas from?" My stock answer is usually "Everywhere!" Let me give you a few examples...

i) The time we found a bird carcass in our chimney, which sparked the idea for a horror short about a young chimney sweep who perished.
ii) The transparent acrylic guitar spotted in a music shop window, which gave me a title; The Glass Guitar.
iii) The tradition Sardinians used to have of making a mourning blanket, which became a second-placed-in-a-competition story.

You get the idea.

Well, we (the retreatees) were asked how we would define 'inspiration'. My own definition was - 'the thing, seen or heard, which sparks the idea for a story and makes me ask what if...' There were plenty of other suggestions, but my favourite was 'the intake of breath - the 'oooh!' - moment'.

And apparently that was spot on. The word 'inspire' comes from the Latin inspirare - to breathe in, or to breathe life into.

A more formal definition is 'the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially something creative.' It is, essentially, the moment of creation. The lightbulb moment. The seed with potential to grow.

So where does inspiration come from? As in, where in our brains does it happen? There's a lot of evidence that it arises in the subconscious part of our brain - the limbic system. It involves the subconscious, or dreams, or imagination, and is NOT, strangely enough, related to words - even though the form it eventually takes will be written in an author's case.

You'd think that there would be a finite number of ideas to have, wouldn't you? We've probably all heard there are only seven story types - but there are a darn sight more than only seven stories in the world, aren't there? Writers are inspired to see new connections, new ways of using things that already exist - and it's THAT which brings us the rich variety of fiction available to us.

But ideas don't always make it much beyond the inspiration phase. Every author probably has a number of manuscripts or half-finished stories languishing on the laptop or in a notebook. How do you know which idea to run with? Which has legs of its own and will run in a direction you didn't expect? For me, it's the ones that I have the most questions about - but the answers keep coming. It's the idea that keeps growing, 'getting bigger and brighter' was how Isabel described it, before she gave us our first prompt; a woman is standing in front of a house.

We began to throw a few ideas around - there was something inside she wanted. It was her childhood home. She was stalking someone. Destiny lay beyond the front door... As we talked, we started to build on the basics and the suggestions got more involved. The 'growing bigger and brighter' was happening. Right there. In that moment!

Inspiration can be found in many and varied places and from much of our lived experience, but wherever we find it, we often find an emotional connection and depth. We draw on how we felt, what we saw, the smell of Grandma's baking or the sound of a song playing on the radio which was playing when... Sensory memory plays a huge role in bringing a scene alive - not only to ourselves, but to our readers.

We used a few more prompts to explore inspiration through place and sensory memory; 'two people walk over a bridge' was the first, and picking a couple of objects from the table was the second. For the first, as usual, every one of us came up with something entirely different even though we'd been given the same starter. The second was much more varied, as you'd expect, but even when two people chose the same object the resulting writing was very, very different.

Here's what I chose, and what I had time to write in the session:

Look closely after you've read what I wrote - can you see what's missing from
the photo that I included in my scene?

     The mist swirled around his feet as he approached the gates. He knew this path well, had walked it many times before. It was still there, slightly soft under his boots after the recent rain but well trodden and familiar. Yet he remained on edge, wondering whether his memory of the way would be sufficient to prevent a stumble or a turned ankle now that he couldn't see it.
      The gates were a ghostly grey, the mist muting their usual shade of wrought iron. They stood open, twice the height of a man, their elaborate swirls and curls writhing along their width.
      He hesitated, peering up at the ornate crown topping their span, admiring the craftsmanship of their creator. 
      And then he put his hand into his pocket and drew out the talisman. His thumb played with the simple cuts which made up the face...

What do you do though, when the ideas dry up? When inspiration isn't filling your head with the next perfect scene in your novel or providing the story you hope is going to win you that competition and big prize?

We spent a little time listening to a recording of Liz Gilbert talking about taking fear and creativity on a road trip. Liz is the author of Big Magic - Creative Living Beyond Fear. And Fear, we came to realise, is not only a close friend of Creativity (everyone has doubt demons or imposter syndrome for example) but is also something which closes us down creatively and reduces our ability to find solutions. It goes back to a basic physical reaction - fear exists as part of our natural fight or flight response. How can we think creatively about how to catch an elephant when the darned thing's chasing us across the savannah? (Must point out here - that's my analogy, not something we were told! Just in case I've not hit the nail on the head). Our brain just can't tell the difference between a physical event (I'm being chased by an elephant!) or a mental one (I don't know what to write next!) We have to get past the fear in order to deal with the problem.

There are various things you can do as an author to get the inspiration flowing past or around the block. Stick your character into an unexpected situation and write about how they react. Break away from the new stuff - go back and edit what you've already done. (That's a favourite of mine when I'm stuck.) Take a long walk in the fresh air. Leave what you're struggling with and find a scene you DO want to write about (I do this ALL the time - my first s****y draft is full of notes like 'describe the room' or 'Bleurgh! This isn't working' that I revisit at a later stage). "Make s**t happen", as the lovely Julie Cohen once told me.

I think, by the end of the workshop, I realised that 'inspiration' is a single word, but it covers an awful lot of 'stuff'. The very act of nailing it down seems to make it lose its magic - how can you possibly explain what happens in your head when you have that moment of clarity and the first spark of something utterly amazing? I get inspired all the time - I throw ideas out ten-a-penny when I'm working with children. I dream vividly, and often incorporate bits I remember into my work. (Though quite what I shall do with the image of a golden Landrover with a large transparent-sided canopy on its back, driving down the High Street in town...only to realise once it had passed me that it was a Popemobile and the Pope was standing under the canopy, waving to everyone, I have no idea. Answers on a postcard, please!)

Inspiration is a mystical, fleeting thing. The real magic lies in what we - I - create with it...