You realise you’ve reached something of a plateau. You’ve probably already said most of the things you want to say in relation to this topic.  Other creative projects are bubbling up and you know you want to give them…

It’s not possible to live a life creative and not face fears on a regular basis. I know, it isn’t always fear, and it isn’t all about fear. But still, you keep on hitting up against it anyway. One of…

One of the most challenging aspects of publishing a blog is finding ways to showcase the material that deserves to be seen, but risks getting lost in your archives. This was one of the things that was uppermost in my…

Gratitude shapes your language and your world. Regular practice in writing with gratitude gets you writing about what’s good, but also what’s real. It’s a powerful form of affirmation. The more you write this kind of stuff the more it…

Here’s another blogging conundrum. Blogging is expansive. Once you’ve set up one blog it’s easy, temptingly easy to: Purchase another domain Set up a new blog Experiment with a new approach Try on a new writing / teaching / business…

I found myself thinking the other day that the blogs I was enjoying the most were those that were short.  Sometimes posting quite frequently, but most definitely short. There are still some longer articles that I enjoy reading…

Doubt: is torture* is terrible for others to watch will make you beg to be allowed to stop prompts fantasies of stacking shelves in a supermarket, at night, without thought, free of doubt is normal comes with the territory cannot…

Whispered fears run through your mind, freezing fingers as you’re typing, blocking drafts from being published, stopping sites from going live. What if your writing isn’t good enough. Your spelling, your grammar, your recall of old rules from school: not…

It’s frustrating when you want to leave a comment in response to someone’s writing… and you can’t. Here are some of the hurdles I’ve come across recently. Profile required.  What if I don’t have a profile that fits your…

In the quiet summer days of blogland, I’ve been doing a bit of tidying up around the site. That includes: A new plugin to organise the archives (the last one seemed to collapse under the strain of the 751 posts…

I seem to have got hopelessly out of the habit of replying in good time to your comments. Please know that I do read and pay attention to each and every comment, follow each and every interaction, and appreciate the…

Blog readers are lazy. Don’t make us stretch. Don’t make us click, a whole extra click, to get through to your site. Don’t try and tease with an excerpt in the feed.  It’s too much of a stretch. Please, pretty…

So, you know you’re a good writer. You’ve been told as much.  Had great feedback from teachers, from people who read your work, from your own inner editor who nods and says ‘yep, that’s good’. Maybe it’s always been your…

“I didn’t think it would happen to me.  Yes, I had read some of the warnings, seen some of the signs, just thought they were directed at someone else.  Not at me. It came at a point when my defences …

I don’t know about you, but I’m always looking for just the right way to organise my sidebars. Just the right combination of words and images.  Just the right level of detail.  Just the right blend of what falls…

Okay, so it’s a cheat headline. Blogging hasn’t made me rich, not if you’re talking dollars, or good old fashioned pounds, shillings and pence. If you’re talking dollars, or good old fashioned pounds, shillings and pence I’d say blogging has…

A short post about ways to cut out distractions quickly grew into a much bigger series on focus and flow, and some deeper thoughts (for me anyway) about why we let ourselves, individually and collectively, be so distracted. At the…

How do you cut distractions to make time, space and the focus to write? That was the question I was first thinking about when I sat down to draft something on focus and distractions (before it grew and grew into…

Got too much on your mind? Can’t focus enough to get started? Too distracted to write? Tell me about it! No I mean literally. Tell me about it. Well not literally literally, I don’t want emails full of all the…

There’s a lot to be learned from opposites.  (They can also be good conversation starters: the correspondence on what’s the opposite of inspire is still running two years on.) We tend to think of focused as being the opposite of…

We love to complain about distractions.  We love to beat ourselves up about not being able to ignore them and focus beyond them. I can’t help wondering why we keep them in the forefront of our minds. There has to…

Aren’t distractions terrible?  Sometimes I think distractions are the bane of modern existence. All those distractions and invitations to: Talk to people in other parts of the world and Read thought provoking material for free and Get support and motivation…

You want to focus.  Perhaps you made it your one word of the year. Focus, focus, focus. This is the year to focus and get things done. Except… the world seems to be conspiring to keep your mind splattered. …

To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept…

She was painting her toe-nails in the living room when he came back from work. “Er, isn’t this a working morning?” he asked. “This is it,” she said.  “It’s all I can do.” “But you’re not in your office,” he…

I don’t know if it’s because poetry is the language of rebels, artists and mavericks, confounding expectations, breaking rules and saying this, this is how things might be or maybe that at times of the deepest emotion, we turn as …

How many posts have you published on your blog? I’m at (gulp) 711 at the last count. Now I’d be the first to admit that a lot of those posts are fleeting, of little lasting value. But I also know…

How do you keep your blogging fingers nimble and your blogging mind active when you’re not blogging? How do you make sure it feels easy and natural to re-enter the blogging sphere when you’re ready to come back from a…

I can’t wait to see what you recommend a writer “should stop in order to start” writing. I just hope its not one of my darlings. This wonderful comment from ellanbethia has been rumbling at the back of my mind…

“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.” ~ Doctorow Starting something is not necessarily the same as setting out to finish something. I know that some of the writing goals, hopes, dreams and ambitions…

The blogosphere has been awash with helpful posts this week on getting started with goals, plans, intentions and new ways of doing things in 2010. Here are ten that I enjoyed and might help with the starts you’re looking for…