I’m not sure about you folks, but when I start a story, I usually have a clear idea of what POV it should be from, then invariably I get part way through and wonder if a different POV would tell the story better. Despite thinking about this a lot, I have to say that I…
Tag: storytelling
The Sometimes Diary of Nina Thirkettle
Tuesday, 8 Feb Went running today. The old guy that looks like a skinny Santa passed me as we were going up a hill. I guess it wasn’t really a hill hill, but it wasn’t flat either and he made it look like it was actually nothing at all. I don’t have runner’s legs. There…
The System
UPDATE: I’ve just seen that Baby Teeth Journal has their blackout poetry competition on again. So, if you think you can do better than my entry from last year (and let’s face, probably all of you could), head over to their site now! You have until 1 March 2022 to enter. The System the system…
Not. Not. Not. Not.
I have notebooks piled up around my study. One of them is my ‘Book of Memories’, where I scribble down random memories that pop up, usually triggered by some current event. Another, my commonplace book, records words and phrases that I like (I’ve talked about my commonplace book before). Yet another captures story ideas, in…
My treasure chest of life
In an earlier post, Fictional words with real-world swagger, I talked about how we can apply made-up worlds to our everyday lives and achieve real-world outcomes. Today, I want to give a shout out to the sentences that take your breath away; not in a oh-my-god-that’s-horrendous type of way, but in the I-have-to-go-back-and-read-that-again type of…
Embracing the bad
Kyle A. Massa’s recent post on his most embarrassing writing fails is a cracking read. But it’s not the writing fails that makes it so good; it’s Kyle’s retelling of events and his ability to look past the cringe of reading back through old writing to find the lessons therein. Those lessons being, if I…
Summer TBR list revisited
One of my summer reading picks was Devotion by Hannah Kent. Although I finished the book some time ago, I’ve struggled to pull together a review. That’s not because I didn’t enjoy it – quite the opposite, I adored this book – but because I think it is one of those books that is best…
Language and power: Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
Today I’m going back to my academic roots to take a look at the use of language in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. I got on a bit of a roll so it is a long one. Sorry! ‘But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.’ George Orwell, 1946 Language is loaded with…
Grey Box remnant
Like the Girl in the cafe, this piece riffs on the work of another. This time, my inspiration is from David Foster Wallace and the opening sequence of his unfinished novel The Pale King. His poetic first sentence is something else. Past the suburban chaos and false borders of ill-claimed land and past the bleak…
Girl in the cafe
It’s easy to get into a bit of funk with your writing practice but it’s not always easy to find your way out again. One of the things I’ve learned to do when creativity goes missing is to pull out some writing from someone I admire and to try and imitate their work. I find…
thekettlehasemphysema.net 
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