#100daysofwriting 2019 Day 8
A combination of things had lain me low with storm clouds until I am too anxious to write.
Category: Identity construction
Visiting Forever Manchester
A couple of weeks ago my daughter rang me at work and asked me if I would like to do a podcast for Forever Manchester. She is an ambassador for them and has contributed a podcast herself, and she thought it might be fun. I thought I would find out a bit more about Forever […]
Madonna at 60
I’m pausing my very serious book posts to reveal an amazing fact about myself: I am Madonna. Many of you who know me through my day job or through writing will probably think that I am the furthest from Madonna that you could imagine – serious, studious and sober. But ask the people who have […]
Act Your Age… what would the Rolling Stones do?
I went to see the Rolling Stones last week at Old Trafford Football Stadium. I have been a huge fan of them since childhood when my father gave me a record player and some old records. Amongst them was Little Red Rooster and my introduction to blues and rock. It s no secret that I […]
Angry Women: Picasso and Amazon Reviewers
Last week I was lucky enough to visit the Tate Modern in London to see the Pablo Picasso exhibition ‘1932 – LOVE, FAME, TRAGEDY’ I knew a little about Picasso’s life but this visit was a real education about who he was, not least how he divided his time between his wife Olga and his […]
Impostor syndrome: a working class writer and the scenic route
There are a lot of questions lately about where all the working class writers are; I am here. I was born in a deprived area to parents who worked in factory and trade jobs and who had not attended university. They lived with relatives in the 1960s and saved for a house deposit. When I […]
Storytelling and Change
‘All great changes are preceded by chaos.’ – Deepak ChopraEven as the eternal optimist I have to admit that the times, they are a changin’. I’m interested in storytelling, not just the written word on the page, but as a narrative psychologist, spoken-word stories of everyday lives. The key to good storytelling is the listener, as […]
Writing identities: the I, the me, and them.
My background in researching identity construction has informed my writing in a positive manner, as by fortunate associate it means I am able to meet many people and interrogate their lives. It’s also informed my reading, as I now find it much easier to sense a well narrated identity. For me, the vital ingredients involved […]
Writing novel number five…
I’m extremely happy to tell you that I’ve finished novel number five. Finished the first draft, that is. I’ve still got a lot of editing and words to take out and put in, but the basic story is there. It’s been a journey that started as the Dirty Sparkle! project with a novel called, unsurprisingly, […]
Me, myself and identity – online identity
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately looking what identity is. In fact, the past fifteen years have been spent surveying some aspect of it. When you are studying a subject, you often notice new, similar instances of it in life. Over time, I have noticed lots of different ways that people see identity […]