Finding your way... via Artist's Way

Michael N over at Sustainably Creative will be working through the Artist's Way (for a 5th time!) starting in February. Members of SC -- new are welcome -- are invited to join.

I'm not a member of SC (yet) but I think it is a great blog, it's one of the few I look at regularly. Well worth checking out. And this is an excellent opportunity to work through the Artist's Way in good company. I have to confess I have never done the entire process "properly"... Although I have used the book on and off for the past ten years, I skip and jump around and, with full awareness, heartily ignore the parts I'd prefer to avoid!

Now open

- the Mslexia short story competition. Details here.

Tessa Hadley judging; closing date 19 March 2012.

When the sky is grey for three whole days

it feels like everything else too is losing its colour. #smallstone

Little red flags

As promised:

You don't really notice at first. The weather has been so bleak and you get used to seeing the bare, pruned-down stems. But actually, there's a lot going on... The sprouting bits, I don't know what they're called - don't they look like little red flags?

All the pruned rose stems

have little red shoots coming out of them. #smallstone (photo tomorrow, weather permitting)

Spider

in the corner of the hallway. My little secret. #smallstone

Pancake Day Sneak Preview

Is this a pancake or what?

And the flip side...

Are you ready for this, EFC?

Winter white

Don't know what these are called but they are all over the place at the moment.

Wish the photo quality was better! The camera on the HTC is nowhere near as good as my lovely little Sony Ericsson (the one that I put in the wash)....

No one else up

Just me and the airplanes crossing the smooth blue sky. #smallstone

Saturday run

Right foot shadow, left foot sun.#smallstone

The Slog

Work in Progress Update: Just made a submission to my writers workshop of two more (or less) chapters in the work in progress. Still don't know what I'm doing most of the time. In case you're wondering. No one really talks much about this part of creating a novel. Maybe it's different for everyone. For me it is much much harder than I ever imagined. Every so often I cobble a few thousand words together, and it starts to feel like "something". That part feels pretty good, but in between those moments it is a real slog, and I wonder if the good part will ever return. So far it does, but it's a huge act of self-confidence, and faith in the creative process. I'm not even sure I care about how "good" it is anymore. I just want to be able to say I wrote this thing from start to finish - especially the finish. I want to get to those two magic word, THE END, with a minor amount of self-respect and satisfaction. Then, don't worry, I'll shut up about it already!

WW2 First-hand info resource

Just found a fantastic on-line Second World War resource: an archive of first-hand recollections, gathered by the BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/categories/  The archive contains 47,000 stories... Thank you BBC from someone who can't easily get to a decent English-language library!

Small stones

Did I mention I was doing this again? What are you going to do in 2012?

Spotted

The robin again, in the bare tree branches of the garden, trilling away. #smallstone

Fox

Deep in our beds, and a fox begins to bark. And bark.
What kind of omen is that for the coming year?