When I was a little girl of 10 or so and people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up I said ‘ teacher’ or ‘singer’ or ‘lolly shop owner’ or ‘ writer’. I’m now over 40 and all of those things have wound their way into my life in some…
Category: Writing
How writing a regular column has changed my life
Over the last couple of weeks in spare moments I’ve been making an inventory of my Catholic Weekly columns, entitled Pitter Patter. I started writing it when I was five months pregnant with my first child at the suggestion of the then-managing editor, Kerry Myers. That little bean on the ultrasound imaging machine I described…
My year of mercy (and the best posts from 2016)
This time last year I was relieved for having got through Christmas and nervous about getting through the remainding weeks of the school holidays. I was tired, physically and existentially fragile, and wrote about how for me, the Year of Mercy which Pope Francis had opened might just be about showing myself some mercy. I wasn’t…
It’s nice to be missed
I’ve had a few people ask me what’s happened to my Catholic Weekly column. I took a break for several weeks when I was feeling overwhelmed with general life stuff, but wrote one last week which will probably be in this Sunday’s issue of May 15. It’s on gift ideas for First Holy Communicants or…
Getting over feeling blah
*It’s been a long time since I wrote here or anywhere else. I thought I’d visit my site today and found this post I’d been preparing in mid-February. I never got to send it, because just after this I felt much worse and stopped everything, tipping into real burn out I think. I’m over my…
Thank you
One of the things I like most about blogs and following certain bloggers is the feeling every day or so as though I get to unwrap a present from someone I’ve come to know in a small but real way over years. Visiting the websites of my favourite bloggers while drinking my morning coffee is…
Michael D. O’Brien and ‘Elijah in Jerusalem’
I have an interview published in this week’s Catholic Weekly with the Canadian author and artist Michael O’Brien, about his new novel, Elijah in Jerusalem, sequel to the best-selling Fr Elijah: An Apocalypse. I also got his thoughts about his sense that we are living in the end times predicted by Jesus and the Biblical prophets. Yes,…
What I’ve been up to
I’ve had an intense couple of weeks trying to write a 50,000 draft novel for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), writing around 1000-3000 words a day, mostly in the evening when the children are in bed. At a tad over 43,000 words I’m not far from the finish line, but the plot is kind of petering out lamely (is…
On walking some new paths
Hi, I haven’t dropped in here just to chat for a while. I’ve had an interesting couple of weeks thinking, planning, and working on a couple of projects partly as a result of my attendance at the Catholic Digital Media Conference. That experience really gave me the impetus to begin working towards some things I’ve had in mind for…
Stuck for inspiration? Here are five easy steps for climbing out of a creative rut.
I’ve just had a very inspiring and energising two days at a conference and it made me realise how much I had been in a creative rut lately as a writer working from home. Now I’m absolutely buzzing with new ideas and projects I want to do and I can’t wait to get started. Out of these…
