Why do I think of myself as not normal
And does it really matter? I love watching travel and wildlife programmes. I find them quite peaceful and easy to watch, especially before going to sleep. The cinematography is stunning. They inspire me to want to see these places and things for myself. I am thinking about things I would like to be doing or things I wish I could do. I always think ‘if I was normal I could be doing that’ . What is this ‘normal’? I spend most of my time writing about how disabled people should not be seen any differently to able-bodied people, about accessibility, about attitudes, and yet, in my private thoughts, I am…
Writing a blog is my grown-up project
And it means a lot to me Talent comes from originality which has a special manner of thinking of seeing of understanding and of judging. Guy de Maupassant, Pierre et Jean I recently read some blogging tips. The advice was ‘start with a small project’. It made me think. What is a small project? Does it mean writing a short blog. Or writing a blog and doing some small scale marketing for it. Or maybe something else, like organising all the rubbish that you collect and putting it in some sort of order. When I was young, I loved projects. We did them at school. I remember doing one on…
Why good notes are a must for writers
Organise your notes to avoid scraps of paper! I listened to an interview with the fiction writer Louise Penny recently. She said that she had suffered from writers block, and had seen a therapist. She learned that the biggest obstacle to writing is fear. Fear stops thoughts, ideas and characters entering one’s mind freely and then being transferred onto paper. Recently, I heard the quote ‘the only thing we have to fear is fear itself’ (F D Roosevelt). The next day, I opened an e mail from the British Library focused on writing, Then, quite coincidentally, I read an article about President Roosevelt in which the same quote appeared. This…
How My Life Changed Almost Overnight
And what I’ve learned In 2004 fear took over my life. This is when the first symptoms of MS began, and I had no idea what was happening to me. I went from a fit, active person to someone who could only walk a short distance, had difficulty driving, could no longer type with both hands and so many other things. Almost overnight. The fear was intense, I suffered panic attacks, I cried a lot, lashed out at my husband and he at me. This was completely alien to me, we had been married for a long time and for the most part happily. Neither of us could understand why…
