Bella – a purrfect girl
Bella, small and beautiful Bella, a reminder of two weeks in Italy I had a photo of you and your brother, in my wallet during that holiday, and you came to live with me upon my return. You were always…
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Bella, small and beautiful Bella, a reminder of two weeks in Italy I had a photo of you and your brother, in my wallet during that holiday, and you came to live with me upon my return. You were always…
Continue readingFound lots of my old school stories yesterday. It seems I’ve always had a problem with switching between tenses in my stories… #writing #stories #tenses
Continue readingMy artistic life http://shepline.com/2020/02/09/my-artistic-life/ Thoughts inspired by @kiran_mh, @libbypagewrites, @blackwelloxford, and @oxfordshireartweeks • • • #amillustrating #amreading #amwritingart #ArtWeeks #books #bookshops #creativity #illustration #OxfordshireArtweeks #reading #writing
Continue readingYesterday I spent the day in Oxford. I arrived early, the train delivering me right in the centre of the city, still beautifully quiet at half past nine even on a Saturday (compared to the frenetic hustle and bustle that…
Continue readingLast year, I pledged to journal more in these pages – to document my life in a more substantive way than on the various forms of social media that I make use of. For a while, it worked and I enjoyed it… And…
Continue readingWhat did I always want to be when I grew up? Well, aside from wanting to live like Peter Pan and never grow up – I founded CAGU, the Campaign for the Abolition of Growing Up – I wanted to…
Continue readingI originally wrote this post for the Alliance of Independent Authors‘ blog, where I explain why I choose to write by hand, tempting as it might be to jump aboard the latest technological bandwagon. Can I persuade you too to give it a…
Continue readingSo Wimbledon has been and gone, which is always a blessing and a disguise. I always feel that I haven’t made the most of it, and watched enough tennis. That said, it does mean that I might finally get back…
Continue readingToday sees the start of World Autism Awareness Week. Autism and aspergers are hidden conditions. At their most pronounced autism is a condition that can isolate people from the world and make it hard for them to cope, but even…
Continue readingI’ve never been homeless and I do not pretend to know what that must feel and be like. Each morning though, on the way to work, as I walk across the city from one bus to the next, I see…
Continue readingDoing NaNoWriMo this year was an experiment – an experiment in sustained productivity. I am a bit of a slow writer. Maybe not a slow writer of Alan Garner proportions, but slow nonetheless. I’m not following full NaNoWriMO rules. I’m…
Continue readingSo, it’s NaNoWriMO Day 2, and I am incredibly ahead of my (albeit reduced) wordcount target. I have no idea if it is a record year for NaNoWriMo participants but it certainly seems to be judging by my friends list…
Continue readingMy current wip is about halfway done, and it’s been that way for too long. Not that it’s been stalled through writers’ block or anything like that, but just through lack of time and too much other life going on….
Continue readingAfter a weekend in which Emma and I completed another 12 mile training walk I’ve used up a couple of last days of annual leave to make a nice 4 day weekend, and some genuine me time to get back…
Continue readingThe Pier Falls by Mark Haddon Mark Haddon writes honest, often uncomfortable, but faultlessly accurate portrayals of how human nature is. This collection of short stories is no different. However anthologies of short stories are by their very nature a…
Continue readingYesterday I ventured through many equisitely pretty villages (including Eastington, Addsworth, Bibury, Bamsley, and not forgetting the town of Tetbury) to the very other side of The Cotswolds to participate, as an author, in the second annual Hawkesbury Upton Literary…
Continue readingIf the first half of my Easter holidays was a holiday-from-home with Emma, then I’ve wanted the second part (with the random extra holiday Tuesday that I get from day job working in the university) to be a bit more…
Continue readingIt’s fair to say that October was a very busy month for me and the day job. All the way to the end, with the busiest of busy weeks to take me all the way up to November. During that…
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