Conquering Self

I think it was Friederich Nietzsche who said, ‘That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,’ although I heard it over the Christmas holidays on some music channel on our telly, which had been commandeered by family who were staying with us at the time. It was a line in a song by Kelly Clarkson […]

According to thefreedictionary.com, encouragement is ‘the expression of approval and support’. Clearly, part of the root of the word is ‘courage’, so it seems likely that encouragement entails giving courage to another. I don’t think anyone can live and develop normally without encouragement.

One of the greatest obstacles that we face as writers, or in any other sphere of life for that matter, is fear. We fear failure, fear success, fear change, fear rejection and countless other things.

We all have friends, family or people who we see regularly, from whom we would like to hide when we see them coming. I have a few good friends who always encourage me and want to know about my writing life and I am blessed with family members who support me in my writing and […]

Lack of self-belief is a common problem, especially among anyone in the creative arts. Comments like ‘When are you going to get a proper job?’ or ‘Are you still a lady of leisure?’, are probably not intended to be malicious, it is just that people in a regular 9-5 job have a very rigid view […]

I’m not a quitter. Often I don’t quit even when I should. I didn’t lead a privileged life: my family were poor and my education wasn’t brilliant, but one thing I learned was not to give up, so I use my past to shape my future. Today I experienced an example of this. I flicked […]

Writing can be a lonely occupation. It lends itself to introspection which in turn can lead to a kind of self-indulgent pity party.

Until I had a chat with Tim Bourne, a friend from Red Ant Consulting, (www.redantconsulting.co.uk), I had no idea that my procrastination could be, at least in part, due to a fear of success. Fear of failure I had come across, but fear of success made perfect sense to me … I didn’t want to […]

After months of deliberation, I finally got the blog up and running. I have to admit that it feels selfish; in fact, as one who was brought up to believe that anything and anyone comes first, writing feels selfish. I had to fight those feelings. Most of the things I write in this blog will […]