Welcome

“Oh my God, what if you wake up some day, and you’re 65, or 75, and you
never got your memoir or novel written; or you didn’t go swimming
in warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly
and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out
on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy
creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into
space like when you were a kid? It’s going to break your heart.
Don’t let this happen.”

Annie Lamott – Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Many of us put off  doing the things we want to do most, the things we do to fulfill ourselves, in favour of the things we feel we should do, or the things we do for others – for work or family. It’s important to do those things, of course, but it’s also important to find time for yourself, for the things that satisfy your own need to create. People feel it’s in some way presumptuous to write, in a way that it isn’t to paint or make music or dance. The first question many people ask if you say you write is, “Have you been published?” Confessing you haven’t can immediately feel like failure.
But you don’t need to write to be published. You can write just for yourself – to understand yourself better, to find out what you think. You can write for your family, to pass on your story to your children or grandchildren. You can write for fun, just because you enjoy it. You might not even know why you write – you just feel you have to do it.
You could join a writing class – it’s sociable and keeps one’s mind active. Or you might prefer to work alone but still need feedback. I can offer support in both these areas. I am a published writer, editor, creative writing tutor and mentor, based in East Sussex. I run in-person classes and offer face-to-face mentoring and I also work with people on Zoom.
For more about my credentials go to About Me, and for more information about the support I can offer writers go to my Writing Clinic page.

My Newsletter

I send out a newsletter only whenever I feel I have something useful to say. It includes details of courses coming up, links to interesting articles about writing or the publishing world, exercises that I devise, and my own thoughts and discoveries about writing and teaching writing. If you would like to subscribe to the newsletter, please fill in the Contact Form with “Newsletter’ as the subject. You can unsubscribe at any time.​ You can also follow me on Facebook through my Writing Clinic page  or Author page.