The Creative Identity

How To Journal

For a long time after I bought it, one little book sat in my handbag ready to be whipped out at any given solitary opportunity, most notably in my favourite corner of my favourite Starbucks. My copy of How To Make A Journal of Your Life by Dan Price is pretty much in pieces, with pages flying off everywhere, unable to stick together in any coherent shape. This is good testament to what a seminal book it has been for my development as a writer, even though nobody has read any of the thoughts that Dan's book has sparked. Journaling has always been a difficult one for me. When I was much younger I thought that there was no point in writing if nobody was reading me (doesn't seem to hold much water any more that one) but then my thinking process refined itself into seeing journaling as a painful exercise that I really didn't want to do. Later still, Danny Gregory entered my life, and as I told you here, I found his principle of journaling aimed at blunting our pains, not reflecting them, revolutionary. It is through Danny that I discovered Dan (I hope you're following...) and within his little book I found a similar message: 'While it is true that many and most personal diaries are kept hidden under bedroom pillows, filled with any amount of secret sufferings, I'd like to propose you simply use any odd spiral notebook for those exercises. This new little empty book... Read more →

Try This

I live on good food, not on good language. –Molière– I love to bake. Brownies, cakes, cupcakes, cookies and then some; there's always something in the oven at my place. After a few years of following recipes, I've just started to deviate from the blueprints and I have created my own toffee cupcakes and my own chocolate ones and they turned out really well, thank you very much indeedy. It took me ages even to try my hand because cake baking is an exact science and that's why you should never 'just double' the ingredients' quantities if you want more cupcakes or half them if you want fewer. It just doesn't work that way. But what if we tried our hand at a different kind of recipe today? Write a recipe for writing success (with precise quantities of everything you need)! Read more →

Stephanella Meets Caroline Smailes

I shan't tell you things you already know about Caroline Smailes, because you can quite easily find it all out by yourself (for example right here). Today I want to speak of Like Bees To Honey, which is Caroline's third novel, officially released tomorrow. In a very odd, roundabout way, Bees reminds me of Back to the Future. Back to the Future is one of those movies which rejects categorisation, for it is at once a coming-of-age story, a sci-fi chronicle, a family movie, a romantic comedy-cum-fantastic allegoric adventure of heroism within one's own little world. Thus when I put Bees down, I thought of it as a tale of trust and belief, a parable of courage and loss, a lyrical ballad with imagery as odd and evocative as Eliot's 'unreal city under the brown fog', a courageous narrative about redemption and existence. And yet, while it is all of this, it refutes pigeonholing, for all of these complementary elements revolve around a sub-text which has always eluded fixed categorisation: a universal exploration of what it means to believe; in oneself, in others and in all that is seen and unseen. Why do I call it audacious? Well my dear reader, you must have noticed that these days to speak of belief and redemption, of canonical faith and rebirth, of spirituality and hope is the highly unfashionable doing of supposedly sad morons who clutch at straws past their sell-by date. To step unafraid into our intellectual reality with a novel... Read more →

The Dramatic Action Card Deck – A Gift For You

Download Dramatic Action Card Deck Even before The Creative Identity existed two ideas were already germinating in my head. I wanted a lovely newsletter and I thought that a small section of the site should be devoted to free downloads. The newsletter thing is on its way and today's the day for a little gift for you writers of fiction. First off I thought of Really Valuable Downloads, that is, spec letters, a mini proposal, a little synopsis, a checklist, that type of stuff. But then I spoke to my inner circle and got enlightened. We want our writing to be successful and to leap from closeted pages to manuscript-fit-for-an-agent, but sometimes a little light relief can take us places. Thus I sought inspiration within the pages of Aristotle's Poetics and I came to the conclusion that much can be understood by applying his principles of dramatic action. I had already used parts of Poetics for my PhD. I spoke of the drama intertwined with horror in that section that then became instrumental for Slaughter but there was something else that made an impression on me: Aristotle's splitting down of the constituents of tragedy and explanation of how they create drama once crafted together. In the introduction to Poetics, the author speaks of epic poetry and tragedy, of comedy and dithyrambic poetry, and while conceding that all of these are modes of imitation (of life), they differ from one another in three respects: the medium, the objects and the manner... Read more →

Try This

Because a word, as you should know, is a living thing. -Victor Hugo- A few months ago I was sitting in the kitchen of a poet I had been working with for some days. I had the great privilege to stay with her for some time and to work at her archive while basking in the glory of her beautiful library and endless supply of Maltesers. As we sat down for another tea-fuelled break, she said: 'If you cut me I bleed words'. I laughed (I mean, who wouldn't?) but that evening, as I killed time looking at countless book spines (horrified by the number of books I've yet to read, also), I kept thinking about bleeding words. Words, words, words, glorious words. I work on my own most of the time and yet, even though I am alone, I am not lonely, for in my head there is a constant flux of words, words, words. Today I would like you to think of your favourite words and to think about them as free-standing entities. Do you like the sound of them? Their meaning? The memories they may evoke? Choose your favourite word and begin a story with it. Read more →