The Creative Identity

Here Come The Freaks!

For quite some time I've been thinking about giving you an update on how my earliest interviewees are doing. As I'm in touch with all of them, to ask for another catch-up really isn't that hard, especially when I've got a reason as good as this one. Remember Caroline and Nik, two of my very first Twitter posse, one of whom (Nik) also recorded a podcast for the eCourse that I ran two years ago? They've written a book together and had it illustrated by a wonderful artist as well. Look at it, isn't it gorgeous my dear reader? When I first heard about Freaks, back in the depths of last summer, I thought it was a marvellous idea. In fact, so marvellous an idea was it, that I rolled my eyes, sighed and scoffed and told myself, why don't I have these ideas??? I could do the obvious thing and tell you about these freaks and their super-powers, but why wasting precious typing space when I think you'd be much better off getting your own copy? This is a highly imaginative book that will appeal to contemporary fiction fans, comic book fans and short stories fans alike. I'm all of these, hence the opportunity to review a copy was a gift. My gift to you is straight from the book itself: the very adorable 'Invisible'. Read on. Invisible [Super Power: The ability to make oneself unseen to the naked eye] If I stay totally still, if I stand right... Read more →

Artist's Journal Workshop

It's Easter Monday and it has been pelting down all day long. Not that I really mind, for I much prefer a dark and stormy spring to a bright and mild one, but even though the past four days have been very good in many ways, they've also been not quite so good in others. I've come down with a cold and, worse, my back has been extremely painful. I soldiered on, as I try and do most of the time, but the copious amount of painkillers I've taken since Friday morning has left me in a slight daze in which a vaguely upset tummy and vacant stare blend so well together. But, my dearest reader, this is really no time for whining, is it? I'm so glad I am setting fingers back to keyboard that nothing else matters much. I've thought so many times about you! And you dear reader! And you at your desk! And you at work! And you! You! You! All the 1,500 or so of you who keep checking in every week despite the radio silence. When I last showed up on here, in the midst of the Crimbo hols, never in a million years would I have expected to disappear for so long. It's just not the way I operate at all. Yet, things just happened, as they do, and as I am a firm believer that if a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well, I did not go down the... Read more →