Category: writers’ habits
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Looking forward to hypothermia: another Irish winter
Eight winters I am about to fly into my eighth winter in a row, in less than three years. I’m a summer person. I’m a water baby, someone who loves swimming in rivers and the sea, in council pools and country dams, someone who loves walking warmed by the sunshine and cycling under balmy blue…
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Envying Georges Simenon
It’s been aeons since I wrote in this. I’ve been writing heaps, but not here. There have been paid writing and editing jobs plus rewriting a novel, ‘After She Left’, which will be published in May. And all this time I haven’t been able to get Simenon out of my mind. I haven’t even read…
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Tearing sentences to pieces
Your worst fears According to Tim Ferriss, ‘the worst fears of contemporary men and women are getting fat and getting too many emails.’ Well, no wonder we’re all having anxiety attacks! The Slow Carb diet in Ferriss’ book The Four-Hour Body should solve the first problem and spending regular time unsubscribing from unnecessary emails will…
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How to be a gazelle – on health, fitness and match-making two writers
The human guinea pig It was already hot at 8.30 on a Saturday morning. My nightie was on the floor and the sheet kicked aside when I glanced over at my reflection in the large mirrored built-in wardrobe doors. I groaned and said, ‘Oh, God – I’ve put on weight. I’m a beached whale!’ And…
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Writing Ergonomics: Tips for a Healthy, Happy Writer
Don’t do what I do; do what I say… It wasn’t as if I could plead ignorance. I’d done the Alexander Technique course on how to sit properly and how to iron out the kinks in my spine every day. I’d been told about the importance of taking a break every thirty minutes. I also knew about…
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Psychic space and an unusual recipe for mitigating a cold
When I was chosen to be a blogger in residence at the ACT Writers Centre I planned to supplement those once a month blogs with more frequent postings on this personal blog. But I’m going to have surgery soon (nothing serious) and I’ve been psyching myself up for that and doing all the things I…
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Patricia Highsmith’s handbag
Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995), prolific author of crime novels plus the novel Carol, recently made into a film directed by Todd Haynes, was a prolific drinker and smoker as well. She smoked a packet of Gaulloises a day. Famously not very good with people, Highsmith had an intense connection with animals. She loved cats. Snails made…