I wish for you a moment of peace, or perhaps fifteen.

Moments when the world is righted briefly by the act of writing.

I wish for you a protective jacket, like the ornate cover of a hardback book

one that can be wiped clean of other’s people’s dirt

that can keep your soul intact,

a book full of blank pages pristeen and ready

for your own thoughts and ideas.

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I’m inspired by the writers who use pens like pokers to stoke fires, who use pens like wands to weave magic spells, who use pens like swords to cut through the crap, who use pens like needles to repair the damage.

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That summer the birds started to fly upside down and the frogs built their homes in the treetops. The fish swam upstream and leaped from the water. They grew wings and hovered like dragonflies in the sultry air. That summer, cats stretched out like bendy buses, curling themselves around the edges of walls, sauntering through grass that grew tall as trees.

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Your writing will touch someone in ways that you can’t know, or imagine, or predict.

Having a writing practice is helpful. You have to write regularly if you want to be a writer

But. sometimes, life gets in the way

And, sometimes, you have to give yourself a break -

Writing should not be a stick to beat yourself with .

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I just found out that my dear friend, Greg died. Greg and I have only met a few times in real life but we chatted endlessly online and I knew him well. He was a lovely man and I’m deeply shocked and sadenned by his untimely death. My heart goes out to his kids who I know meant the absolute world to him, his parents and his brother. This morning, I wasn’t sure I could run my Monday Morning Motivation group. I wasn’t sure what the point of writing was, or of anything. But I showed up and this is what I wrote. RIP Greg. Friendship takes many forms. Thank you for always being at the end of the phone.

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For the first time in sixteen months, there are writers in this room. I don’t remember the last time we were here. It all happened so quickly. There was no alarm, no evacuation procedure. Just one day we were here and the next we were in our separate rooms, grappling with this monster called Zoom.

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Shopping in the haberdashery with my mum. Some fabric for her and a ribbon for Teddy. Red, blue and gingham, they had them all. The lady would stretch them out in front of my nose, lining them up with the gold tape measure. I can still remember the snip of the scissors, can imagine the feel of my mother’s hand in mine and the folded green and white paper bag between playdough fingers.

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Highlighter or cut-up poetry is another kind of ‘found’ poetry. This time you just use text that you find and, instead of using all of it, you select random words and phrases and play around with them until you’ve created something new.

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It’s World Book Day today.

You could celebrate by dressing up, by reading a book or by beginning to write your own masterpiece. If that feels too big, here are some small ways to use books for writing.

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Colours and rainbows are two more of my favourite things and I love to use colour as inspiration for writing. There are so many ways to play with colour as a writer.

It’s really easy to write a rainbow. Just write one line for each colour of the rainbow

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Once we start giving personalities, wishes, and feelings to the objects around us, anything could happen. For instance, we might end up with a gingerbread man who leaps out of the oven and runs away from the woman who baked him, or perhaps we’ll end up with a carriage clock and a candlestick who are best friends. Who knows, our objects might even fall in love.

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One of the hazards of being a writer is that you quickly find yourself imbuing everything with meaning. Ever walked past a lost glove and found yourself mourning the loss of its partner? Or pulled a leaf from a branch and then worried that you might have hurt it? That’s being a writer, my friend. Writers bring the world to life with their imaginations and, in turn, they help readers to see things in a new light. One of the ways they do this is to write about objects and animals as if they're people.

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You might have been told that, as a writer, you create the characters and that you then have to plot and plan the adventures that they go on. To some extent, that’s true, but it’s not the whole story. In fact, sometimes, when I’m writing, it feels like characters appear out of nowhere and take control of my pen. ‘This way,’ I might say, trying to direct my character to choose a pair of red boots from a shop window. Meanwhile, a felt beret decorated with feathers has caught their eye in the neighbouring shop and, before I can do anything about it, they’re strutting down the street like a peacock and completely ignoring all the plans I’d made for them. Characters can be tricky creatures with their own minds. Don’t be surprised if, once you’ve invented them, they start choosing their own adventures.

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One of the main ingredients in the writers’ cupboard is the ability to describe something as if it’s something else. Similes and metaphors can bring writing to life and help the reader to see things more vividly. You’ll probably know what similes and metaphors are because it’s the kind of thing you learn at school, but don’t worry if you don’t. What matters is knowing how to use them and that’s as simple as falling off a log, it’s like water off a duck’s back, it’s child’s play, it’s as easy as pie – you get the idea. (Don’t ask me why pie is easy because I have no idea. If you know, you can send me a message by carrier pigeon and let me know).

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A good opening line or paragraph is one of the most important ingredients for a story. If you have a good opening, your reader will want to keep reading. Ideally, a good opening should tell us something about the main character and the setting but also have something exciting or intriguing about it. A good opening will answer some of your reader’s questions (like, who the story’s about and when it takes place) but it will leave some questions unanswered (such as, who committed the murder or why the character is standing on the ledge.) Although it can be helpful to mention the place and person fairly early on, it’s usually a good idea to get straight into the action.

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After all she’d done for them, she deserved a little more respect. If she had any magic left, she’d curse the lot of them. Then again, if she had any magic powers, she’d be transporting herself to the all you can eat buffet on one of those Disney cruises like Maleficent. Bibbety Bobbety Boo and she’d be at the bar, dripping in diamonds with a cocktail in her hand.

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What if is the beginning of so many stories. For this exercise, we’re going to take one of our what if ideas from Day 4 and see if we can develop a story from it.

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Writers are people who notice things. They’re like secret detectives who lurk around corners, chewing their pencils and writing down what they see and hear. If you want to spot the writer in your class, look for the person who is always staring out of the window or the one who sits quietly in the corner scribbling and doodling on their notebook, the one the teacher tells off for daydreaming. If you can’t spot them it’s probably because you are that person. Daydreaming is a writer’s superpower.

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Where do stories come from? I’ve been writing ever since I was your age and I still don’t really know the answer. And, the truth is, I don’t really want to know because I like to think that stories are magic. Stories are blown on the wind and fall from the sky like raindrops. Stories are handed from one person to another like gifts that only the storyteller notices. If you look carefully, there are stories reflected in puddles and caught in spider webs. Stories are everywhere if you choose to see them.

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