Poetatwork - Poet At Work

Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café

my main goal in life is genuinely just to have a good day

Mr Gaiman, I wonder if you can help me. I have so many story ideas but any time I try to work on one I get nowhere and immediately hit a wall. Do you have any idea what I could be doing wrong?

Perhaps you are expecting it to be easy. Walls are there to be climbed or knocked down or gone around. You don't have to stop just because it gets hard or you get stuck or you don't know what happens next. If you get stuck, figure out how to get unstuck. If it's not working, do what you have to do to get it working.

Take the story idea. Write down what you know about it. Write down the characters you know going into it. And then think about where your story starts (which is often not the place that the overall story begins) and whose eyes we are seeing it through and where and how you want to begin.

If you hit a wall, go forward, don't stop. Skip to the next scene where you know what happens. Write a bad version of a scene you can fix later. Do what needs doing to keep moving.

My latest Guardian Books cartoon.

follow your dreams at a sustainable pace

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers who love their daughters dearly despite not liking them all that much. My mother has never liked me as a person (or at least, not since I’ve become the person I currently am) - my personality is in many ways at odds with her’s. Where she is strategic and deliberate I am impulsive and passionate. We are both incredibly emotional but in distinct and clashing ways. That said, my mother has showed up as my greatest ally when it’s mattered and has given me all that I need to thrive. She may not particularly enjoy my presence - and, quite frankly, may never have hoped for a daughter like me - but she’s stuck by me regardless. I think that’s an incredibly pure form of love - endurance and tolerance in the face of contradiction and misunderstanding.

Devin Kelly, “All That Wanting, Right?”

want your own life dude! don’t long for anyone else’s life. even with the hardest most painful parts don’t pretend they’re not there, just fill your life up with as much of what you love what moves you what fulfills you what makes you happy and the hard shit becomes easier to deal with because you know there are all these things that keep you going. want your own life! it’s yours, only yours, no one else could have possibly been you isn’t that cool?

I just wrote 8 pages when I haven't written in months and was beginning to think I'd never be able to again. Idk what it is, but I am sharing and manifesting this energy for every writer who sees this. May you write 8 quality pages effortlessly and find joy writing once more

I find it personally offensive how many bad writers can get published so easily.