Rae of Light

As promised in my previous post, here for you to enjoy, hopefully as much as I did. My top five Good things of 2015 I’d like to begin my countdown with paying off my bank loan.    This financial weight has been with me longer than I care to remember.    It was entirely my own doing due to silly expenditure and living beyond my means.    Thankfully, the decision to focus on my writing and the support of wonderful friends and family helped me figure out the things which really mattered the most. It’s taken a good long while to pay off my loan.   Along the way I’ve had to decide between wants and needs.   And I’ve come to realise that what I want is not necessarily what I need.    So now I always ask myself: “Do you want it, or do you need it?” Incredibly, with less annual income than I’ve ever earned, I find myself more contented than I’ve ever been. According to my trusty filing system, I s...

So we’re heading towards the new year and it’s time to review 2015 – the good, the bad, the ugly.  Now because this post is going to follow the style of those oh so familiar television count downs which happen at this time of the year, I’m going to start with the ugly and work my way to the good. The main ugly for me has been the government’s insistence on putting troops into Syria.   I hate any conflict, no matter what the reason.   Jingoism is a concept I can do without.    For me, any time the government decides to send troops into battle I can’t help but think of the impact it has on the families of those soldiers.  Not to mention the impact for the people having to live in war torn countries.   There is just too much death in the world and I don’t support the idea of increasing the tally.   I often feel that if I was born male and living in a country where conscription was mandatory I would be a conscientious objector. ...

Lindsay Bamfield started writing fiction about 10 years ago. She has written a number of short stories and flash fiction pieces and has been published in Greenacre Writers Anthology , Voices from the Web 2012, The Best of Café Lit 2012, Mslexia, Writers’ News and Writing Magazine.  She has won prizes in Writers’ News , Writing Magazine and Words with Jam competitions and has been shortlisted in others. She is currently re-working her first novel with advice from an editor and has a second novel on the back-burner.  How do I recharge my writing batteries? I’m not sure I’m the right person to answer this as my batteries are still somewhat depleted after illness and debilitating treatment, but my writing activity, although still less than ideal has bounced back to some extent. It was only after being ill that I understood just how much energy writing requires. Exhaustion does not engender creativity. After a frustrating dry-spell when I wanted to writ...

Emily Benet is a half Welsh - half Spanish Londoner currently living on the beautiful island of Mallorca.  Wherever she's lived her passion for writing has followed. Her debut book  Shop Girl Diaries   began as a blog about working in her Mum's eccentric chandelier shop.  It won the Completely Novel Author Blog Awards at the London Book Fair. Her second book, a romantic comedy called  The Temp , also began its life online, as a serialised novel on Wattpad and racked up two million hits under its original title Spray Painted Bananas.  Her newly released novel, #PleaseRetweet , teases society's obsession with celebrity and social media. www.emilybenet.com www.twitter.com/EmilyBenet www.facebook.com/EmilyBenetAuthor Foreword Not too long ago, guest writer Benet was sharpening her fingers and offering guest posts to all and sundry on Twitter. So I took her at her word.  Little did I realise my loose use of the term "downtime" would give my ...

And now, more of how this writer keeps fully charged to produce maximum output.  Reading is the next big ME Time thing I do.   I open the cover of a book and am… transported.   This is how it’s been ever since I was 6 years old.   It’s incredibly difficult for me to put a book down once I start it.   I have to ration myself.    But after my dad died (3 years ago) I suddenly found myself unable to read for pleasure.   I read all the teaching related texts I needed to, but I’d lost the ability to step inside the world of a book, to absorb the sustenance it gave.   I walked into Carnegie Library to teach at Ruskin Readers and didn’t even give the bookshelves a glance.   Unbelievable right!   Happily, this all changed.  On a beach in Sperlonga this September, I re-found the pleasure of reading.  Now I’m back to my usual – “Oooh, I wonder what that one’s about?”  And ...