Weekly updates with a prose and poetry focus
There’s nothing more intimidating to a writer than a blank page, so WordPress provides a daily question to help out. I don’t often answer these, but I liked this one from a few weeks ago because I had an immediate answer.
This entry will, by necessity, contain major plot points about the Emma Donoghue book Room. If you don’t want to know what happens, skip over this entry. The question is:
If you could rewrite any book’s ending, which one would you choose?
Many weeks ago, my laptop charger stopped working. While I acquired a replacement, I instead used the Jetpack app on my phone, which suggests a different prompt every day. I decided to keep that one handy for a slow week. That slow week has now arrived, so here’s the prompt:
What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?
I won’t go through everything I do in the morning, as much of it is keeping up-to-date with pals, but let’s look at some highlights.
For the past seven years, I’ve updated Instagram nearly every day with a themed picture. I decide on a different theme each month. We’re just coming out of April Angles, featuring pictures that contain adjoining or intersecting straight lines, including wall buttresses, a railway signal and a set of swings.
I also tackle two puzzles. The first is the classic Wordle, and I’m pleased to report I’ve now retrospectively caught up with all the puzzles. You need a paid subscription for this, and it’s now cancelled. The second is the seven-letter Full Rainbow anagram. Unfortunately, there’s currently no way to catch up with missed puzzles, but it’s a lot of fun.
Thirdly, I’m off to Sweden with a pal at the end of next month. It’s only for a long weekend, and I hear English is widely spoken as a second language, but I’d like to learn a few handy phrases for emergencies. Another pal recommended Clozemaster, which shows sentences with one word blanked out, and you close the gap by clicking on the correct option or – for advanced users – typing it in. The free option offers up to 30 sentences per day. Later on, I intermittently listen to a Swedish talk radio station for extra listening practice.
However, I rarely write prose or poetry in the morning. One piece of writing wisdom you’ll likely hear is to keep a pencil and paper by your bedside for ideas that strike during the night. This simply doesn’t produce work for me. I need to be up and about before ideas start to emerge.
Gavin Cameron 