Trying to make sense of my little bit.
I was just starting to understand that there were other ways of understanding the world that did not centre around the dominant rhetoric I'd grown up with: whiteness, Christianity and generosity through charity. Vu Le led the way to the door; Anand Giridharadas handed me the key.
Anne is as fiercely determined as Christopher in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. She’s as kind as The Queen in A Bug’s Life. She’s as funny as Mark Watney in The Martian, if not funnier. She’s as humble as Samwise in The Lord of the Rings.
Honestly, sometimes writing is like thrashing in a rip. No idea is a good one. I can’t concentrate. Then I get frustrated with myself, which makes it even harder to write... I have found that if I’m struggling to get anything coherent out, usually one of two things has happened, so therefore one of two things needs to happen.
Pressure can propel us, and other times it can stifles us.
Ugh. A New Year, and I’m late to writing about it. Everything I’ve read by other people has been better than what I’ve got to say. I’m running out of ideas for this stupid blog.
I’m fifty posts in now. I remember distinctly what it felt like to set up this website and start writing. What made me finally do it?
With Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, I needed some space between takes. I picked it up by chance in the library in 2017, and I only read half of the blurb before I knew I wanted to give it a go.
There is a shift that must take place in between when we realise that we’ve got something of value to share with another, and when we have the confidence to act on it.
Jemma Balmer 