Well, here we are at the end of August and self-doubt may be starting to creep into WordPress’ ‘365 Days of Writing Prompts’: “Are writing prompts a useful exercise, or do you find them to be too limiting and/or hokey?” Yes, I do find writing prompts useful as a supplement to my own sparse powers of imagination. However, I…
“Funny ha-ha. Do you consider yourself funny? What role does humour play in your life? Who’s the funniest person you know?” So many questions. Do I consider myself funny? Well, people are always laughing at me, so I suppose I must be. If I’m not, it certainly isn’t for the want of trying – and people do often…
Or should that be “My Guccis and I”? Whatever. “These boots were made for walkin’. Tell us about your favourite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.” Over the years, I’ve worn through a fair number of pairs of shoes. I can still remember some, so I suppose I must have been quite fond of…
From August 2014, on the art of masterly inactivity. I can’t help it, I’m an analyst “Procrastination. What have you been putting off doing? Why?” We’ve talked about this before on this blog, albeit from a different perspective. So you could consider this as an update. A belated one, obviously. If – no, let’s be fair, when – I’m…
“Drawing the line. Can anything be funny, or are some things off limits?” A tricky one, this. Rather ironically, writing about humour isn’t inherently amusing. I skipped a recent daily prompt about political correctness (is it a useful concept, or does it stifle honest discussion?) because I could see this particular subject coming up, and I think…
From this day in 2014, a meditation on boredom… Shoot Me Now This one’s just too good to miss…(cracks knuckles; hunches over keyboard; ticks tags for ‘rants’ and ‘grumpy old man’). “(YAWN): What bores you?” Firstly, let’s be clear about what we actually mean by ‘boredom’. My first stab at finding a dictionary definition came…
Oh, hi there. I thought that might get your attention… Today’s instalment of ‘365 Days of Writing Prompts’ is: “Origin story. Why did you start your blog? Is that why you still blog, or has your site gone in a different direction than you’d planned?” It’s coming up for two years since I started this…
Originally posted on theonlyD800inthehameau:
I recently visited Monet’s Garden, in Normandy. You’ve probably heard of it, and of Monet himself, the founder of Impressionism. The garden itself is rightly famous, although I was surprised to discover that almost all of the plants there are quite common varieties, rather than horticultural curiosities. What grabs the…
“State of your year. Write up a mid-year ‘State of my Year’ post.” Still alive, still married, still solvent. The rest is detail. No news is good news, but it doesn’t provide much meat for a new post. Instead, let’s look at how things are going in relation to the ‘365 Days of Writing Prompts’…
“Flip flop. Think of a topic or issue about which you’ve switched your opinion. Why the change? Nobody likes to admit they’re wrong and frankly it’s a little embarrassing to tell everyone (ha!) about how I couldn’t see the point of an iPad at all when they first came out. If you tried to take…
the only deadhead in the hameau 