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Facebook: A Museum of Memories
View original blog on Huffington Post Earlier this year, I had an unwelcome reminder of my age. I received an invite to a Facebook group, QEGS @50. My school year were all turning 50 this year so the group was founded to organize a reunion. Accepting the invite opened a magical box of retrospect. The…
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Creativity as an Enthusiast or a Career?
Visit Huffington Post Original Blog Encouraging children to follow their passions, and become skilled and knowledgeable in that capacity is important. Parents and teachers have a moral responsibility to do so, yet it’s rarely exercised. Sir Ken Robinson’s famous TED Talk discusses this in detail; children are conditioned to prioritise money over creativity in the…
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Why Your Memory Betrays You
Visit Huffington Post Original Blog Have you ever revisited a place you were once familiar with, only to find your memory of the area has changed? Have you ever reminisced about an event you shared with a friend or relative to find their account of the adventure was different to yours? This happens to us…
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Finding Inspiration Through Grief
(Taken from Huffington Post) Few people will mourn the passing of January 2016. The month has claimed too many talented artists. By the time the news of Colin Vearncombe’s death broke, I felt crushed. I didn’t know him, I didn’t know David Bowie or Glenn Frey either but when you become so familiar with what…
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Emily Reads Everything – Guest Blog
GEOCACHING TREASURE The Inspiration for A Parallel Trust. When my eldest son was seventeen, he and a friend travelled to see their friends in Santa Rosa, California. When he returned he was buzzing about his time out there, much of which he spent geocaching. I had never heard of the word before but I was fascinated by…
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The Serial Reader – Guest Blog
How Featuring Real Places in Fiction Creates a Timeless Diary I recently read a fascinating review for my first novel Ring of Conscience. The book is partly set in Las Vegas and the reviewer enjoyed the descriptions of the city and mentioned it was wonderful to revisit the ‘Old Vegas’. Old Vegas. My last visit…
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The Bookavid – Guest Blog
I’ve learnt to have a rough idea of the characters a little before I begin because I can put myself into the mind-set of the characters while I research, and this helps turn knowledge to inspiration. For example, while researching for Ring of Conscience, I knew my protagonist had a sense of wonder and curiosity.…
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Beyond the Back Cover – Guest Blog
One of the things I enjoy as a reader is to picture the characters from the imagination of the author. It’s something I’ve done from an early age. I imagined Smiler’s empathy with the cheetah in The Runaways by Victor Canning and of how Charlotte discovers the comforts of her own world after seeing life…
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Building a Design for Life in 2016
FOR HUFFINGTON POST It’s taken me three years to discover American Author, David Wong’s brutal article listing harsh truths to become a better person. We are what we do regardless of how we think and treat other people. Sometimes it’s important to understand the mechanics of our actions and look at ourselves scientifically. Our brain is…