Category: thinking
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Chronology of my writing self
I read Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes, a novel full of full of chronologies, bestiaries and other clever discourse devices, in 2014. I subsequently had a conversation with a friend about the moments in her past which, with the gift of hindsight, she was able to recognise as significant in guiding her to her current…
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Strong Women
In 2015 I was enjoying Sunil Badami’s blog posts on Southerly. One in particular made me think. The first paragraph read “As I mentioned in my previous post, most of my characters and protagonists aren’t named; and nearly all of them are women. I couldn’t tell you why, other than that I was raised by a…
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Greed and Fear
A friend said to me the other day, every decision we make is governed either by fear or greed (I’m taking greed to mean wanting something you don’t currently have, there’s nothing mean or miserly about it). It’s not hard for me to agree with this statement and when I reflect on my own life…
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What does writing add to the world?
When I was considering a thesis topic as part of my Masters degree I had the following conversation with my then boss: “What would you do it on?” she asked. “Female relationships in fairy tales,” said I. “What do you hope to get out of that…” I paused to think… She clarified, “As a practical…
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The Sadder Sex: The Gendering of Grief in Hamlet
The experience of pain, sadness and depression in Shakespeare’s Hamlet is complicated and multifaceted. As the goal of this essay is not to diagnose the characters of Hamlet, pain, sadness and depression along with other terms, such as grief and mourning, will be used interchangeably to refer to the various states from which the characters…
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Magic for Adults
I’ve started babysitting for my partners boss recently and my absolute favourite part is the conversations I have with the five and six-year-old cuties. Most recently the younger of the two asked me what job I did on the farm (after I’d convinced him I was, indeed, a real adult). I told him I didn’t…
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Culture Clash: Simone de Beauvoir and Nicki Minaj
I’ve decided to start this Culture Clash series of posts to capture and compare thoughts, ideas and images that wouldn’t normally be seen alongside each other but, despite their overt differences, are in some way connected. To start us off let’s turn to the French writer, Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86) and Nicki Minaj (born 1982),…
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Positive Thinking
So the power of positive think ey? After forcing myself to be chipper, and writing about sleep ins instead of whinging, I’ve managed to turn that vat of self-loathing I was swimming in into sunbeams and rainbows (hopefully a pot of gold will turn up soon). After one of those enjoyable, lazy sleep ins this…
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Kiss me, it’s raining!
All of my favourite romantic moments happen in the rain, or post drenching, dripping wet and consumed with relief at avoiding getting even more wet. Angel’s deflowering of Buffy or rather Buffy’s desouling of Angel, almost every single mack on between Haley and Nathan on One Tree Hill, Sweet Home Alabama, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The…