JULY
Using memories for a book.
Using memories for a book is a beautiful way of holding them in a form of stasis. Holding them in a way that everyone can hang on to them and share a piece of them. This is what I have done.
“Ramblings of a Forty Something Widow” was a collection of 35 poems written after the death of my husband. Some are funny, some are sad, and some are raw. But all are memories. All are preserved in the pages.
“My Adventures with Bruce” was about a boy and his friend. The inspiration for this was a child I knew.
I just finished writing, “The Reading Competition” and sent it to a publisher. It is inspired by the reading competitions that my aunt Sally and I had over the years.
I have also just finished the almost 200 page and 50,000 words of “Confessions of a Fifty-something Introvert.” That has also gone to a publisher. (A girl can hope – if I don’t try, I’ll never know)
Even if publishers never want these books I write (and they didn’t,) I will get them bound myself and put them on my shelf with the inordinate sense of pride that I DID IT!
Now I’m writing another about life over 50. This one’s going well.
JUNE
Time to write an email to all of you.
Hi you lot,
I realised this morning that it’s been far too long since I’ve written an actual email instead of posting the usual “here’s what’s coming to the website” message that disappears into the endless scroll of life. So here I am, coffee in hand, determined to sit still long enough to do a proper catch-up.
Life has been ticking along in that strange way where the days feel busy but, when I try to explain what I’ve actually done, it sounds like I’ve mostly just been chasing my own tail. You know the sort—laundry that breeds overnight, a “quick” trip to the shops that turns into an hour because you forgot why you went in the first place, and a to-do list that seems to multiply when you’re not looking. I swear mine judges me from my notepad.
I’ve been doing quite a bit of writing lately, which will shock absolutely none of you. Some days it flows beautifully and I feel terribly clever, and on others I sit staring at the screen wondering why I ever thought putting words together was a good life choice. Still, it keeps me out of trouble (mostly), and I genuinely love it.
The weather here has been playing its usual game. Stifling hot one day and cool the next. We’re sitting in winter now and ticking over at about 22 degrees.
I was thinking about our last proper catch-up and how easy it is to think about last catch ups only to realise months have slipped by. There’s something about sitting around a table, talking nonsense, laughing too loudly, and inevitably telling the same stories we’ve all heard twenty times that just doesn’t translate over messages. My first Aussie friend will remember we did that over wine and dessert in The Nook. My nurse friends will remember we did that over karaoke and beer in the Oldchurch social club. My mum and dad’s friends will remember we did that around the dinner table at whoever’s house we were at.
What have you all been up to? Any new adventures, dramas, or ridiculous stories I should know about? Someone must have done something mildly chaotic by now.
Anyway, I won’t ramble on forever (though clearly, I could). Just wanted you all to know I’ve been thinking of you, and that despite the usual daily madness, you’re never far from my mind.
Write back when you can and tell me something interesting—or at least entertaining.
Much love,
Joanne
MAY
Writing about the Trips
Trips have a way of rearranging my thoughts before they ever rearrange my surroundings. I don’t travel to escape life; I travel to look at it from a slightly different angle. Somewhere between leaving and arriving—without fanfare or postcards—my mind starts quietly collecting moments, knowing they’ll need words later.
I don’t write about trips as lists of places or must-see attractions. That has never interested me. What stays with me are the small, unremarkable details that somehow feel enormous at the time. The way a room sounds at night when it isn’t yours. The unfamiliar rhythm of mornings where you don’t quite know what day it is. The sense of being slightly out of step with everyone around you and oddly comforted by that.
Trips slow me down in ways everyday life refuses to. Without my usual routines, I notice more. I pay attention to how light falls through a window, how time stretches when there’s nowhere specific to be, how my thoughts wander when they’re not being constantly redirected. Writing later becomes a way of honouring that pause, of saying: this mattered, even if nothing dramatic happened.
There is also a version of me that only appears when I’m away. She is more observant, occasionally braver, and far more willing to sit quietly and think. I notice my reactions more clearly when I’m not distracted by familiarity. I see what unsettles me, what comforts me, what I miss, and what I don’t. Writing about trips isn’t about the places—it’s about meeting myself in slightly altered circumstances and recognising her.
Memory, of course, is unreliable. Trips blur at the edges far too quickly. Days merge. Details fade. Writing pins them down before they soften into something untrue. I don’t want the highlight reel version of my travels. I want the honest one—the tired moments, the unexpected calm, the thoughts that surfaced simply because there was space for them.
When I write about trips, I’m not trying to persuade anyone to go where I went. I’m trying to explain what it felt like to be there, inside my own head. Sometimes that means describing silence. Sometimes it’s about the strange comfort of anonymity, or the clarity that comes from stepping outside your usual life, even briefly.
Trips end, inevitably. Writing is how they stay with me. It’s how I unpack the experience long after everything else has been put away. The journey doesn’t disappear when I return—it settles into reflection, into language, into something I can revisit. Writing turns travel into understanding, and that, for me, is the real reason I go anywhere at all.
APRIL
Writing Is My Superpower
Superman could fly. The Hulk had super-strength. The Scarlet Witch had magical time-warping powers. So, who is counting? I’ve got a superpower. I don’t fly. I’m not strong. I can perform an element of magic on a page, I suppose—but my superpower is writing.
It doesn’t arrive with a cape or a dramatic theme tune. I’ve never liked capes – they never look good on a 5ft 3 person like me! My superpower turns up quietly, usually with a cup of coffee beside me, and a mind buzzing with thoughts that refuse to stay neatly filed away. Writing is how I make sense of the noise. It’s how I turn chaos into coherence. It’s how grief becomes something that can be held, and how memories turn into something that doesn’t hurt quite as sharply when revisited.
I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. I have always had a notebook, back in my youth, they were called exercise books. Writing has always been my translator—taking feelings too big, too raw, or too tangled to say out loud and turning them into something readable. Something survivable. When life has knocked the wind out of me, writing has been the thing that helped me breathe and, in a way, survive.
My superpower does not save cities, but it does preserve moments. It captures people I never want to forget, conversations that mattered, and versions of myself that no longer exist. Through ink and keys, I can time travel—back to love, forward to hope, and sideways into “what if?” Writing lets me sit with my younger self, hold her hand, and tell her that she makes it through. That there is life after heartbreak. That loss does not erase identity.
There’s also mischief in this power. Humour lives here too. Writing lets me poke fun at the absurdities of life—the to-do lists that judge me, the social expectations that exhaust me, the quiet introvert navigating a world that insists louder is better. On the page, I can be sharp, reflective, sarcastic, tender, or brutally honest. I don’t have to apologise for any of it.
Unlike most superpowers, this one strengthens with use. The more I write, the braver I become. The more truths I tell, the less afraid I am of them. Writing has taught me that vulnerability isn’t weakness—it’s courage with ink stains. It has connected me to strangers who see themselves in my words and say, “Me too.” And in that moment, the power multiplies. It has also meant that people have left my life, not able to appreciate my thoughts and views as simply that.
So no, I won’t be smashing buildings or bending reality. But give me a blank page and a story that needs telling, and I’ll show you what real power looks like. It’s quiet. It’s persistent. And it changes lives—starting with my own.
MARCH
Where Ideas Go When You’re Not Writing
There is a quiet anxiety that comes with not writing. I hate it. I must write something daily – even if it just a few lines or an email. Something must go on paper. The anxiety sits somewhere between guilt and panic, whispering that ideas are evaporating, talent is dulling, and whatever spark once existed has packed up and moved on without leaving a forwarding address. For writers, not writing can feel like a small betrayal—of ourselves, of our craft, of all the words we haven’t yet set down.
But I’ve come to believe that ideas don’t disappear when we’re not writing. They simply change rooms or for me, they get added on to the “ideas” list.
When life is full—appointments, responsibilities, tiredness, grief, distraction—ideas don’t knock loudly. They hover. They slip into pockets. They appear while we’re busy doing other things. If you’re anything like me, they jump in my head at 2am (yes, I do have a notebook beside the bed!) An idea might be sitting quietly while you stare out the window. You don’t notice it because it isn’t demanding attention. It’s waiting.
We’re told that creativity thrives on routine, discipline, and daily output, and while there’s truth in that, there’s also another truth we don’t talk about enough: ideas need time to marinate. I started a book. A simple book based on life experiences. First draft…. not much good. Second draft – I tweaked it slightly and ended up abandoning it halfway through 2025. My third draft has got to ‘chapter titles.’ See…. ideas need to marinate.
When I’m not writing, I’m still observing. I’m still listening. I’m still absorbing conversations, moments, emotions, and the strange tiny details that later become sentences. The writer brain doesn’t switch off just because the laptop is closed. It watches. It collects. It stores things away without asking permission.
Ideas also retreat when we pressure them too much. If I don’t write something as soon as the idea appears, it goes. You can often find me tapping an idea into the note’s app on my phone in the middle of the night. (Is this why I have trouble sleeping sometimes, one wonders?) When writing becomes a task rather than a conversation, inspiration has a habit of stepping back. Not out of spite, but self-preservation. Creativity doesn’t respond well to being chased. It prefers to be invited.
There’s comfort in knowing that ideas are patient. They don’t operate on deadlines or schedules. They don’t mind waiting until you are ready to hear them properly. Often, when you finally return to writing after a break, the words arrive with more clarity than before. That’s not coincidence—that’s incubation.
So, if you’re in a season where writing feels distant or difficult, be gentle with yourself. You haven’t abandoned your ideas. They haven’t abandoned you. They’re simply waiting in the wings, rehearsing, refining, becoming what they need to be.
And when you’re ready—really ready—they’ll step forward.
Ink remembers. Inspiration waits.
FEBRUARY
Charlie Kirk said 100 books a year…
A family friend once said to me, “You always had a book in your hand, as long as I can remember.” Thank you, Tina Coveley, for remembering and sharing that with me. It is one of those observations that sticks with you because it’s so true.
The late Charlie Kirk once said, “I try to read a hundred, 120 books a year. I am always listening to stuff, always reading stuff. I don’t remember it all, but I remember a fair amount of it, and it creates you into a happier, deeper, wiser person. The more you dedicate yourself to reading, the easier debating becomes.” When I first heard that quote, I could not help but reflect on my own habits.
I started counting how many books I read in a year. On average, I land somewhere in the high seventies, occasionally pushing into the eighties. I don’t say that to boast, but to explain something fundamental about who I am. I can’t put a book down. I can’t walk past a secondhand bookshop without going in. Reading isn’t something I schedule; it’s something I live with, something I am.
Books have shaped the way I think, the way I debate, and the way I understand the world. I don’t remember every page or every passage, but each book leaves something behind—a question, a perspective, a deeper sense of curiosity. Over time, those small pieces add up. They make conversations richer, ideas sharper, and understanding broader. Reading, for me, isn’t just a habit. It’s just one way of learning and becoming a better person.
JANUARY
Good Reads- Last Years results and this year’s plans
A friend once told me that since I was little, I was never without a book in hand. Well, my friends, that has never changed. Here I am now at the grand old age of 54, and the new year is about to start for the Goodreads challenge. In 2025, I aimed to read 75 books. I had completed 68 of those before November started so had no issue cracking the magic number of 75.
In 2026, I am aiming for 80 books. Five more than last year! Up the challenge but up it slowly is my plan. With the number of books on my “to be read” pile, I am guessing I won’t run out of titles until about 2029!
