Icy Sedgwick's Blog, page 52
June 16, 2016
Take a walk along the old Corpse Roads
Corpse roads might conjure up weird mental images of highways paved with the dead, or possibly byways only used by them, but they’re actually more straightforward than they sound. In days gone by, remote communities often didn’t have anywhere to put their dead. The churches were the only places to hold burial rights, so the...
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June 15, 2016
Sunken Cities at the British Museum [Review]
Sunken Cities conjures up mental images of Atlantis, but the reality is far more extraordinary. This British Museum exhibition explores the lost Egyptian cities of Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus. Hidden beneath the Mediterranean for over a thousand years, the excavations have been hugely important. They have allowed experts to revisit the relationship between the ancient Egyptians...
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June 13, 2016
How can freewriting help writers with plotting or blocks?
Freewriting is quite a trendy term for those who do journalling, and if you’re familiar with the concept of “morning pages” then you’ve probably already tried it. Morning pages, for those who don’t know, are the three pages that Julia Cameron advocates you write. They should be written longhand, in stream of consciousness. If you...
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June 12, 2016
Blogging: Why do I do it?
Blogging can be a very insular activity, enslaved as you are to your laptop. That’s why it can be super important – and fun – to meet other bloggers in person. Scary, right? I attended the Annual Bloggers Bash on Saturday, and it was cool to meet other bloggers like Sacha Black, Lucy Mitchell, Simon...
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June 9, 2016
Pay a visit to the Dead-house!
The name ‘dead-house’ conjures up all kinds of ideas, doesn’t it? Is it a house occupied by the dead? Is it a rotten house that is no longer lived in? It’s a common belief that hauntings revolve around the idea of ‘unfinished business’. Spirits are earthbound until they can fix the outstanding problem and move on....
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June 6, 2016
Are you trying to publish too soon?
Is it possible to publish too soon? Of course it is, and with the ease of KDP, it’s happening too often. I’ve been monitoring various Facebook groups, and one of the questions that keeps coming up among new writers is “How do I get published?” WHOA! Hold your horses! Trying to get published before you’ve...
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June 3, 2016
Free Fiction: Ghost Train
The train lurches out of the Tottenham Court Road station and rattles east. Elsa flicks from her Kindle app to the clock – another ten minutes and she’ll be at Liverpool Street. Plenty of time to catch the train to Stansted before her flight to Naples. The train slows, and rumbles to a stop. Elsa...
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June 2, 2016
Exploring the Charterhouse Plague Pit
The Charterhouse Plague Pit was first unearthed in March 2013 during construction on the Crossrail project [1]. Charterhouse lies between Clerkenwell and Smithfield, just north of the City of London. The area is allegedly rife with plague pits, and research revealed that the Charterhouse skeletons dated back to the 1348 outbreak of plague; an outbreak that...
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May 30, 2016
How do you regain your focus to finish a project?
As fun, and as liberating, as writing fragments can be, there comes a point where you have to focus to finish your writing project. Even if you feel like you’ve hit a wall. Especially if you feel like you’ve hit a wall. If you abandon every story you start, then all you’ll ever have are...
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May 26, 2016
Meet the Grey Lady of the Assembly Rooms
Lots of locations around the UK boast a Grey Lady or a White Lady. Such spectres are usually attached to sad tales of loss, and a lot of them are nameless. Newcastle upon Tyne is no different. There are tales of Grey or White Ladies in the neighbouring county of Northumberland, but the Grey Lady in...
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