Fran Macilvey's Blog, page 29

Happiness is…

Happiness is….

Happiness has a varying quality, as dependent on the time of day as the seasons of the year and whether we enjoy our work today or would rather be reading a good book or having a snooze.

But, just for a bit of whimsy, here are some things that I think help to make us happy, or at least, happier today.

Peace to listen and be quiet; but not so much peace that we feel lonely.

Time to reflect, to check that we are content with what we are doing in this moment.

The time to relax an...

Speaking in public

Speaking in public

Is there any easy way to take up an ambition of speaking in public? I’ve yet to find any short cuts to bliss, in this most trepidatious of activities.

But, from having been totally phobic about it – sleepless nights, anxious, tremulous voice – I can, I think, now do a better job; and each time I venture to try, it does get easier. Along the way, this is something of what I have discovered works for me. Do you have any other tips or suggestions?

It helps to remember that m...

Writing Blog Posts

Writing Blog Posts

In the last few years I’ve learned a lot about writing blog posts. So far, this is what I’ve learned to help me to write a blog post that can pass as good.

I aim to publish two or three blog posts each week, to keep the blog active and ‘live’; this my hope, though I do take a long break during the Summer holidays.

 

Each post should, ideally, be more than three hundred words, but not so many more that readers will be distracted.

 

That each post may contain links to e...

Reading Jane Austen

Reading Jane Austen

I enjoy reading Jane Austen, one of the classical writers who has retained her popularity. I’m also fond of the Bronte sisters, many of whose books I read in my youth. Recently on Radio Three I heard an interviewee extolling the virtues of Dickens – whom my mum likes too – so he may be next on my reading list.

Having watched many movies and clips on Youtube, clips of ‘Emma’ and ‘Persuasion’ and ‘Sense and Sensibility’ I had to admit that, for an author who professes to li...

No more finger food

No more finger food

One of my earlier posts, ‘Forty Years of Finger Food’  lays bare my battle to stop biting my fingernails. And until recently – very recently – it was a battle I despaired of ever winning. As the years pass, it takes longer for hands to heal, and for cuts, bruising and split nails to recover.

Alfred Stevens – The Letter

But – thanks to reading this book, I actually feel as if I am approaching the end of this particular battle.

It’s time to let go of stuff that gets in the w...

Stuck in the house

Stuck in the house

The last few days have been strangely peculiar – myself, husband and daughter all stuck in the house because of the weather, kept away from our usual pursuits – in which eventuality I have come off best, since I work from home and have become – alarmingly? – domesticated in the last few years. We have been cheek by jowl, prowling, almost, at the constraints imposed on us by gales, ice and endless snow. When the snow finally stopped, on Thursday evening after forty-eight hou...

The unbearable insecurity of writers

The unbearable insecurity of writers

Lots of those we call great authors – okay, almost all the authors I know or have read about – suffer from an insecurity, a question they ask themselves all the time: Is my work any good? Have they done themselves and their characters justice, this time? Such is the unbearable insecurity of writers that even famous and very successful authors suffer from angst and mental health problems.

And to the general public who read books, or who simply watch the sh...

‘Nearly Almost Somebody’ – Caroline Batten

Nearly Almost Somebody’ – Caroline Batten

I read the first book in this series, ‘Forfeit’, about the adventures of Daisy and Zander, loving it entirely, so much so, that several years later, ‘Forfeit’ is still on the main page of my kindle. Why did it take me so long to get a copy of ‘Nearly Almost Somebody‘? Perhaps I was rationing myself.

Whatever I think of the characters in this series – all beautiful, interesting and apparently irresistible to the opposite sex…I’m so, like, totally jeal...

Smart as a Whip – Jacky Donovan

Smart as a Whip – by Jacky Donovan

‘Smart as a Whip‘ by Jacky Donovan – aka ‘Instant Whips and Dream Toppings’ – is an account – a rather extraordinary account – of one woman’s discovery of … what? Her joy of sex? Her initiation into dom rom? It is so many things, and such an interesting read, for so many reasons. Not the least of which is, I seem to have led a very sheltered life.

Jacky started out on what turned out to be a life adventure, by her own admission a fairly ordinary and unexcep...

My new screen saver

My new screen saver

This is going to sound maudlin, but I promise you, it’s not. I have a new screen saver. That’s to say, my new screen saver is wonderful. I have sometimes struggled to get images that were not pixelated to death, or fuzzy, or that gave me a headache after a few days.

But recently, mucking about with my PC, a photo of my brother, wearing a genuinely lovely smile, a grin which says, “I’m happy here, now” ended up as my screen saver image, and it is beautifully clear.  Unusual...