On Writing - The Dream Pedlar

When I try to juggle and all the balls fall down

I struggle with being a mother and a writer at the same time. When D is at home, I find it impossible to get any writing done. When he is at home, I want to spend time with him. But after a few hours of being with him, something starts

On Writing

The End!

At exactly 12:08 PM this afternoon, I wrote these words 'The End' on my WIP. My second book but my first ever novel! A tome of about 135,000 words. I treated myself to a nice long walk in the snow and a long soak in a warm bath

On Writing

Making Choices and Making Mistakes - Deciding What Matters in 2021

Sometime last week, a trip to the optometrist finally laid to rest all the questions I had had these past several months (since March actually, since the beginning of the pandemic lockdown here) about the incessant headaches and phases of blurry vision I'd been having. Armed with a prescription for

On Writing

Antidote to a Nagging Discontent

I missed posting an update last Sunday, not because I didn't remember to but because I couldn't bear to look at my laptop screen any more than I already had that week. My feelings this past fortnight have ranged from complete elation to utter dejection and self-rejection. I have swung

On Writing

Crossing a milestone by 'failing forward'

I started work on my current WIP in January 2019. I jotted down ideas in general along with a plot outline and even wrote a bit I suppose, until a phone call from a family member in February completely derailed me and took me away from the WIP for several

On Writing

Readership versus Inventory

I was looking at some of my old stories and posts on my earlier site and came across a post I'd written back in April 2013, wondering which social media platform I ought to be using to promote my stories and gain readership. Funnily, I don't think I'd ever thought

On Writing

A Conundrum

A fortnight ago, I was elated at having found a possible solution to this never-ending conundrum I face, this unsolvable puzzle of finding a balance between freelance editing and fiction writing. After I put up that post, I worked on my novel for not one single day! Not one word

On Writing

Writing as a Practice

This has been a week of incredible epiphanies, and in my excitement to capture the essence of all of them at once in this single post, I'm quite unable to decide where to start. Chronology is as good a solution as any other to this conundrum. It all began when

Motherhood

The pressure to do, the need to be

Last evening, I was perusing my old website, The Dream Pedlar’s, with the intention of transferring my posts from there, one by one, over to this new home. And I came across something special. A year and a half ago, just before D was about to start attending a

On Writing

Keep Writing and Carry On!

I came across a quote today on a Facebook group I had decided to stay away from for a while but couldn’t help taking a sneak peek at when this post popped up on my newsfeed. Don’t quit. It’s very easy to quit during the first ten

On Writing

A New Home

It is quite like moving into a new home. First you bring with you the bare essentials, and you’re truly amazed at how little you really need to survive. Then, you envision how you’d fill up this vast, mostly-empty space, with all your furniture. And then your belongings

On Writing

The Gift of Time

The phone call came last summer, shortly before I had completed my last course for the degree I was pursuing. There was a spot available in the Infant Room of a daycare that had opened only the previous autumn. We had put ourselves on the waitlist after a visit in