Five fantastic things you can do to support folk caring for those near the end of life - based on my experience, other approaches might be preferred. Ah. Maybe that's 6 things!

1. Don't assume - religious, cultural, class, etc. norms around end of life care, death & grieving 2. Ask don't tell - Not everyone knows how they're feeling, & that's normal & OK. Telling someone they must be/feel/are can close down rather than open up conversations. It can also mean an energy cost if the person feels obliged to explain why you're wrong about xyz.

The inside cover of the book bears the same words as the other six I've piled beside my feet, 'Mildred Carver'. Another half hour browsing the charity shop’s shelves delivers a further sixty books all inscribed with her name.

1/9🧵 They're all hardback nature books; the earliest dates from the late 1930s and the last was published in 2019. The subjects range all over, from diaries to field guides to musings.

The books are cheap, all between 50p and £1 and I buy the lot, even the four I already have.

I haven’t done a 🧵for writers for a while - here’s my current take on stages in writing, editing & revising (mainly narrative prose, but adaptable to poetry and scripts.) I teach a whole arse workshop on this process & it seems to work, so, here it is. Written 🔥 posted ❄️

🧵 Sometimes we’ve a story in our head - arc, characters, plot, setting, hook - & however it got there, we’ve spent time on different aspects of the narrative. We might have done some research. Maybe made some notes. Maybe even made a plan, especially if it’s on the longer side.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

My grandad, born in 1898, was none of these.

But what he was, was a walker.

🧵 He was only ever in his waddlesome old age, when I knew him. Grumpy, but kind to me, his smallest grandchild. Him, waiting for a knee replacement & me with callipers, both of us similarly lame. I was a willing captive audience for stories of his steadier youth.

Back in 2021 I started reading about grief. Pa had already outlived his initial predicted 6-12 months and I felt the burden of anticipatory grief pretty heavily. Anticipatory grief has been a really useful idea, to me. That you know something is coming, and grieve for it. It helped me get a handle on what I was experiencing - and gave me a way of talking about it too. What I'd experienced previously - grief after sudden and unexpected deaths or grief after protracted illness or age but where I wasn't the carer - was different.

It was six years ago, and my mate, Pink, had just been told he was going to die. He accepted the news with a grace I can only marvel at, but he said he’d a list of things he’d still like to do.

We sat in a pub one night and read it over. Eight things? Four months? Ok. Deal.

🧵 Don’t get me wrong, he’d been pissed when he found out. Routine check up. Bit of a cough. Shadow on an X-ray. Bad. His wife had just had an all clear and it seemed particularly cruel.

He told us when we were on a dig, heads in a trench, bums in the air. Dignified? Not.

Writer CVs

You’ve decided to start sending out work & you’ve got a nice spreadsheet or table to keep track, right? You’ll also need a writer CV ready for all those awards, residencies & grants you want to apply for. Start as you mean to go on. Here’s a🧵of what to include. 1. Tabulate - name at the top (& name you publish under, if different) & then make it as easy to read as possible by using a table (hide the lines) & organising your information under column headings:

Thing;
For/With Whom;
Date & Duration.

Easier to write & update too.

Colette’s Story - Part Twelve

I took myself to a bar that evening & thought about what the sisters had said.

There were still several questions unanswered, but every time I’d approached the issue of Henri’s return, Colette steered us away. Miriam seemed disinclined to assist. We had agreed to meet again the following day, and I had left them together in the bar near the cemetery, catching up on the events of the last few years.

If their estrangement had begun when Henri met Colette, I guessed their reminiscing might take some considerable time.

G.O.A.L.S for Writers - not everyone likes them, needs them, or thinks in these terms, but hopes, intentions, aspirations or goals can be a supportive tool. Like all tools they take a bit of practice getting what works for you, & what doesn’t. So, here’s a 🧵 written 🔥 posted ❄️ Quick caveat one - GOALS stands for ‘Get On All them Lovely Submissions’. Not everyone writes in order to submit work, the acronym is just for convenience/fun/as a little nudge in case you’ve ever wondered if it might be something you could do.

Colette’s Story - Part Nine (Really Part Nine)

Ahh, said Monsieur Bonmatin. It was a test? Yes? Colette nodded. Not of you, though. Oh no.

Monsieur Bonmatin and I waited. I was beginning to realise Colette was wising up fast. She eyed me.

You’re wrong. Not Henri, either. Not so fast, after all. Who then? I asked her. She dipped her finger in her glass of tea and wrote Miriam’s name on the table’s surface. The damp letters glittered briefly in the lamplight, before she wiped the word away with a sleeve.

Monsieur Bonmatin shook his head, slowly.

Colette's Story - Part 2

I thought of my friend, Colette in her concierge's flat surrounded by fossils of her past. The photographs - her parents swathed in black veil, her faded brother who had died as a child in a diphtheria outbreak, & the sister from whom she was estranged. There was nothing of any monetary value - things her father brought back from his travels as a merchant seaman, small items of paste jewellery her mother passed on, a few prints in plate silver frames that Henri had gifted her on wedding anniversaries & such. Polished with love.

I want to tell you about my friend Colette. I stayed in her building in Paris a few times - she was the concierge - & the flat belonged to a friend of a friend.

When I first met Colette her husband had just died. But she had a plan, or a spell, or something to bring him back. Henri had died in a terrible accident, the kind where they advise you not to look at the body, but she’d been brave, had gone to the pathologist, and identified her husband from the family ring firmly wedged on his little finger.

Finding Your Crew - as a writer there are several aspects to being part of a crew - finding or making one, building it up, and keeping it going thereafter. In that sense, a writery crew is like any intentional community that has a specific focus. But why bother?

🧵 Finding likeminded writers can be crucial for feelings of support & success. Some groups have an intentionally limited shelf life, some run & run. Membership may be static or fluctuate & some work better than others. So, what’s out there? Here’s a quick overview.

Submissions to journals & magazines

I did a thread 2 months ago which dealt with competitions. The link is below. Some of the things apply to journals, but there are a few differences. Buckle up, here’s a combobulated 🧵 written hot, posted cool Journal rankings - there are different metrics - how often their publications occur in awards, how many followers they have on SM, their submission to acceptance ratio, how ‘hard’ they are to get in to. Rankings may not matter to you at all, but it’s useful to know they exist.

Hoping to make a living from writing? Sadly, most books don’t find an agent & sell in a 6 way auction. It means diversifying your portfolio. The writing gig economy can be as tiring as ‘gig’ sounds. Still interested? Here’s a looong intemperate 🧵of possibilities 🌟Quick caveat 1 - don’t give up your day job the first time you sell your work or get paid for something writing related 😅. The exception to this is if the job *is* actually writing based. Then, congratulations, you’re already earning from writing.

Tube on strike, I dawdled to Paddington on Friday. Passing the old wrought iron sign for Pizza Express, I was reminded of an event 30+ years ago, when I got caught up in a drama that resulted in a divorce, two marriages and many changed lives.

It began with a heart attack 🧵 Like Friday, I was ambling along the Marylebone Rd.

Coming towards me are two guys, one a bit older than the other, nicely dressed, laughing, backs of their hands brushing occasionally, as they walked side by side. It’s 1pm & I assume they’ve just had lunch or are on their way.

This year I’ve read or judged six competitions and read hundreds of pieces. I said I’d do a thread of things to pay attention to before submitting. So. Yeah. Here’s an awfully opinionated 🧵 written hot, posted cool. 1. Theme - if the contest has a theme, for the love of every tired reader/judge please, PLEASE reference it in some way. Obliquely is fine. But your beautiful story that has nothing to do with the theme AT ALL will not make the cut. Save your entry fee!

My grandad was only ever elderly as far as I knew him. A bit grumpy. Kind to me, his smallest grandchild. He was a man who felt like he’d never really done anything. Like most of my grandparents he was born in the 19th century. I have to stop for a moment when I write that.
1/ The 19th century. Right at the end, in 1898. In 1918 he was sent home from the front of WW1 with Spanish flu. He survived Ypres when most of his regiment didn’t because he was ill. His sister and my great grandmother weren’t so lucky. But this ain’t a CV story or even a story
2/

The last few days I’ve been woken by murmuring voices. At first I thought it was because we’d opened the windows just a crack and there were sounds coming in off the street. The conversations were always brief, sometimes just a few words, before they were cut off. Interrupted. Yesterday I was woken a little earlier. There was a brief flash of laughter. Glittering. It stopped though, as suddenly as it began. I waited. But it was quiet. When I got up I looked out of the window nearest the road. It was empty. Not surprising in this time of quarantine.