Penelope Overton - One (or in this case ten) I've Learnt

Ten things I’ve learned in the last ten days in one hundred

words:

1.  The most beautiful tulips grow in my garden.

2. It can make you more sad to see old friends than not seeing them at all.

3.  When a builder tells you another three weeks, he means six.

4. That digging a pond is easier than it looks when someone else does it.

5. People will take anything if you leave it outside labelled help yourself.

6. The cat is not as clever as we thought.

7. Rescue Remedy® works, most of the time.

8. A hosepipe ban makes you look at rain differently.

9.  Talking to an American, it’s sometimes easier to use their vocabulary.

10.  Tulips can smile.

Christine Moriarty - One Things I've Learnt

One of the things I learned is …the importance of the contrast of the old and the new. 

Be open to:      New Ideas

 New Friendships

 New Experiences

Life is full and passing judgment without being open, keeps your world small and leads  to an unfulfilling life. 

Humans are drawn to the newness – it refreshes our soul and keeps life interesting. 

With each new experience and exposure to new ideas we are enriched with knowledge and wisdom - valuable tools on our journey. However the brilliance of the new need never outshine the old.

We need comfort to relax.  Contentment is also good for the soul.

Our long term friends may not cross our lives everyday – or even every year.  Yet, in those bonding experiences of childhood, college or growing up, we resonated with them because of the new experiences and ideas. Remember them on your journey now.  Nothing can be as comfortable as a deep reconnection – No matter how fleeting. Nor can any experience offer such perspective.

The Girl Scout in me who learned the song “Make new friends and keep the old.  One is silver and the other is gold.”  I have found this time honored advice.

Be open to the new 

Save time to treasure the old.

Looking back, knowing far you have come while appreciating where you are going is the touchstone of a fulfilled life.

Christine on the left and Liz on the far right

Make New Friends

Make new friends,
but keep the old.
One is silver,
the other is gold.

A circle is round,
it has no end.
That's how long,
I will be your friend.
A fire burns bright, 
it warms the heart.
We've been friends,
from the very start.
You have one hand,
I have the other.
Put them together,
We have each other.
Silver is precious, 
Gold is too.
I am precious,
and so are you.
You help me, 
and I'll help you 
and together
we will see it through.
The sky is blue
The Earth is green
I can help
to keep it clean
Across the land
Across the sea
Friends forever
We will always be

Choose Consciously, Plan Attentively, Live Peacefully

www.moneypeace.com

Eileen Ramsay - One Thing I've Learnt

In all these years I should have learned something!

One can learn a great deal about being a decent human being by living with a dog. Dogs hold no grudges.  They are unbelievably patient – I say this as I watch our baby granddaughter launch herself across our Chocolate Labrador as he obligingly lies motionless.  A dog’s love is total and his sense of duty unparalleled.  When the family is gathered or we have guests in the house, Dougal will not rest for the night until he has checked every bedroom – sometimes to the consternation of its occupants.

Here he is taking me out for a walk in the snow, and yes, I still have a lot to learn from him.

http://www.eileenramsay.co.uk/

Kate Lord Brown - One Thing I've Learnt

ONE THING I’VE LEARNT is the truth in Ionesco’s statement that: 'A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.' If you haven’t played around with http://www.wordle.net/ and made a word cloud of your blog or website, it’s an interesting way to see the topics and themes that you are thinking, and writing about. Why not try making a cloud yourself and see if any words or themes strike a chord with you? The titles of my books jump out to me: Beauty Chorus, Perfume Garden. But also: heart, life, family. I’ve always liked Stephen King’s advice that art is a support system for life – not the other way around. For me, they go hand in hand. That’s what I’ve learnt in the fifteen years I’ve been writing seriously – writing is not a hobby, or a job, it’s a way of life.  


www.katelordbrown.com

Victoria Connelly -One Thing I've Learnt

Victoria and Dolly Clare

Last year, we rescued four ex-battery chickens and I soon learned that the term “pecking order” is a very real phenomenon and it can be painful to see it in action.  In short, it’s how the flock establishes its hierarchy – with beaks! 

Dotty the hen soon took top position with poor little Dolly bringing up the rear.  But the worst-behaved hen – the hen with the most vicious beak - was the one placed in penultimate position.  For a while, this position belonged to Alice.  She would take a hammering from the two hens above her – Dotty and Minnie – and would then pass it on to Dolly.  Dolly was the only one below her – the one hen she could dominate – and she took all her frustration out on her.

Sadly, Dolly was the first hen we lost and so Alice is now the bottom of the pecking order and it’s Minnie’s turn to be the penultimate bird and, sure enough, she passes on all the grief she gets from Dotty onto poor Alice.

In April, we added three more hens to our flock so the pecking order will no doubt shift and perhaps some other hen will take its turn at the bottom of the pile.

www.victoriaconnelly.com

Latest book: The Runaway Actress, HarperCollins – a romantic comedy about a movie star who swaps Hollywood for the Highlands.

Nell Dixon - One Thing I've Learnt

One thing I've learnt.

 

I lead a busy life. I have three teenage daughters, a husband who works shifts and has a chronic debillitating illness. I myself am semi-disabled thanks to a dodgy left hip and chronic osteo arthritis. I work for a disabled peoples charity and do voluntary work within my community in addition to my writing.

So what I've learnt is that in order to keep doing all the things I love to do and need to do - care for my family, friends and neighbours, be a good employee and write my books, I have to take care of me. Sometimes that means being a bit selfish and difficult though it is I am trying to learn to say 'NO'. (Although that one is a bit tough)

Mr Nell, my dh makes me take time out and one of the ways we do that is by going away for a few days in our touring caravan. Quite often we don't go far or for very long but it gives us time to breathe. My favourite places are my beloved Wales or down to Devon and Cornwall.

Sometimes, too it ends up being good research for a book! (But don't tell Mr Nell!)

http://www.nelldixon.com/home.aspx

Julia Williams - One Thing I've Learnt

Julia, aged 18

As a teenager, I was typically awkward and lacking in confidence. Wearing NHS specs, and being a girly swot didn’t help. My mother used to say: “You’re no better or worse then anyone else.” ie. Don’t waste time comparing yourself to others. It took me YEARS to see she was right.

But one day, while at university, I met an old school friend. I say friend. I had admired her from afar throughout my school days, assuming she would never be interested in me. To my astonishment I discovered that far from being in control and confident as I had fondly imagined, she had gone through the same wretched self hating process that I had.

Julia and her twin sister

It was then that I realised that it’s the same for everyone. No matter how old we are. No matter how we project ourselves: with confidence or without. We are all at heart that same scared unconfident teen. Discovering this was liberating, and gave me a confidence I’d hitherto lacked.

Julia and her best friends c 1982

Now I tell my girls when they stress about friends being prettier, cleverer, more popular, that it’s the same for them too.

I don’t expect they’ll believe me till they’re grown up, either.

www.juliawilliamsauthor.com

http://maniacmum.blogspot.com

Sue Moorcroft - One Thing I've Learnt..

One thing I’ve learnt is to value my friends.

It’s all too easy to think that keeping my head down over my work is the best way to productivity. Not so! Creativity doesn’t always thrive in solitude. Maybe I need other emotional perspectives; maybe it’s natural in a storyteller to always being on the look out for anecdotes. Or maybe it’s that friendship recharges my heart’s batteries. But half-an-hour over a cuppa with friends who amuse and interest me will send me back to my desk in a burst of energy, full of ideas and enthusiasm.

NB Chocolates and champagne work even better than a cuppa …

http://www.suemoorcroft.com

Liz Harris - One Thing I've Learnt

'One thing I've learnt is that the world isn't full of writers, either aspiring or published, but that there are readers, too, and they may have no interest in the mechanics of writing.

This may sound obvious, but (in my defence) it isn't.  After years of going to workshops and writing groups, meeting with writer friends and discussing our work and the difficulty of getting published, I'd rather forgotten that there are people out there who have no interest in what happens behind the scenes - they just want to be transported into the world of the fiction and allowed to stay there.

How did I reach this amazing degree of awareness???  Well, I went to a talk where the speaker was addressing an audience made up primarily of readers, and I realised that the speaker's focus was very different from that in a talk given to a writer-audience.

So thank you, Rosie Thomas, for giving a really brilliant talk at the Oxford Literary Festival that (I hope) will help me to keep the nature of my audience in the forefront of my mind when I come to talk to readers about my novel The Road Back.'

http://www.lizharrisauthor.com

THE ROAD BACK to be published by Choc Lit, September 2012
follow me on twitter @lizharrisauthor

Debs Carr - One Thing I've Learnt

One Thing I’ve Learnt… is that if I’m going to spend hours writing every day, I need to be happy in my writing space.

I can write anywhere, but my favourite place to write is in my shed where I’m surrounded by pieces that I’ve collected over the years. I can look at my photos, maps, and odd treasures for inspiration. Needless to say, there are shelves of How To… books, Writers’ & Artists’ Year books, notepads containing characteristics, plot lines, ideas and titles, as well as piles of manuscripts that really should be thrown away.

I have two vintage, pink, Lloyd Loom chairs, one for me and one for my ever-present Miniature Schnauzer. My desk is a 1950s table and the floor is covered with three mismatched rugs that had been relegated to the loft. The windowsill is covered with driftwood, pieces of coloured glass, shells and oddly shaped pebbles from the nearby beaches where I walk my dog and the view changes each season as the pine tree and palm trees grow outside on the lawn.

In fact, it’s not only comfortable, but inspiring too. Maybe that’s another thing I’ve learnt that the space needs to inspire in some way.

http://debcarrs-daydreams.blogspot.com/
http://www.deborahcarr.co.uk/
http://www.facebook.com/debs.carr
http://twitter.com/#!/DebsCarr