My brief for this blog was to make it spooky - it being nearly Halloween. I then trawled the internet for the best historical spooky tv series and found one - The Living and the Dead  - which really piqued my interest. The main character, played by Colin Morgan of Merlin fame, is a farmer who is driven to explore what happens after death. It was made for the BBC in 2016. Unfortunately, for some reason I have not been able to fathom, it is not available on iPlayer. So, there went that idea. That left me back at square one, with the Historical and Spooky guidelines not really helping. None of the others caught my interest quite enough. Perhaps, after I'd found The Living and the Dead , I didn't really feel like anything else was going to be as good. So Virginia suggested Ghosts . Ghosts ? Spooky - of course. Historical - not really! But she pointed out that there is a multi-timeline which happens in the series, as we continue to discover more and more about the individual ghosts...
Sunday 3rd November 2019 – The Writer’s Desk
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| Photo by Frans Van Heerden from Pexels | 
I’m a person who loves my own space.  That being said, I’m anything but a
“neat-freak”.  I’ve never managed to find
a writing space which will work for all my books.  Sometimes, I’ll sit alone in a quiet room,
other times I write with my two sisters and we’ll put out inspirational Spotify
playlist on.  And on some occasions, I’ll
give up on the laptop altogether and write by hand.
The most important thing I’ve found is that I’m flexible
with where I write.  No two books are the
same, so why should two writing desks be any different.  Here are a few staples I tend to rely on,
though:
- Always have a pen or pencil to hand – even if the majority of your writing is done on a laptop, you can never underestimate the number of times you’ll need to jot down notes to ideas, from a character’s age, to a major plot twist.
 
- Food! Eating and drinking keeps your brain going. I’m not going to lie, chocolate and tea are favourites for me.
 
- A music device – you may like silence when your writing, but if you're ever afflicted with writers’ block, stick on a favourite tune and words will flow.
 
- Company – it could be human, canine, feline or ursine! Having someone to share ideas with (even if it’s an inanimate teddy), can help get your plan in order. A tricky piece of dialogue, or measuring the meter of a poem, it all makes sense when it’s spoken aloud.
 
- Never go anywhere without *something* to write on and with. You could be at the beach, up a mountain, or underground. Inspiration can strike you anytime and anyplace. Your writer’s desk need not be a physical entity but a space your mind wanders to when inspiration comes knocking – take your desk with you, and you’ll never be caught high and dry!
 
During NaNoWriMo, remember every day is a writing day, and
any space is a writer’s desk.
Virginia Crow
www.crowvus.com

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