KEEP ON KEEPING ON
How uplifting to read Miller Caldwell’s letter on disability and never giving up (WM, Sep). For some of us, distracted by life but still in relatively good nick, it’s the boost needed when in your mind, age and other factors seem to be going against you. Working out if you could manage to get something resembling an actual book instead of all those monthly column inches, in the next twenty years before reaching your mid eighties (lucky me in some aspects) before visions of book signings in shiny high heels turn into shuffling into a venue in carpet slippers on the arm of any volunteer who happens to be nearby.
‘Come on, shake yourself, get moving, focus!’ has become my phrase of the day.
DAWN LLEWELYNPRICE
Swansea, South Wales
In the last year, my family has lost a very dearly loved one, I have lost work, become unemployed, and middle-age is no longer quite so far away on the horizon. And so, I turn to writing.
I make my way through issues of Writing Magazine and scribble down tips and ideas with the intention of turning them into fully formed poems, stories, or articles.
Sometimes, when procrastination isn’t ruling the day, I manage to reach those goals and I produce something of which I am very proud. And, for a while, the pains of life are gone.
Writing provides a means to explore those darker and sadder parts of life too, and to perhaps even find some kind of sense in them. Not always, but sometimes.
Sometimes life is hard and, though writing may never solve any of those pains and problems, it does reconnect me with the joys when I need to find them.
PHILIP SIMONS,
Stevington, Bedfordshire