Publish or Perish?
Some thoughts on unpublished versus best-selling writers
The Surrealist Muse
Surrealist women: muses or artists?
The Makeover
A short story to amuse you. It's sort of about writing.
Author Archives: kathyhopewell
Happy Endings and the other kind
This post is about stories in films and books, and in life. The stories we consume are very often structured in an artificial way, but we’ve become so used to the shape of stories in Hollywood films such as rom-coms … Continue reading
Posted in Surrealism, writing inspiration
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Writers! Resolve to be BAD in 2019!
This New Year, instead of making all the usual resolutions to eat less and exercise more, why not resolve to be bad and have fun writing instead? Writing need not be serious, and the things we do for pleasure are … Continue reading
Posted in freewriting, writing inspiration
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Hopewell Ink – an exclusive preview
I am a huge fan of Austin Kleon. His advice to artists is to “show your work” or, in other words, to share the creative process in order to invite input, garner interest and de-mystify the labour involved. In this … Continue reading
Posted in original writing
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The Art of Making People: characters in historical fiction
If a historical novel is defined as one in which events from history are presented as they actually happened, then my unpublished novel Swimming with Tigers doesn’t qualify as one. The alterations I have made to the facts about the … Continue reading
Posted in Surrealism, writing inspiration
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Inspirational Quotes about Writing
Since 2006 I have been collecting quotes about writing in a pink suede notebook. Here are some of my favourites, in no particular order. I hope they inspire, entertain or delight you. “Description is the poet’s act of love.” … Continue reading
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Six Uses for Freewriting
It’s my belief that anyone can benefit from freewriting. A marketing guru once told me that claiming something would work for everyone would weaken my brand and I had much better target a specific audience. But I really do think … Continue reading
Francesca Woodman
Liverpool Tate’s summer exhibition is called Life in Motion and places paintings by Egon Schiele next to photographs by Francesca Woodman. Schiele was Austrian, working before World War One and Woodman was American, producing her photographs in the 1970s. Arguably … Continue reading
Posted in Surrealism
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Wolves, dreams and memories
I’m guessing it’s happened to you: you are re-reading a book and a crucial scene, the one you remembered most clearly of all, doesn’t actually occur in the story at all. For me, this happened with Angela Carter’s short story … Continue reading
Posted in psychoanalysis, writing inspiration
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The Great Spring
Natalie Goldberg, one of the greatest writers on freewriting, began as a student of Zen Buddhism. It involved long hours of sitting meditation, disciplined timekeeping and mundane tasks, all in the spartan environment of the zendo (meditation centre). At the … Continue reading
Posted in freewriting, writing exercises, writing inspiration
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Surrealist novels?
Can you name any Surrealist novels? I don’t mean books with surreal elements such as magical, illogical or dream-like ideas or events, I mean novels about Surrealism as a movement or depicting Surrealist artists. No? That’s because there are very … Continue reading
Posted in publishing, Surrealism
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