I get a lot of letters from people. They say: “I want to be a writer. What should I do?” I tell them to stop writing to me and get on with it.
– Ruth Rendell

https://geediting.com/the-120-most-helpful-websites-for-writers-in-2016/

To make the list easier to navigate, the entries are broken down into 14 different categories so you can jump right to the area you are looking for.

The 14 categories are:

• Helpful Tips on Writing
• General Resources for Writers
• Be a Successful Freelance Writer
• Publishing Your Work
• Blogging
• Grammar Tips
• Writing Groups
• Authors to Follow
• Writers as Business Owners
• Literary Agents
• Writing Associations
• Protect Yourself
• Jobs & Marketplaces
• Fun for Writers

12. Writers in the Storm

Looking for some inspiration in your writing? Writers in the Storm is the answer to getting you back on track. This easy to navigate website contains a well-developed writing blog filled with tricks of the trade, as well as an extensive resource list to guide you in the right direction.

13. Writers Helping Writers

Writers Helping Writers is more than just a blog filled with useful tips to enhance your writing. This website also includes book reviews on various writing topics and an impressive “One Stop for Writers” library which provides all the resources you’ll need through every step of the writing process.

14. Poets & Writers

Known as the nation’s largest nonprofit that serves creative writers, this digital version of Poet & Writers magazine is the jackpot of writing resources. Along with an extensive library of articles, you can also connect with other like-minded artists to share ideas and gain insight into your work.

15. Live Write Thrive

Leg by Katherine

The Error Of Positive Therapy

“This was well known to the ancients, who we like to imagine as being a lot less smart than we are. “He who learns must suffer” says Aeschylus:

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

I saw, while half asleep,  her face was gone
She faded, like the river mist  at  dawn,
From the gallery of my sacred ones

Ungrounded by the loss, fearful, forlorn,
Skinless like a worm  picked off a lawn,
I saw, while half asleep,  her face was gone

Do not leave me, do not my love scorn
Lost and gone are my beloved ones
I  am human in both ghost and form

Heart constricted, lungs  convulsed with pain
Haunted and bereft of human warmth
I saw, while half asleep,  her face was gone

I shall have no mother but that one
Now I have become a dried out corm
Lost and gone are all my  precious ones

Like a little leaf from its plant torn
Gnawed by slugs,  fragmented  till unborn
I saw, while half asleep,  all trace was gone
In  the  holy space of my  heart’s ones

Small pasta
Frozen peas
Cream optional………
or Natural yoghurt

Grated cheese
Butter if desired
Any small frozen vegetable can be added to pasta

Boil the pasta and drop in peas for 4 minutes.Drain.Add cheese ,butter /cream/yoghurt.Put onto a warm plate. Eat with cherry tomatoes  or  whatever you have got

https://gettingmore.com/work/terrorisms-roots-lie-in-economics

“Terrorism’s Roots Lie in Economics

The roots of terrorism lie not in the mosques that stretch from western Africa to the Himalayas, but rather in refugee camps, beggar-laden streets and rubble-strewn villages where food is scarce or rotten, diseases are poorly treated and hope is reserved for the afterlife.

My travel to more than 60 countries makes it clear that economics, not religion or politics, is the source of terrorists’ power. This includes as a Jew working in Arab nations for the U.N.

Poverty and lack of meaningful choices create millions of sympathizers and supporters for the few murderers. Many of the rest just don’t care; for them the U.S. is far from their daily lives and provides no comfort.

This means a violent war on terrorism alone – without providing a better alternative for supporters will fail.”

Under what pretext are you doing this stupid thing
I never heard of Pre-texting.Do I phone to tell them before I send a text?

He keeps prevaricating.
Ask him to get on with the varicating asap

Your behaviour is preposterous.
Wait till I get posterous then!

I have prepaid dinner
Do you mean prepared?
Yes,I pared the carrots  but then decided to take you out.I  prepaid the bill
Isn’t that a bit weird.You don’t know how much we will spend
I do know how much we won’t spend!
Are you blackmailing me?
That is racist.
But everybody says that.I saw it in a thriller.
Is that a proof?
Not yet but it might be a pre-proof.
Then we have post-proof.
Don’t post it on a church door  or we might have another Enlightenment
Seems like we may need one.
But it might just get nasty.
You mean it’s not nasty already?
Well,I’m all right,Jacques.
I  am not French.
Not yet

https://gettingmore.com/work/why-must-we-hate-ourselves-so

Extract

We have created a society so broken that almost anyone can buy guns and kill the most defenseless among us, while adults go on national television and say gun control laws are fine.

We let children grow up seeing the most grotesque forms of violence in video games, cartoons and movies — beheadings, mutilations — and yet it causes a national uproar when for a few seconds an actress’ breast is exposed on TV, that is, the body part where mother’s milk comes from.

Whether on the sports field or on the street, trivial arguments wind up in fistfights or worse, and dozens join in. We speak horribly to each other in stores, in restaurants, in travel, and then wonder why our country drops to 7th in competitiveness because we no longer give each other our best ideas.

We solve our problems by conflict in almost every aspect of our lives – families, business, politics, social settings, and everyone seems to think it’s OK. “Tude,” for “attitude,” for being rude to others, is considered cool. There are whole TV shows about it. The most visible role models fight other people to vanquish them. And then we wonder why confused people think it’s OK to kill children.

We kick people off planes with odd clothes and accents but forget that most big crimes are committed by those who look and speak just like us, taught by our own culture of violence and conflict. We’ve killed or exploited so many innocent people abroad, and wonder why others retaliate against us. Trillions of dollars that could be used for our own progress is wasted on wars we could have solved in other ways.

It is not necessary for our enemies to beat us. We are beating ourselves. We cannot even agree on a set of national priorities that helps most citizens, and we cannot even agree on how to best spend our limited funds. We are going over a cliff and are too busy bickering about it to put on the brakes or swerve out of harm’s way. Meanwhile, rich people steal billions of dollars from those scraping by and financial institutions mislead us all and it’s treated as an intellectual exercise for policy discussion. In other words, hateful behavior might somehow be OK, or OK enough to debate about it.

We are capable of so much that is great, in the arts, in science, in human relations, but it is all but drowned out because we can no longer judge right from wrong. We tolerate a system that once would never have been acceptable. When the history of our civilization is finally written, it will say that we deserved what we got, we reaped what we sowed. Because, ultimately, when things went bad, there were not enough good men and women who stood up, at whatever personal effort, and said, ENOUGH!

(This piece was published on Huffington Post.)

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/aug/08/frugal-bloggers-budget-personal-finance-poverty

I have read this and agree there is a big difference between well off people being frugal and people who are really very poor and have little choice.There is no direct connection between frugality and holiness

Some ways I have found to save money

[Don’t go without a warm coat and wool hat in winter.Cold thickens your blood and  can cause heart attacks  or strokes.[

1.Switch to a digital subscription to a newspaper.For the Guardian it is £11.99 a month rather than buying in a shop… £65 a month.
The Guardian  will let you read a lot for free
2 Use dishcloths and tea towels instead of kitchen paper.
Cut up old underwear and use for cleaning bathroom etc.
Try  using hankies except when  you have a cold.
3 Shower less and use a sponge to wash yourself while standing on a towel
4. Use a public convenience while you are out to save on your water bill.
5 In winter  if you are not working sit in a public library and read the newspapers.The rooms are usually quite hot.
6 Wash your outer clothes less frequently.
7 Try soaking dry clean only clothes in cool water and then drip dry.I did this with a wool skirt I spilt milk on.
8 Food is a place you can save money.For example vegetarian recipes.Make your own yoghurt etc.
9.Ring your phone supplier and ask  if they can do you a better offer as you are going to switch elsewhere if they refuse.I saved £20 pm
10.Meditate,listen to  Radio 3, or 4 have tea with a neighbour…. all free.
11 Buy shoes in Sales.
12 Have people round but not the ones who expect a 3 course meal.Ones who like you and don’t mind what you feed them on,
13 Give some of your savings to charity.The RNIB is poor.Guide Dogs get loads of money ironically

People gossip and tell lies
Read the Sun and, unpaid, spy
As I drank the Precious Blood
I knew that Jesus understood
As I ate the Bread I knew
He has suffered  like I do
I am human,I am true
I hope that this applies to you
If you used your mind and heart
You would never dwell in  doubt
Don’t you have a happy life?
End the struggle,cease the strife

Christmas comes now and again
I lost  my new diary and my pen
Calendars are new for you
Cameras….how do you do.
Christmas is sad with no man

Who  used to bring me my tea
Share a tender kiss and love me?
It was not the milkman
Nor   any type superman
All I know is his name started G

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/dec/18/poem-of-the-week-the-cool-web-by-robert-graves

The Cool Web

Children are dumb to say how hot the day is,
How hot the scent is of the summer rose,
How dreadful the black wastes of evening sky,
How dreadful the tall soldiers drumming by.

But we have speech, to chill the angry day,
And speech, to dull the rose’s cruel scent.
We spell away the overhanging night,
We spell away the soldiers and the fright.

There’s a cool web of language winds us in,
Retreat from too much joy or too much fear:
We grow sea-green at last and coldly die
In brininess and volubility.

But if we let our tongues lose self-possession,
Throwing off language and its watery clasp
Before our death, instead of when death comes,
Facing the wide glare of the children’s day,
Facing the rose, the dark sky and the drums,
We shall go mad no doubt and die that way.

Are you sorry you lost your temper?
No,I am sorry it keeps coming back.
Are you amorous?
No,I am a moron
Are you sorry about your past
No,I am sorry about yours.
Are you sorry your swore?
Yes but I was under oath.
What is your New Year Resolution?
1960 x1270
What is high definition TV?
A talking  dictionary  with a screen
Who  created the Messiah?
I didn’t do  anything at all

The sparrow chuckled in the Xmas tree
Cosy like a tea pot by the fire
He acted like an ornament for free

The golden  coins are of no use to me
Although  I  do admit I am a liar
The sparrow chuckles in the Xmas tree

That little bird is laughing without fee.
A living  bird is never  out for hire
He acts  just like an ornament, for free

Ancient decorations   beautify.
The bird  will wing, not linger on the wire
The sparrow chuckles in the green pine tree

I   send love  by blackbird’s  litany.
Will  golden ladybirds  become a choir
And act like  special ornaments for free?

The   lamb shall love the golden lion  entire
I kiss the falcon in its widening gyre
The sparrow shivers in the Xmas tree
He  softly sings love  voluntarily

Limestone crags and pavements with wild flowers
My happiness was like their shape and form
West coast sun and West Wind Easter showers

Rambling on past broken Norman towers
Rams arrested us by curly horns
Limestone crags and pavements with wild flowers

Seems now I  have wasted many hours
In libraries,in eagerness to learn
No West coast sun nor West Wind fragrant showers

Ingleborough, Dent , oh,down rain pours
Non-human universe, its love so stern
Limestone crags their pavements with wild flowers

Here there dwells a love Northern and pure
To which I’d give my eye teeth to return
West coast sun and West Wind softest showers

As children in our play we  ignorant learn
Always sensing which  way we  may turn
On limestone crags and pavements with wild flowers
In West coast sun and  loving Irish showers

r

A blue grey sky behind the willow tree
Almost dusk,it’s neither night nor day
Bare branches wave in timeless ecstasy

From high above, a forest is a sea
Where wilder creatures in their strange haunts play
Such dark grey sky behind the willow tree

Seems like nature’s making a strong plea
We’re joined as one yet separate in our ways
Bare branches show  their timeless ecstasy

I wish  to  see like a  wild falcon sees
I wish to pray like ancient saints might pray
To gods who dance within a shuddering tree

O exchange places with a lively bee
With nectar, pollen, golden dust to lay.
Bare branches share  their timeless ecstasy

I saw the sea from cliffs above Lyme Bay
I saw the lights from far,so far away
A blue grey sky delights the willow tree
Bare branches rave in holy ecstasy

Understanding Trump

I’m going to go to prison for wasting my worktime
Instead of typing letters,I was learning Greek online
The police took my computer, saw Plato’s head divine
Then they saw my tablet,!Is studying the new crime?

Forty thousand letters,not French ones but Greek
I am an eager learner but  I’ve lost the will to speak
I wonder why they searched it, who  was it who leaked?
I don’t know how they spied on me as my mouse can’t speak

I also learned statistics,geology  and Dutch
I  just love to  use my mind but maybe that’s  too much
I should have learned humanities,I and Thou and such
I like  Buber,Kierkegaard and eating Cornish Fudge

Beware of using laptops which  don’t belong to you
Or you might well go to jail with a bucket for a loo.
Still,learning is not murder,  mindless we turn blue
Ask your fellow workers and do just what they do.

Spend your day om gossip, smoke while in the loo
Slander all your enemies and slander your friends too
Do  just what you must each day, and never leave a clue
Do your learning from a  book so no-one knows but you.

An unknown man has sent me roses fair
My name is wrongly spelled upon the box
Invisible,impossible, who cares?

Perhaps he wants to do what no man dares:
To learn  statistics while he irons my locks
An unknown man has sent me roses fair

I hear a footstep on my creaking stair
Can it be a human or a fox?
Invisible in silence our hearts tear

I  dream of mother  calling out,beware!
She made me lots of cotton summer frocks
Lord, a man has sent me roses fair

Now my clothes are worn as is my hair
I have got more textbooks than wool socks
Invisibly, untimely, our hearts tear.

I wish I were a  book inside a box
With  no need for love or human touch
An unknown man has sent me roses fair
Unknowable,impossible to bear

A Tory MP has been suspended for spending 8 hours a day  on his work computer doing a mathematics degree at the Open University.He has got a B A and was starting a Ph.D before being discovered looking over excited  and shouting Eureka by a civil servant
The PM is  wondering what to do.I recommend her to go back to Oxford to read Socrates.She will have to learn Greek but it will be easier than BREXIT and better for her mind not to mention us