Writing in Flux

May 16, 2013 By Mufidah Kassalias in Photography, Writing Tags: About Writing 15 Comments

Moving on, moving around, a few days here and a week or so there. Packing and unpacking. Settling in to a new situation for long enough to feel settled before picking up sticks again and moving on.

In the flow of constant change there are inevitable casualties. Some days you wake up to no clean socks, others to the realisation that the book you want to read is halfway across town with the small collection of belongings unloaded temporarily from the car. But these sort of things are minor in comparison to the casualty of concentration, a necessity for writing.

The irony, though, is that life itself tends to be full of inspiration when everything’s in flux.

Continue reading →

Stops Along the Way

May 6, 2013 By Mufidah Kassalias in Photography, Travel Tags: Bergerac, Burgos, France, Spain 2 Comments

In mid-April Sean and I drove 560 kilometres (350 miles) north east of Burgos to Bergerac in the Dordogne region of France. Although we’d enjoyed our time in Spain, making friends and immersing ourselves in northern Spanish life, it was time to move on, to return to the UK for the spring and summer, and to run our Write from the Heart writing workshops. Continue reading →

Brighton Fishing Quarter

April 28, 2013 By Mufidah Kassalias in Photography Tags: Brighton, Featured Images Leave a comment

The golden hour outside the Fishing Museum in the Brighton Fishing Quarter, with a boat from the Newhaven fishing fleet, registration NN153.

Burgos to Bergerac: To Take or Not to Take Toll Roads?

April 23, 2013 By Mufidah Kassalias in Photography, Travel Tags: Bergerac, Burgos, France, Instagram, Spain 3 Comments

Toll roads are to be avoided. They’re costly and dull, and definitely not the route of choice for a couple of slow travellers. Or so we thought before embarking on our drive north through Spain and France on our way back to England.

The day we left Burgos we spent hours sorting, packing and figuring out the Chinese puzzle that is our roof box and car boot combined, but by midday we were on the road to Bergerac. A few hours later than we had hoped, but according to Google Maps we were looking at a journey time of seven hours if we took the non-toll roads.

Continue reading →

Bags of Colour

April 13, 2013 By Mufidah Kassalias in Photography Tags: Featured Images 2 Comments

Uzès in Languedoc-Roussillon has one of the best markets I’ve come upon in France. It has all you would expect, such as gorgeous, fresh produce, cheese and wine, plus an array of of beautiful, desirable things like these brightly coloured bags. It’s almost five years since I was in Uzès, but am reminded of it now we’re back in France — this time in Bergerac, staying in a house on the banks of the Dordogne, while we run our 2-day writing workshop in the nearby village of Eymet.

Writing the Truth of One’s Own Experience

April 6, 2013 By Mufidah Kassalias in Photography, Writing Tags: About Writing, Burgos, Writing Workshops 2 Comments

This should be easy, right? If we writers write what we know — and who and what do we know more intimately than ourselves and our own lives? — then writing one’s own truth ought to be the easiest subject matter one could choose. No research required.

In practise it can be quite challenging. We have to beware the slippery slope of navel gazing.

But it can also be incredibly rewarding. Considering our innermost thoughts and feelings on subjects close to our heart has the potential not only to clarify our perspective, but also to breathe life into our writing.

Continue reading →