Self-acceptance, but not as you know it

“Self-acceptance”. Funny word, that, isn’t it? Doesn’t roll off the tongue. Not like “flamingo”, or “leviathan” or "I hate my nose”. Well don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a blog post in which I insist that nobody will love you unless you love yourself, or tell you about my transformative journey from my self-loathing…

Mental health problems in creative industries

As a writer, and a literature student, my life is full of anecdotes about people who only became famous after their death, or who had to wade through endless rejections before becoming successful. Any creative person will be used to these little anecdotes, the ones like "Beethoven was once told he was unmusical", seemingly meant…

Thoughts from a writer in lockdown

It is well known that writers tend to be solitary creatures; it is less well known that in fact, they thrive off the world. What distinguishes a writer is not their imagination but rather the way in which they pick up, and pick up on, the world around them. They are not all trapped, like…

Hello again

Hello again everyone. Been a while, hasn’t it? As usual, Cambridge terms and this blog don’t seem to want to be friends however much I try to make them. So, as usual, I’m restarting the blog now that the holidays have started. Only now there's a difference. Now it’s not five weeks. Now it’s a…

Dealing with criticism

I was going to write a post this week about one of the hurdles that faces a lot of English (and indeed all humanities) students, namely, receiving negative essay feedback. Nobody likes it, but some deal with it better than others, and if you’re one of those who (like me) is definitely one of the…