Hi HI

Life with Lily 

Time teaches us

We can live without people and things we thought we couldn’t,
we have the strength to get through every day,
moods, thoughts and emotions are just passing,
we cannot take back the things we say.

Forgiveness and healing waits around the corner,
sometimes we have to play both roles alone.
The ones that stay are the ones that are meant to,
holding onto what is lost will never work.

The sun will rise and set again tomorrow,
the weather will be how it needs to be.
The world keeps turning and we cannot stop it.
We can be grateful we can live another day.

Copyright © 2021 Lily Lawson

Lily’s Latest – my blog links etc

I have been simplifying things with my websites. Instead of two sign up forms there is a combined one for the blog and the newsletter.   

I realised this week (very late in the day) that some people who sign up to Lily's Writing Life on Wix don't get my blog posts by email as is the case with Lily Lawson on Wordpress. 

I will be closing my Wordpress site Lily Lawson at the end of September and posting all my poetry, fiction, blog posts, interviews, guest posts and hopefully collaborations on Lily's Writing Life. Lily's Writing Life will have a bit of a makeover to accommodate this changes. 

If you would like to receive all future blog posts as well as this newsletter please sign up here https://www.lilyswritinglife.com/blog

where you can also check out any posts you might have missed. 

in other news I have been published in an anthology in America.  My poem Complexities of Human Existence is included in Dear Sister by Leslie Yeary alongside other Instagram poets. It is the first American publication I have been part of and I am especially proud to be included alongside my friend Ann Garcia who is my latest interviewee. 

I have also been published on https://stoneydegeyter.com/. My poem Hate vs Love went live today. I wrote it as part of a University assessment and it will be included in a future poetry book. I drew some inspiration from tennis perhaps you might be able to detect that.

My Father's Daughter has had a bit of a makeover with a new cover and a contents page and numbered pages to make it easier to navigate. 

A Taste of What's to Come finally came out in paperback this month (the ebook came out October 2020). 

I am grateful to Rue Sparks who designed the covers and Stuart Honnor for allowing me to use his photo for A Taste of What's to Come.

You can see the results of the cover updates in my banner at the top of this email. To check out my books my author page visit https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B08BKWYJC1

Lily Loves

Prompts

I love a blank page; that empty space that you add to and communicate in words or images or both. There is joy in the possibilities, like a new day or the fresh snow before the footprints and tire tracks make their impression.

Blank pages may hold opportunity but they don’t convey much. At some point we need to be creative and fill the space. As a writer that means a story, a poem, a blog post, etc.

It can be hard to be creative without a starting point. That is why I love a prompt. There are loads on the internet and you can buy books of them. Sometimes it can be good to use what you already have.

Wherever you are reading this if you have time and the means to write you can find a prompt. We can be inspired by things either individually or by combining them.

· Listen to the sounds around you.

Is there music? Work going on? People talking? Traffic? TV? Appliances? People moving around? Birds? Other animals?

· What can you see?

Buildings? Fields? Sky? Water? Sun? Food? Trees? Clouds? Is it dark? Light?

· What can you feel?

Wind? Rain? Snow? Heat? Cold? Hard surface? Soft surface? Emotions?

· What can you smell?

Flowers? Cooking? Perfume? Working environments?

· Think of something you have read? Watched? Listened to?

· A person you know? (Careful here) A person you met? A job you have or did have? An experience? A place you have been to or want to go to?

· Look at objects. What is the nearest thing with words on? What is the last sentence you used? Or the last thing someone said to you (careful here too). Your last text or email or message? The last thing you bought? The photos on your phone?

Maybe my photos will offer some inspiration?

We don’t have to be in a certain environment to write, it doesn’t have to be the same time of day, we can use various methods to record our thoughts. If you get stuck, change it up. Make electronic notes or handwrite or record your voice. Move around, stand up, sit on the floor, kneel, try a different room, go outside. If it’s not working, it will come back. Write about not being able to write, draw, make a list, a diagram. Nobody needs to see it but you. The good stuff comes when you use your writing muscles regularly whatever that means for you.

Don’t give up. You’ve got this.

All photos belong to Lily.

To find out more about me read my interview with Cheryl Burman because you can’t have too much Lily in your life.

Till the next time - take care