Sarah Broadley

Before my lum reeks wi’ the fuel o’ ithers coal… for those unacquainted with this term, it’s a saying for when the bells chime in a new year at midnight. It means ‘may your fire always burn to keep you and yours warm and release lots of smoke from your chimney with the gifts of coal from your neighbours as you bring in another new year’, or something along those lines… I was thinking about new year resolutions and whether or not they are useful for me to create or if I’m just kidding myself. Every year I say I

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Tracy Chapman got me through most of my exam years at high school. Through the reams of Biology blackboard sides filled with formulas and notes that were written in order to help me attempt the o’grade exam I was dreading the most.  I cried, laughed and rejoiced along with Tracy as together we went through her song list from fast cars to getting tickets and knowing how to use them. She was the heroine in my tape-deck who’s soft caramel voice sent soothing vibes through the orange sponge of my head-phones straight into my teenage brain, calming the turbulence that

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It’s that time of year when the National Novel Writing Month is upon me once again. This will be my third year of trying. I’m not sure what I like about it the most – the target driven days of writing, the close-knit community of creatives urging me on or the sense of achievement when midnight strikes on the last day of the month and I’ve actually written something rather than procrastinating. I think it’s a bit of everything. Writing 1,667 words every day for 30 days in a row is not an easy task. No matter how fast I

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Me: OK, I think it’s ready. Inner me: Are you sure? Me: Well, I could maybe have another look just to be on the safe side. Inner me: How many edits have you done? Done a line edit yet? Dialogue check, grammar, POV…? Me: Eleventy billion on my last count, give or take. Inner me: oh well, one more won’t hurt will it? Me: No, I’m pressing send. Inner me: You are? Right. Well, if you’re sure? Me: No, of course I’m not sure. Do you think it’s ready? I mean you’re always telling me to go for it, so

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There are two things I love about being on holiday somewhere that doesn’t have Scottish weather: The heat. The dip of a roasty toasty me in a cooling sea and the cold beers at the end of a water-sports filled day. I get time to read a lot of books. This Summer was no different. As much as I prefer to hold an actual book in my hand, the flying gods have other ideas when it comes to how heavy my suitcase can be so I dust off my first-gen kindle and I download books until my heart’s content. Here’s

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It appears that most of my posts have the word procrastination in them. It seems I may have an issue with trying to find a way to JUST GET ON WITH IT. Not to panic though, help is at hand. Every week I meet up with my fellow writers and we eat cake, write, eat more cake, write some more and then I head home feeling heavier round the waist and lighter in my pocket but most importantly I can hold my head high because I achieved something. I wrote. Words in a draft that may or may not make

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