Cafe Aphra: An Online Community for Writers

I was wandering around the supermarket this morning. I have a lot to think about at the moment, so I was seeking out distractions rather than panicking at the length of my to-do list. The mid-morning shop tends to be when parents do their 'baby-friendly' shopping - that easy-going half an hour before the harried, aggressive workers arrive with their sharp elbows, vicious baskets and competitive sandwich shopping; and totally different from the after-school rush when the aisles are awash with loud and hungry school children. Anyway, I digress (which was probably what prompted me to shop in the first place). Two grandparents passed me as we walked by the mushrooms. They were pushing their grandson in one of those child-friendly half-car shopping trolleys. He was sweetly precocious with a long blonde fringe (bangs) and plump little legs sticking out of his short trousers (pants). He wasn't very interested in driving the half-car/half-shopping trolley: most children make ...

“ The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.” Samuel Johnson Yearning lies at the heart of why we write. We yearn to create an alternative world, one which, if we're honest, we'd rather spend time in than anywhere else. We yearn to live as different people, achievable through our characters. We yearn to tell stories as a way of making sense of the world or maybe even to feel we have control over things in some small way, the prime movers of our fictional universes. Believing we have something to say we yearn for our voice to be heard. There are many other reasons people write, for catharsis, a way of dealing with traumatic events, as a way to preserve memories, but I believe it's yearning that drives a writer most strongly, that fires up that need to get to our desks and into our work.    In the heart of a reader lies a similar yearning. Readers yearn for escape. They yearn to become someone else, to experience ...

Writing starts with YOU. Who you are now. Where you come from and what you carry around inside of you. Being a writer is using these parts of you to create work that engages and inspires people in an authentic way. Who am I? I don’t know, it changes from day to day but one way I keep track of who I am is keeping a journal. My thoughts, dreams, aspirations, failures, rants and all the things I carry around inside uncensored in vomit size chunks, to track my progress as a person and as a writer.   Why do I want to be a writer? I don’t know but I do know what other writers have done for me. The first time I read Toni Morrison, I felt that she had shone a light into the darkest corner of my soul and helped me see what lurked there. When I read “the bluest eye” she lead me kicking and screaming into understanding and seeing the humanity of a character I would have condemned in real life as a monster.   It changed me profoundly forever. Unlike most writers I c...

Xanthippe was the wife of Socrates and her name means ‘yellow horse.’   That’s really all we know for sure, but her reputation has come down to us as a rather unpleasant nagging woman.   Socrates is alleged to have said that you can either have a nice wife and be an ordinary man or have Xanthippe and be a philosopher. Those words he may or may not have said raise a question in my mind.   Aspiring writers certainly appreciate the support of their partners, children, other family members and friends.   But is it possible we also need our own versions of Xanthippe?   Should we try to find people who will not just support us but also nag us? In the last few years, as I have tried to learn how to write novels, I’ve been very grateful to my teachers and fellow writers who have the kindness and commitment to demand that I set some words down on a page and, yes, nag me.   So here are some heartfelt thanks to people who have demanded I do more than I might h...

I was going to take the easy way out and write about ‘writing’. Well, that is what this A to Z series is all about, isn’t it? Not being one to take the easy way out, I’ve decided to write not about writing , but about writers. And to narrow the field down further, this rant is going to be about other writers. Other writers. We hate them, don’t we? There is nothing new in our dislike of our adversaries other writers, as these quotes show. Gustave Flaubert called George Sand “(a) great cow full of ink.” Charming. How about H. G. Wells’s opinion of George Bernard Shaw: “An idiot child screaming in a hospital.” If you think that’s bad, it pales into insignificance compared to the spat between William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. Faulkner said the Hemingway had “ never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” But don’t feel too sorry for Hemingway who wondered whether his opponent really thought that “...big emotions come from big words?” At ...

I’m writing a story which is based in a town very like somewhere I know well, but haven’t been to for many years. A couple of months ago I was about 70 miles from this town for a meeting and visiting some friends. I was going to the theatre that night to see a play.    I was quite excited about this and also dreading it. On paper it read quite like the theme of this novel I’ve been working on for years. I’d decided to go, on my own. I had an afternoon spare and a hire car so on the spur of the moment I decided to drive the 70 miles and visit this town. Check out some of the locations, walk the streets and go to the shops my main character goes to.    It was a sunny afternoon which seemed to bring everyone out. My main character arrives in the town by bus after an absence of 20 odd years. There used to be swarms of school children pouring off and on buses on this main street at this time of day. But there were none now. A few streets away I found a new bus dep...

I’m going for subcutaneous today: meaning under the skin, though the outer layer is pretty important too.      Look at an illustration of skin and you should find either two or three main layers depicted. 1 . Epidermis . This is the outermost layer that people see instantly when they look at someone. The Epidermis is, in the way of nature, not confined to being a simple layer. This is not intended as a biology lecture so I’ll simplify it to five separate cell levels. 2. Dermis . This it that lovely inner layer of connective tissue with those tiny little vessels that link up to the pores on the outer epidermis. In the dermis you’ll find hair follicles, lymph glands, and vessels for transporting blood and other bodily needs. Sweat produced here helps to maintain body temperature and sebaceous glands produce sebum to keep the outer layers moist and supple. 3. Hypodermis. This is not technically part of the skin layers but we all need our skin to be attached ...