Ephemera Packs - back in the shop!

After a very long hiatus, I've opened up my little Etsy shop. Yes, I know it's been months and months, but here they are: colour-coded backs of stationery, cards, papers, stickers, stamps - these are great if you like writing mail or decorating presents or little cards and labels. They are a paper-lover's dream. (And they ship free in Australia!)

All images by me

Indochine Writing Desk

You know I can't walk past a good writing desk. And this one is no different. I love how the top looks as though it would lift off, and be portable. Dreamy.

Vintage Books

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Some lovely vintage books - the first one encompasses so much possibility and excitement - what a cover!

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Bookish Fun

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I was having a chat the other night to my lovely friend Natasha, and we were bemoaning the lack of really good 'book chat' in our lives. She was looking for a course to attend where she could study literature, but didn't want to enrol in an university course due to cost and time commitments.

So, I thought I'd gather all my favourite bookish resources together if you're interested in having more high-quality book time in your lives. Please feel free to add any you find interesting in the comments, and I'll update it.

If you're keen to have a study experience, you must have a look at Yale Open University's courses. Yale provide audio, video and written transcripts of a few of their first year courses, and they are so wonderful. I'm halfway through listening to The American Novel Since 1945 and it's excellent: the lecturer is so articulate and insightful. A mindblowingly great free resource.

If that's a bit hardcore, you might like to listen to Slate's Audio Book Club. I like to pretend the critics and I are sitting at a coffee table and chatting - they are just so personable and deliciously clever. I've already raved about KCRW's Bookworm before - it's a must-listen.

Lastly, I have also really enjoyed this podcast on creative writing - it's really helping so far.

I usually try to buy my books second-hand or on eBay. But when I can't find them or they're new, I go to Book Depository. I am a new but fervent convert - they have free shipping anywhere in the world and are quicker and cheaper than Amazon. Yippeee!

By the way, my Every Day in May today might well be some creative writing. I'll see how I go!

Every Day in May: 9th and 10th May

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This weekend I decided to do some work on my novel. Is it pretentious to say that when it's still a word document that looks pretty messy? Whatevs. This Every Day challenge is really pushing me to be more productive than I have been in a while. It's quite curious what emerges from my brain, even in a fifteen minute break.

Creativity, the Muse and Bookish Things

I've just finished a two day course on creative writing which I thoroughly enjoyed. There was a little bit of hokey reading aloud what you had just written (yikes!), but I managed to get some good writing done. It was actually a bit of a test balloon to see whether this is something I will dedicate myself to more this year. I figured if I could give up two consecutive Sundays without too much of a fight, then I was ready. So that's nice.

During my nascent writing yearnings - writing for fun, that is - I've found this book, Bird by Bird incredibly helpful - it was recommended to me by Loobylu (thank you!). The author, Anne Lamott, does a lovely job of being self-deprecating and inspiring at the same time, which is a tough gig.

The wonderful interview above with Elizabeth Gilbert is also very much worth a look - I haven't read Eat Pray Love, but she is articulate, wise and funny. And incredibly worthwhile for anyone who struggles to conjure up paragraphs in any context.

In the same vein, I was thrilled to find some literary house voyeurism. Mmm. Have a look inside the rooms of Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor, among others, here.

By the way, if you're reading this in an aggregator like Google Reader or Bloglines, I have added a sidebar to my blog with the books I'm reading, and a new favourite Bookworm podcast each week or so. This one is with the late David Foster Wallace, and is a heartwrenching reminder that brilliance is fleeting but beautiful.