This poem is about finding our way as we navigate intimacy and vulnerability and new spaces in our lives. I wrote it very quickly, although it had been whispering to me for some time, in my head. Sometimes I sense when a piece needs to be written: I feel an "itch" on my mind and…
Writing small
I posted this wonderful quote on my Instagram account today. (bellbirdwords). This is so important, and it's an issue I help many of my clients with. It's closely related to the "show, don't tell" rule; another vital principle of good writing that I'm often reiterating to beginner writers. It's tempting to think you have to…
Loving and losing our children
New Zealand's appalling youth suicide rate is in the news again, as is our impotency in the face of it. A new UNICEF report has found New Zealand's youth suicide rate - teenagers between 15 and 19 - to be the highest of a long list of 41 OECD and EU countries. The usual culprits…
Mother
I take your hand as we prepare to cross the road. You sigh into the safety of me, and I grip tighter to tell you that I love you. I kiss your forehead as you sleep and as you breathe in, breathe out, your face free from pain in loose and dreamy folds I straighten…
When You Are 50
When You Are 50 When you are 50, you are reborn. The same skin, the same face, the same body, but different. You are in the next half, now. You cannot waste a moment. When you are 50, you love this face, this skin you’re in. You love that quick temper, that wild laugh, those…
The Magic Thread
My last post, A Letter to my Daughter, got me thinking about the connection between parents and their children, and how it never truly breaks, even when tested by conflict or emotional damage or grief or fear or numerous other challenges - and even when either or both parties think it has been irreparably damaged.…
A Letter to my Daughter
To my daughter, This is your last week of primary school. I couldn’t let it go by without writing to you. It’s what I do to process my thoughts and feelings; to line things up in my mind until they make sense and form some sort of pattern; to express what sometimes cannot be said…
Never Too Late
After a difficult year during which I felt no creative impulses whatsoever, I have started work on my novel again, rewriting and editing my way through a second draft. It had been sitting in a drawer for over two years. I'm excited, if a little rusty. I feel very out of practice and I have…
It’s OK to be Slack. Really.
There is so much pressure today to be better, quicker, faster, more efficient, more creative, and to be constantly doing something "worthy". (Oh, how I hate that word.) For writers, the pressure is on to write every day, to consistently be inspired and enthusiastic, to produce work on a regular basis, to be observant…
Spring
Tomorrow is the start of spring in my part of the world. I would like to share two poems that herald the arrival of my favourite season. One is my own, and one is by the English poet Philip Larkin. Both hold sadness and hope in equal measure. Nothing is either this, or that. Even…
Patricia Bell, Author 