Welcome to justthoughtsnstuff

I started posting to jtns on 20 February 2010 with just one word, 'Mosaic'. This seemed an appropriate introduction to a blog that would juxtapose fragments of memoir and life-writing. Since 1996, I'd been coming to terms with the consequences of emotional and economic abuse that had begun in childhood, and which, amongst other things, had sought to stifle self-expression. While I'd explored some aspects of my life through fiction and, to a lesser extent, journalism, it was only in 2010 that I felt confident enough to write openly about myself. I believed this was an important part of the healing process. Yet within weeks, the final scenes of my family's fifty-year nightmare started to play themselves out and the purpose of the blog became one of survival through writing. Although some posts are about my family's suffering - most explicitly, Life-Writing Talk, with Reference to Trust: A family story - the majority are about happier subjects (including, Bampton in rural west Oxfordshire, where I live, Oxford, where I work, the seasons and the countryside, walking and cycling) and I hope that these, together with their accompanying photos, are enjoyable and positive. Note: In February 2020, on jtns' tenth birthday, I stopped posting to this blog. It is now a contained work of life-writing about ten years of my life. Frank, 21 February 2020.

New blog: morethoughtsnstuff.com.

Saturday, 14 January 2012

frost, moonlight, oclw, energy, new term







Quite a surprise to look out of the bedroom window and see the garden white with frost in the moonlight early this morning. A shock too as soon as I stepped outside to make holes in the ice on the frog pond. I'd forgotten how you have to tap extra reserves of energy when it's cold. Cycling was beautiful but hard going to begin with. (I delayed setting off until the sun was well up in order to try and avoid further accidents.)

It's been a better week as far as getting back to work is concerned. I feel I've done some productive things.

Mid-week, a friend emailed some information about lectures organised by the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing (OCLW), based at Wolfson College. She expected that I knew about the lectures already but sent the details just in case. I didn't know there was an OCLW, let alone that there were lectures. The series and the centre look fascinating--not least because I have become increasingly interested in life-writing since doing this blog (which I think of as a kind of real-time life-writing).

Meanwhile, the online creative writing course I teach has started and assignments from students on another course have arrived for marking. Walking along Broad Street in Oxford yesterday afternoon, I could feel the excitement and energy generated by the return of the students and the start of the new term.
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1 comment:

  1. Rupert Neil Bumfrey15 January 2012 at 18:04

    https://plus.google.com/u/0/100146646232137568790/posts/i5hqyxUpGA4

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