About this blog

And a promise that I'm not going to bop you over the head with a thesaurus

I’ve had ‘Lowering the Tome’ in my head as a blog title for over 10 years, but never did anything with it until now. I didn’t know what to write about then. I still don’t, to be honest. But I’ve decided I need to be less picky if I don’t want to see a fine name go to waste (or for it to get used by someone else and then spend the rest of my life in bitter regret). So, welcome to my first post on Lowering the Tome!

I’m a very literal person, and also very visual. When people use common sayings (‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’, for example), the image of that thing will instantly pop into my head (an apple falling from a tree, plopping down among its roots). Some of these are quite pleasant (I like the apple one). Some annoy me (‘going forwards’ – why? Where?) and some really freak me out (to ‘cut your teeth’ on something, and the question, ‘can I pick your brains?’ – ugh! Agh! No! Who came up with those?).

FOR SOME REASON, ‘Lowering the Tome’ gives me the image of a person bopping another person on the head with a really big book. I’m talking thesaurus-sized at least. I see it every time and it makes me chuckle internally – it’s definitely a comedy bop. I don’t intend to hit you over the head with this blog – more, I’d like to make my thoughts and experiences of being an author accessible. If you’re a teacher or educator of some sort, there’ll be material about my books, the odd book recommendation that might make a good class read, and the occasional writing prompt, as well as mainly being a glimpse at what writing books is like from the inside. If you’re a reader or writer yourself, you may find all this interesting, relatable and/or useful.

More than anything, this is going to give me space to expand on some stuff. One of the questions I get asked a lot is, “Where do your ideas come from?” I usually answer with something sweeping like, “Being curious about the world.” Or I’ll say, “Anything from dreams to interesting news articles to overheard conversations”, but don’t go into any more depth. Here, I’d like to open that whole process with real examples from what I’ve written, what I’m writing, and some simple snippets from my life. Because the way life informs writing can be so personal and universal at the same time, that I hope you’ll get something from it. Whether that’s an insight into my process, a new way of thinking about yours, or something else entirely.

On a lot of social media I feel constricted, like I’m putting on a persona. Pretending to be someone else, essentially, and not very well either. Here I hope to be more my real self*. I don’t promise to always be useful, mind you. It’s more likely that I’ll spend a lot of time just being weird. But there will be cat pics occasionally as well, so stick around, and hopefully this will be fun.

*with less angst and swearing**

**probably