Some ideas are so big...
that they need a lot of white space around them to breathe
👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼 Hi! If you’re new to these parts, the short version is this: I’ve worked for myself for a long time, writing 15 (!) books, largely done from home. It sent me a bit doolally, being alone that much and also working within an industry that hasn’t always treated me kindly. That’s why I started writing How to Build a Life, now delivered to thousands of readers in over 80 countries. I’d been desperate to unpick why I seemingly had a dream career but life in general felt so underwhelming. I figured out that my brain likes writing but my soul needs something else, so at the start of this year - in addition to still writing my novels - I took a job in a high school mixing teaching and pastoral work. In one million ways this makes no sense at all, apart from the fact that working out of the house with teenagers is making me really very happy. I’m almost 40, a solo parent by choice, and knowing all this means you’re all caught up. WELCOME.
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A year nine said to me this week, when we were talking about Jason Reynolds’ book Long Way Down, that some ideas are so big that they need a lot of space around them to breathe.
Reynolds sometimes just has a sentence on a page, or breaks up his poetry/prose to only single lines, because his story is all about death and grief and revenge and hurt. These students, man, they blow my mind every day.
Some ideas.
Are so big.
That they need a lot of space around them to breathe.
That’s a poem in itself, and I told her so.