challenge

The Art of Slow Writing

| Sheree
Collaborative anti-racism broadsides collaborative project with Theresa Easton

I started my Patreon Page in April 2018 with the focus on Slow Writing.

I stated:

The Art of Slow Writing

“When our lives change, when the world changes, we must reinvent ourselves as writers.” – Louise DeSalvo.

Taking inspiration from Louise DeSalvo’s book, The Art of Slow Writing, I’m choosing to create fine writing; writing of quality and writing of worth. I believe in order for this to happen, I need to find my way back to slow writing.

Slow writing is a meditative practice, creating time and space for understanding my relationship to my writing, the writing process and working towards my best work.

I envisioned it as the space where I wrote the memoir ( memoir then, Mixmoir now).

I said through a facelift of my Patreon Page that:

I’ve been writing a creative non-fiction memoir which includes personal essays, poetry, quotes, paintings, photography etc and this continues as this piece of creation centres the black woman’s body with/in nature. What I envision now is this piece taking on a more critical and political perspective with climate / environmental justice taking up space as this is my reality, our reality, even if there are systems in place which would lead us to believe otherwise.

Using my art is my resistance, is my activism and I just see it as time to start owning it. Blatantly so.

All that I’ve been wanting to achieve and working towards has morphed into one – this idea of black / brown bodies with/in nature. This is my full-time obsession and I’ve been making big changes in my personal life to reflect and accommodate this. This includes Patreon.

It was within this space that I created the term Mixmoir to describe what I’m trying to create. There, here, everywhere.

When you take on a project, a writing project that is arduous and long and messy, there’s a tendency to get lost along the way. Get tangled up in the details, get into your own head and manipulate your own weaknesses and doubts to the point of stop writing and just spending your time and energy just wishing.

I’ve got to the point of feeling sick and tired about feeling/acting/behaving this way. This inactivity within a writing project I feel so deeply about. Which is so vital to my being.

So this is me attempting to change the story and get the damn book complete on my own terms by any means necessary by glueing my arse down to the seat and just writing.

Welcome to my practice.

The Focus For June – Mixmoir

| Sheree
Mixmoir Day 1.

For the past few months, I’ve been managing to turn up here at this blog daily.

I’ve been sharing my obsessions and you’ve been following along. Thank you for sticking with me.

June cannot go by without me attempting to continue the tradition/ challenge/ focus. And I think this is going to be the toughest yet!

There’s some magical energy that comes along at the beginning of each new month that I’ve just got to dive into and ride the wave to where ever it may take me. It’s about surrendering to the process and trusting that it will not lead me astray.

So what is the focus for June. It’s Mixmoir Time.

What is ‘Mixmoir’? This is the new name I’ve come up with for my mixed-genre memoir which I’ve been trying to write now for 4 or 5 years, I think. And I am writing it. That’s no lie but sometimes I’m creating more words/pages/pieces than others. I allow fear and distractions and that sense of failure to get in the way of me showing up and completing the damn thing.

At the back end of 2021, I put in for an Arts Council England, Developing Your Creative Practice grant to receive the time, space and money to complete this beast. As there has been no announcement of success here, you will know that I was not successful. Competition at this point for public funding is fierce. And to be honest, I’m not really sure if I was feeling the application.

Also with hindsight, now in June 2022, when this project was due to be complete, I’m pleased that I didn’t receive the funding because 2022 has been a year of tribulations so far. Knowing that I’d have to deliver on the completed manuscript at the end of this month would have been too much pressure with everything else that’s been happening. I actually feel grateful that I’ve had a flexible start to 2022, with me being more or less in control of how I’ve been spending my time. The bank balance might not be in agreement but there is much more to life than making money. Peace of mind, health, practicing ::SLOW:: and ::CARE:: have been taking priority and I’m not complaining.

So what to expect for the month ahead?

Well nothing is set in stone but expect extracts from the Mixmoir, reflections and musings on the practice of slow writing and the process of creating a mixed-genre creation. I’ll also be pulling a card a day while working with Mariëlle S. Smith, Fleshing Out The Narrative: A 31-Day Tarot and Journal Challenge for Writers. This is hoped tp give me some further focus not only on getting some words on the page but also to go behind the scenes and shed some insight on the reasons for writing this Mixmoir and why this form and what I hope to achieve through it’s completion.

The deck I’d be using to support this journey is The Earthcraft Oracle Deck by Juliet Diaz and Lorriane Anderson and illustrated by Daniell Boodoo-Fortune. This is such a beautiful deck with messages/ wisdom/ guidance which support my continuing connection with Mother Earth. And what better deck to use that this as isn’t the Mixmoir exploring my relationship with nature? It all makes perfect sense and will hopefully aid a fruitful and productive month of writings and musings and happenings.

I hope you with stick around and join me. #onwards.

Embracing the Green

| Sheree
Visual Journal 29/05

I was brought up to believe that the colour green was unlucky. Where could such nonsense come from when Mother Earth is partly green?

The belief, for a while, kept me in my place. Kept me is a limited space almost scared of the colour green.

I believe this superstition stopped me enjoying a closer relationship with nature, from a young age. There was a fear. But also a desire not to disappoint my family further by embracing the colour.

I’m not sure when I started to think for myself and embrace the green. But I know I haven’t looked back.

I’m loving the green.

Coming to an end of the journey

| Sheree
Visual Journaling Practice May 2022

There are only a couple pages left in this altered book journal of May.

The month seems to have gone by fast. I know I’ll complete this journal tomorrow.

I’m ready to move onto a bigger journal now. I can feel it. It’s my intuition calling for more space I feel.

I’ve already started prepping some pages in an A4 journal with paper that’s like newsprint paper. An unfinished kind of feel, off-white, rough and a bit shiny at the same time. It reminds me of the large sheets of paper the teachers used to put down to protect the tables before we got out the paints for art lessons/ play.

Already I’m envisioning what the pages within this journal will feel like when I’m working on them and when I finish a spread.

This is what happens really. Having one foot in my current journal honouring the process. And one foot in the next journal, shifting energies, feeling the pull and excitement of the open pages ahead. Getting ready for the next journey and where it will lead.

There’s no doubt when I finish one journal that there will be the next. A next one. This isn’t something that I can end if I even wanted to.

Visual Journaling is my life. It keeps me rooted in my life, the ups and downs, the backwards and forwards. Where ever it may lead, visual journaling is there holding my hand, guiding me at the same time as catching me when I fall.

And fall I will. And this might be when I feel the need to give up the most but this might be also when I need this practice the most.

I’ve spent this past month, opening up my journaling pages to this space in the hope of inspiring others; for you to take up the practice. At the same time as allowing myself the space to explore what makes this practice tick. The attempt to explore/ unearth/ pin down where it’s magic lies.

Of course, I’ve not achieved this. I’ve just thrown up more questions than answers. But in all honesty, I don’t know if I want to fully comprehend it’s magic. I’m not sure I really want to unravel the mystery around visual journaling, around creativity itself.

As where would the fun be in that? Or the point? As would it help me complete it better? Would it help me achieve more?To succeed?

I don’t practice visual journaling to succeed. To become better at it. To crack the code and achieve more.

I practice visual journaling because it makes me feel (better).

I practice visual journal because it supports me being me. {BE}.

I practice visual journal because it supports me to {BE}.

Great North Run 2022 – Confirmation

| Sheree

This race has been a long time coming.

I was due to run The Great North Run in 2020. But we all know what happened then.

Then I postponed it in 2021, as we were not out of the woods in terms of a global pandemic. And they changed the route. And I had a marathon the next month.

Then here we are in 2022, and the reasons for running this race are still there and probably becoming more and more prevalent.

I’m running the Great North Run on 11 September 2022 for Mental Health Foundation.There is nothing more important, hand in hand with our physical health, than our mental health.


There have been times in my life when I was out for the count, when I was low and depressed and considering suicide. It was the support of family and friends and professionals that got me through this difficult time. And it’s nothing to be ashamed of or something to hide.

We live in such a shitty world where everything can affect our mental health and well-being. But we also live in such a beautiful world where anything is possible. If we can just dream it.

I will support the Mental Health Foundation because they support us in our times of need as well as work hard to find the ways and means to prevent mental health problems and issues. The Foundation sees its role as being to address both the knowledge gap and the implementation gap.

Over the coming months, I’ll be sharing the statistics about the UK as well as global mental health statistics, issues and problems.

Please consider supporting me on my quest to run 13.1 miles again from Newcastle upon-Tyne to South Shields by pledging as little or as much as you can afford here. Thank you.

The Long Journey To Claiming Books

| Sheree

I was brought up to treat books as sacred. They were a source of knowledge. You get your education and you’d have choices in life. You’d move on in the world. Have a better life than your parents before you.

Books were the gateway into this Paradise.

Each week, we would walk into town from our maisonette, along the busy dual carriageway. Once in town, we’d go to the market, to the one book stall and pick out a book. They were the tradition fairy tales with pictures and text.

If not them, then Enid Blyton books. For some reason, I felt the importance of books and the connection of them to my dad. He’d read us bedtime stories and I’d just love to be in his presence then. As he was softer and loving. Different from the angry man he was at all other times.

For some reason, who knows what goes through a child’s mind, I took to doodling in one of these fairy tale books. I want to say it was Snow White, but I could wrong.

A whole heap of scribbles and doodles took over the pages of this book. Why use the book when I had plenty of blank white paper? As I said who knows what goes through a child’s mind.

I just know that my father found the book and shouted at me with rage. And beat me. I’d done something wrong. I’d ruined the book. I’d ruined my chances of getting on in the world. I’d gone against the unwritten rule( or was a spoken one?) around how to respect books.

Older now, I hunt for books. I buy my own books. I read then. Some I don’t. Some I keep or give away. And some I purposefully, consciously make the decision to repurpose. Reclaim them.

I tear out pages and I cut these up. I smear paint on the pages left in the book. I stick images in them, tape, stickers. And yes I write in them. I write out my hopes and fears. My desires and dreams. My memories and traumas.

I think I was brought up right. To treat books as sacred. But it’s what you do with those books that count, I think. And a book has multiple uses/ purposes. I think. Multiple ways and means of instilling knowledge and opportunities and freedom.

It’s been a long journey for me to get to this point of choices. But I claim them all.

In Bed with Intuition

| Sheree

Nothing beats journaling in bed. Still half-asleep but fresh coffee bringing me around. And the day ahead. Expanding or constructing as I see fit.

I come to the page and allow my mood to guide me. What page to put pen to or image or colour.

It’s my intuition who leads the way, gently. Before my intuition was dead and gone. Repressed and forgotten. But slowly, through trust and patience my intuition is very much in the driving seat these days.

And I like it this way. She never sees me wrong but keeps me safe, creative and present.

Visual Journaling 24/05