# Jodie Beckford ## Posts - [The great Scottish adventure, part 2](https://jodiebeckford.com/the-great-scottish-adventure-part-2/): Part two of the travelogue in which I discover the limits of Lucy’s walking skills, and also that she is quite happy to push those limits to the max. This account takes us through day three and four. - [The great Scottish adventure, part 1](https://jodiebeckford.com/the-great-scottish-adventure-part-1/): It’s been two months since I set off on my great big adventure to the Isle of Skye; two months in which I have tried to find a way to condense all of the fantastic experiences down into 500 words, and have failed, so I’m just going to write as many words as I like and see how it goes. I’ll do my best to skip the boring parts. - [A great big adventure](https://jodiebeckford.com/a-great-big-adventure/): In just seven days we will be on our way, over the North Sea and up the spine of Britain to the beautiful Isle of Skye. This trip will probably be the most well-planned adventure I have ever embarked on. In the past, holidays were rather opportunistic affairs where me and a significant other would work like mad and then look sideways at a sudden block of time where we were both free and throw some stuff in the car and head off. Very little thought was given to what was needed or what to plan, other than a general... - [When I grow up I want to be a fictional writer](https://jodiebeckford.com/when-i-grow-up-i-want-to-be-a-fictional-writer/): They have it all, don’t they? Writers on TV shows and in films spend their days swanning about, visiting bookshops, eating their bodyweight in muffins without gaining an ounce of weight, drinking coffee like it’s water and their bladders are made of iron. Their time is their own. - [The thing in the kitchen](https://jodiebeckford.com/the-thing-in-the-kitchen/): A bit of flash fiction on this bleak winter’s day There’s something living in my kitchen ceiling. It moved in about three weeks ago. At first I thought it might be my cat playing around on the roof, as he is wont to do when he has a corpse he wants to toy with. But my cat was on the bed and the scratching sound coming from a space above the stairs was not some ventriloquist act he was performing in his sleep. My cat dreams quietly, his paws twitching a little while he purrs ever so softly. No, the... - [Of trails and tales](https://jodiebeckford.com/of-trails-and-tales/): The past few months have been a time of rediscovery for me. My love for long-distance hiking has returned! In previous iterations (I believe it was Jo versions 2.1 and 2.3), I did a lot of hiking and camping and long distance walking with the then partners who I shared both hearth and hobbies with (2.2 wasn’t really into all of that stuff and preferred hotels). But things changed. A new release to version 3.0 saw me leaving the old life and starting a completely new one: single, with a dog, in the country. Long walks were still a given,... - [Running and Camping and Showing Some Art](https://jodiebeckford.com/running-and-camping-and-showing-some-art/): It’s been a busy old month at Chez Beckford. Between projects and challenges and the daily grind, it’s been hard to find a moment to sit down and record it all, but things are finally starting to slow down, so here’s a quick roundup of what’s been happening. Running for MS research I mentioned in my blog post on running with Lucy that the reason for all that dashing about was to raise funds for MS research. Every year for the past 4 years I have joined in the challenge to complete at least 50kms over the month of May... - [Running with dogs](https://jodiebeckford.com/running-with-dogs/): It is a truth universally acknowledged that a person who cohabits with a dog must certainly want to go running with her. I mean, it seemed like the logical idea at the time. I want to run every day in May to raise money for the International Multiple Sclerosis Fund. I live with a dog who loves to run. Ergo, I should run with my dog. Right? Little did I think that running with a dog means learning a whole new method of perambulation! I exaggerate… a little. Running with Lucy is actually a ball. I’m more likely to get... - [Writing escapes and French breaks](https://jodiebeckford.com/writing-escapes-and-french-breaks/): Tempus fugit to the max! I could hardly believe my eyes when I looked at the date of my last post and saw it was somewhere back in the foggy beginnings of March. Has it really been six weeks since I went to London? Surely not! There is something rather odd about how time moves through March and April. Here in the Lowlands, there is a saying that roughly translates to March shakes its tail, and April does what it will. This often refers to the weather, but down here in the Shire I feel it is also apt for... - [A Grand Day Out](https://jodiebeckford.com/a-grand-day-out/): I feel it as soon as I step off the train and walk out of the terminal onto Euston Street – a sense of calm, a feeling of coming home. There’s this thing about London that never changes. Buildings come and go, as do the people, but the city’s soul is constant. I’ve popped over from the Shire for a quick day trip. These tickets have been postponed a couple of times due to life events and other shenanigans, but now I’ve finally managed to get myself sorted and I’m standing here looking up at the red brick wonder of... - [Podlife](https://jodiebeckford.com/podlife/): There are two things one learns when inviting a Podenco into their lives. One is that they are part Husky, the other is that they are part Limpet Crab. You will never go to the bathroom alone again. You will also never be in any doubt about their needs and wants, especially the wants. Lucy came to live with me a little under a year ago. At somewhere around four months old, she made the long trek north from Spain by road with a small cohort of other dogs and cats, all travelling to their new forever homes after being... - [Back to Basics](https://jodiebeckford.com/back-to-basics/): It’s been a hot minute, but here we are, back to the basics of good old fashioned blog writing. No matter how many fancy new platforms I try, I always end up back at this place. Back on my self-hosted, self-controlled website; back to the roots of what words mean to me. Last year in May I decided to try the Substack model. I know dozens of writers and artists who have migrated there from their own blogs and/or other writing platforms. I thought I would give it a go and see if I could find a place for my... - [Sitting with thoughts](https://jodiebeckford.com/sitting-with-thoughts/): I decided to take a couple of weeks away from the blog, not from a lack of ideas, but from a need to sit and think about some big concepts and feelings I am having about my work and about creativity in general. So, instead of finding words to describe all of these thoughts, I turned to my sketchbooks and to reading the words of others to try and work out how I was going to translate all of the concepts that have been buzzing around in my brain into text. I’m still not quite sure I’m there though. Still,... - [The Highs and Lows of Life Drawing](https://jodiebeckford.com/the-highs-and-lows-of-life-drawing/): Over the past year, though, I have noticed a change. Call it a personal maturation, or a solidifying of something. I find I no longer feel the same joy of discovery in throwing everything at a page in a creative frenzy. I want to slow down. I want to finesse. I want to hone my technique. So, I have started to taking life drawing and portrait classes. - [Picking at the Bones of a World](https://jodiebeckford.com/picking-at-the-bones-of-a-world/): The fictional world in which a story takes place matters. If the world is not believable then the story will lose power and the reader will lose interest. Writers call this suspension of disbelief. You can have the craziest stuff going on in your story, but if something about the world in which it is set is off, it sticks out like a sore thumb. - [Comfort Reading](https://jodiebeckford.com/comfort-reading/): It’s fair to say I have pretty eclectic tastes. To be a good writer, it’s important to read widely so that that I have a broad range of influences and knowledge to draw from. Just like eating a healthy diet, all of the different genres provide me with the literary vitamins and minerals I need. But, that doesn’t mean I don’t pig out on some comfort food from time to time, and for me that is sci-fi. - [Creative reciprocity](https://jodiebeckford.com/creative-reciprocity/): I almost wasn’t going to post anything this week. I’ve been dragging my heels, writing wise, over the past few days because of a whole bunch of life stuff that took up a lot of time. This means I have had little energy to sit down in front of the computer to put anything into type. But when I can’t write the best thing to do is dive into my sketchbook to get the creative juices going, so this morning I joined a couple of friends on zoom for a bit of sketchbook practice. - [Filling plot holes: the road to the final draft](https://jodiebeckford.com/filling-plot-holes-the-road-to-the-final-draft/): For a while now, I’ve been kicking a novella around my writing desk in the hopes that its missing piece would make itself known. Despite beta readers telling me they enjoyed it, there has always been something not quite right about it. Something that nagged me. Something that made me feel uncomfortable about saying ‘It’s done!’ Every so often I have taken it out, dusted it off and had another crack at it but still that something eluded me, until yesterday. - [Going Gaga for Gouache](https://jodiebeckford.com/going-gaga-for-gouache/): I have always considered myself pretty polyamorous when it comes to art media. Paints, pastels, markers, charcoal, pencils, ink: I have loved them all. I even flirt with a bit of collage from time to time. But I have never felt a particularly strong affection for one over the others…until now. - [The 3 tools in my blogging toolbox](https://jodiebeckford.com/the-3-tools-in-my-blogging-toolbox/): It’s not always easy being consistent with blogging. I should know. I look back over the past year of this blog and see very large gaps in between posts at times. This is something I am now trying to remedy by sticking to a consistent schedule and making sure that I use whatever time I have to work on the three elements that need to come together to create one post. Because it’s not just about writing the thing. It’s also about presenting the thing. - [Why running is like art](https://jodiebeckford.com/why-running-is-like-art/): I like to run. It’s the one form of exercise that I consistently return to after falling off the taking-care-of-my-health wagon for the umpteenth time. I do not run fast. I do not take part in races (anymore) and my maximum distance is 15km. But I do really like to run. A couple of days ago, as I was plodding along in kilometre six of a ten kilometre trail, it suddenly occurred to me that running is a lot like writing or making art. - [The art of documenting: a plea for retaining the analog](https://jodiebeckford.com/the-art-of-documenting-a-plea-for-retaining-the-analog/): In five hundred years, when future humans look back at our period of history, what will be left to show of what our daily lives are like? - [What creative type are you?](https://jodiebeckford.com/what-creative-type-are-you/): In today’s digital world, being creative in any form can lead you down a rabbit hole of possibilities when it comes to trying to get your work in front of an audience. With artists like Austin Kleon telling us to ‘Show Your Work!’ and other successful creative types banging on about the importance of getting your stuff out there, regardless of whether or not it’s ‘perfect’ in your eyes it’s hard to know where to start? And how much do you need to show? And which tools do you use to do it? And what is it going to cost? - [Pondering Pigeons in Paint](https://jodiebeckford.com/pondering-pigeons-in-paint/): Last Friday I received an invitation from a friend in my weekly art group to join in Emma Carlisle’s 3rd Patreon birthday bash. This was a lovely suprise! I’ve followed Emma Carlisle for a while because I love her illustrative style and the way she presents her process. So, on Friday evening I sat at my desk, my Zoom app open and ready to go, and my trusty drawing kit close at hand. It’s been a while since I’ve done any sketching, so I was looking forward to seeing what we would do. - [Furry Dreadful](https://jodiebeckford.com/furry-dreadful/): Things are afoot in the manse. Mother has been keeping odd hours and rearranging the furniture. Strangers come and go at odd times of the day, and a four-legged fiend haunts my dreams… what does it all mean? - [Rebel Management](https://jodiebeckford.com/rebel-management/): Productivity gurus are right about one thing: systems do help. Making small adjustments over time does lead to the better results when it comes to making positive changes in your life (thank you James Clear and your Atomic Habits). However, systems are only as good as your willingness to follow them. - [Hitting 'reset'](https://jodiebeckford.com/hitting-reset/): I’ve been thinking a lot about the word reset. Reset buttons are quite wonderful. When one has royally stuffed up, or something isn’t working properly, you can simply hit the button and start over with a clean slate. Of course, the downside is that some things can get lost. ## Pages - [My account](https://jodiebeckford.com/my-account/) - [Checkout](https://jodiebeckford.com/checkout/) - [Cart](https://jodiebeckford.com/cart/) - [Shop](https://jodiebeckford.com/shop/) - [Newsletter](https://jodiebeckford.com/newsletter/) - [RSS Feed](https://jodiebeckford.com/feedzy-demo-page/) - [Youtube](https://jodiebeckford.com/youtube/) - [Art](https://jodiebeckford.com/art/) - [Writing](https://jodiebeckford.com/writing/): Coming soon! - [Privacy Policy](https://jodiebeckford.com/privacy-policy-2/): Who am I My website address is: https://jodiebeckford.com.This is a site to showcase my writing and art and launch my self-published books. Comments When visitors leave comments on the site it collects the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. 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