Imagine a colour. Let’s say, a pastel green. Breathe that colour in, right in, all the way from the bottom to fill up to the top of your lungs. You’ll feel your diaphragm as you pull in more air – all the air you need until you are replete. Then breathe out, slowly, ever so slowly. If you like, make a small hissing sound, like a birthday balloon losing air, as you imagine that the colour – that glorious pastel green – growing from you and around you in an iridescent bubble of green light. Yes, it will pop. Even though you may mourn or think longingly of what was the memory will be a sort of gift, even a painful gift. Although it can be horrible, that letting go, the shock of a pop. That’s OK. Continue to breathe in other colours and release…

There comes a time when a project, or moment, or some other element in life, needs releasing and this is that time for the Wild Writes project. Initially, it was a family-friendly writing + biodiversity project based in Reddish Vale, Stockport. It has grown since then to a personal blog, a writing blog, and an experimental sandpit for different thinking. It was also a place to capture the poetry that I’d written for my daughter – it will have been ten years since she was stillborn this September. In those ten years, and the eight or so that this blog has been in existence, there has been a lot of change. Indeed, I’ve changed – although I’ve still to kick that sporadic lack of confidence, now identified as imposter syndrome, where it hurts.

The Wild Writes project wouldn’t have existed without the MA in Creative Writing (Poetry) and Pedagogic Studies that I started in 2012 while on the maternity leave I didn’t think that I deserved – I was an emotional mess. (The course was a choice between focussing on ecology/natural sciences (Open University) and returning to write more seriously (MMU). Creative writing won the toss.) And the PhD wouldn’t have happened without the MA and leaping into the weird and wonderful world of traditional storytelling, and, additionally, there was the folklore book (ask me for my true opinions about the latter in the pub someday…). I am grateful for all the opportunities and the experiences that I’ve had along the way including a house move in the final year of my PhD (I do NOT recommend that anyone tries this; I still feel tired just thinking about that feat).

In summary: I will not be updating Wild Writes anymore and this site will naturally disappear at the beginning of 2022 (it’s a biennial arrangement with IONOS).

For what it’s worth, I have added this site to Web Archive. Even though the site will be inactive the content should still be findable. I’ll probably recycle some of the writing at some point; that’s how I roll.

So, this is sort of a farewell and a thank you for following both this blog and the Twitter account over the last eight years or so. If you want to see what Jennie did next then I’m reflecting on my life as a library assistant, reading, and making over on Librarian Crafting. (Strictly speaking, I’m not a “Librarian” – CILIP are sort of strict about that – but I am a library assistant and a recent member of CILIP!)

I hope you’re well and – although this may seem a little emo – I wish you all the best of everything during this horrible pandemic and in this strange and magical and sad and glorious thing called life.