Fi Phillips

My morning has a set ritual: Get up.  Get children up.  Do school run.  Walk the dog.  This happens on every week day since Bailey the pooch arrived at our house. This morning was a glorious day to get out and about, sunny but just chilly enough to need a coat, perfect for a stroll amongst the autumn leaves. On the way back, I met a neighbour walking his two dogs. I was trying to take a photo at the time and he commented that he liked to take photos too. We chatted (while I tried to stop Bailey from jumping up at him to be petted and terrorising his dogs) and it turned out that my neighbour is also a writer, a poet. You can find his website here . What I got most from our chat was how wonderful it is to talk to another writer. We writers are a fractured society. We don't generally gather en masse like many professions. We tend to work alone, only meeting up with like minded souls on occasion. Today was one of those occasions for me. What a grea...

It's autumn. The trees are shaking off their greenery. My morning journeys are wrapped in fog from the fields that I drive past. There's a chill in the air even when the sun is shining. I can feel it in my bones (or maybe that's a touch of rheumatism). Everything is on the shift. This month's exercise is inspired by a word that, for me, denotes this time of year. Change is ever present although sometimes the change is so gradual that we don't notice it. On other occasions, change can be brutally quick, shocking even. If you were to write about 'change', what would your story tell me? Who would it be about? What would be its tone? How does change inspire you?

It truly feels like autumn now, the turning of the year into cooler days and tawny shades. I love this season for the same reason that I love spring - there's change in the air. My choice words this month come from the award winning writers Doris Lessing and Octavia Butler. The wonderful Doris Lessing talks about writing.

This is something we'll be seeing a lot of soon in the UK- a street covered in autumn leaves. My children are almost past the age to kick around in leaves but whenever we pass a pile of leaves like this, there's always the temptation. What could lie beneath this layer of leaves, beyond the obvious earwigs and worms? Something lost? Something hidden? What could you find if you bent to clear away the leaves?

My life is hectic at the moment. There seems to be a lot to fit in and as usual my writing time suffers. Most autumn nights have found me scooting between children's bedtimes and working on my novel. I am nothing, if not adaptable. How to pace a story so that it hooks the reader is an interesting article from Nail Your Novel, that leads you through the process of creating a novel your reader won't want to put down.

The first day of autumn (Sunday) in the northern hemisphere greeted me with glorious sunshine. I spent the day in the garden dressed in a t-shirt (obviously there were trousers involved too - don't want to scare the neighbours' dogs). Two days on and the continuing blue skies are a wonderful companion for the crisp air and turning leaves. Troubleshoot your novel is an incredibly useful article from Nail Your Novel and one I'll be applying to my own work in progress. It's well worth a read.

There is a wonderful chill in the air to accompany the still blue skies here in North Wales. Autumn is almost upon us. My children return to school tomorrow. The wheel turns a notch further and daytime peace will soon return until the mid term holiday. Whatever kind of writing you do, it's well worth reading the introduction to DIY MFA's Lit Loft - Develop Effective Writing Habits .

Today is the Autumn Equinox, the day at this end of the year in the UK when day and night are the same length. Autumn can stand for many things, in our lives and our writing. This is the season of harvest where we gather and benefit from what we have 'sown' over the spring and summer. It can symbolise a move from youth (the summer) to adulthood (the autumn), especially as our children charge into a new school year. It can also bring over us a feeling of melancholy. This is a season of both beauty and sadness. The golden colours and ripe fruit present us with their glorious hues and yet it is also time to pack away the toys of summer, time to look back and ahead. I was married in autumn, a wonderful day in October that united friends and family for a few playful hours. It was one of the happiest days in my life, but the saddest too. My father had died a couple of years before that and my mother was too ill with dementia to attend. We played a favourite song of my father...

1. Make pumpkin soup  Well, not necessarily pumpkin soup. You might prefer butternut squash soup (a favourite of mine) or plum jam. Eating seasonal fruit and vegetables prepares your body for the season ahead and is cheaper than using produce that wouldn't naturally occur at this time of year. It also reduces your carbon footprint by allowing you to eat locally grown produce. You can find an excellent article on autumn seasonal eating on the Mostly Eating blog . 2. Layer it up Just because the weather is blustery and temperatures are dropping doesn't mean that you have to immediately pack away your summer clothes and bring out the jumpers and boots. Swap your lightweight scarf  for a heavier fabric. Wear a long sleeved top under your favourite dress. Replace bare legs with woollen or opaque tights. You can find a helpful article about layering for autumn from the Independent here . 3. Get Out Whether it's with family, friends or your other half, walks can be the...

We haven't moved into a new season yet but today it feels like autumn, crisp sunshine wrapped around the cherries and apples in my garden. I'm in the middle of a commissioned script and with my children still at home (they return to school next week), I'm snatching moments around them to do my work. My mind is on the month ahead and my to-do list looks like this: Complete my script and send it off to the client. Write and send out the quarterly newsletter for my business. Re-brand my business and make some alterations to the website. Complete another script for my business. Return to my work in progress, my darling novel.. That's quite a lot when I apportion time needed to complete these tasks. I really should be applying my nasal extremity to the grindstone and yet... For this first week in September, I always feel a stillness and a sense of anticipation. It's like the way my Auntie Ethel used to prepare herself before she drove up a hill. Ethel was...

I am a child of change. I always have been. Life can be as harmonious and bountiful as you like but if there is no room for change, then I just can't be happy. It's not that I'm ungrateful for the joys I've been given. It's just that I don't like to sit still for long - on to the next project or improvement. That's why I like autumn - it's a sign of change. Like spring, autumn heralds a turn in the year, a handing over from the summer's long days to winter evenings that wrap us in their shades of darkness. The autumn equinox marks the second day in the year (the first being the spring equinox) when there is a balance between light and dark, a brief harmony before the world carries on towards winter. Today is the autumn equinox, the first day of autumn, called Mabon by pagans. For me, it's a day of being thankful for what the year has brought me (my harvest), looking to see where I'm out of balance, and finding ways to bring harmony into m...

Yesterday I wrote about my affection for the month of September but  autumn in general is a favourite time of the year for me. Like the harvest from the fields, orchards and hedgerows, this season always feels like a time of reward and fruition. As I mentioned yesterday, autumn brought to me my daughter and my husband. This was also when I got married. In her '52 Qualities of Prosperous Writers' newsletter, Christina Katz wrote this week about being 'bountiful'. She writes, Bountiful implies that your cup is already overflowing so you simply tip your abundance into the hands of others. No sainthood required! One thing I'm always thankful for is the abundance of ways in which I can apply my writing. There's this blog of course, the plays I write for Murdering The Text and the ideas I have for novels too. More recently, my writing 'cup' has overflowed and with the help of my husband (who is also my writing partner), we've taken the scenario and...

'Mellow' is the word that always comes to mind when I think of September. The days are still warm, there are flowers in the garden and we have time after school or work to go walking. And yet the way the colours of the garden and countryside have faded and the drawing in of the nights remind us that autumn and ultimately winter is on the way. I like September. My children return to school and I can reclaim the house from a battleground of toys and abandoned socks. The extremes of summer (the long days, the brightest colours and cloudless skies) give way to a kinder, less challenging season. I met my husband in September, an unexpected and warmly remembered encounter that set me on this well-loved path. My daughter was born in this month and my father was taken from me too. It has always been a time of change and fresh avenues into the future. This September is no different. Today I posted off our sitcom pilot script to the BBC. My husband is in the midst of writing a seco...

The autumn newsletter for Murdering The Text is now available online. With details of our latest play and autumn productions, have a look at the newsletter here .

Last weekend we went to Manchester to visit the University Museum but just as we arrived the fire alarm went off. We spent half an hour standing in the rain, listening to the drone of the siren. However, it did give me time to take some photos.

One week and counting until my life returns to normal (or as normal as my life ever gets). The August monster has been banished and September brings with it the first sense of autumn with it's blustery weather. Shopping for the children's school uniforms (they keep growing), I find myself drawn to the stationery shelves. My two are too young to need pens and pads for school yet so I can't 'pretend' to buy stationery for them. Still, I might have to treat myself to an A4 pad, for work purposes of course. My housework and writing routine are due for an overhaul with the new term. Hopefully by then, the pantomime will be finished so I can return to my novel and writing a new play for Murdering The Text . Is it any wonder that autumn is my favourite season?