As a fortysomething writer with a full time (non-writing) day job, a husband, two teenage children (who are well into the socialising stage), a dog, three cats, a house that is never tidy (no matter how many times we clean it) and hormones which change daily (sometimes hourly), life can feel a little chaotic. My […]
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You have been working at the literary coalface for months. Your latest draft novel has taken far longer than you expected. At times working on your draft novel has felt more like going to war than embarking on a wonderful journey of creative discovery. You know far too much about your characters and after spending […]
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This post is for writers like me that write a lot and shelve a lot. Some writers I know rarely give up on a story and stay with it until the bitter end. Sadly I am not one of these writers. Underneath my writing desk I have boxes of notebooks filled with half finished, shelved […]
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This post for anyone out there who has always secretly dreamed of writing a book and has spent a lifetime putting it off. You can try to ignore it all you want. Feed yourself silly excuses like you have never written a book before. Deny you want to write a book. Tell yourself it is […]
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Have you ever had to inflict pain and suffering onto one of your much loved fictional characters? Have you ever reluctantly tipped a bucket full of life crap over two characters who have just found true love and as you you were doing it felt like you were betraying two old friends? Have you ever struggled […]
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The idea for this blog post came to me whilst cleaning my bathroom. I’d just finished Bettina Hunt’s fabulous romantic comedy; ‘A Tempting Trio‘ and all I could think about (with my head bent over the bath and scrubbing like mad) was who I’d want to see cast in the leading male roles if Bettina’s […]
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A few days ago I was reading an article about the 5 stages of relationships. This is how us romance authors like to roll in our spare time. I was supposed to be thinking about constructing fictional relationships but by the end of the article I was telling my uninterested loved ones, (who now can’t […]
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The world feels like a frightening place at the moment. Once again I am not going to name that damn virus which is behind all this pain and turmoil. It is at a time like this when we really start to appreciate the precious people in our life, the people who bring us joy and […]
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I love this question – how’s your book coming along? My reaction to this simple question can change daily, sometimes hourly. Here are 10 different writer reactions to that question. They are a mixture of some of the reactions I have overheard during my time as a writer and my own. I will let you […]
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I love experiencing what I call a writing epiphany. They’re not regular occurrences and I think this is what makes them so wonderful. Mine always seem to occur while I am in my little car on my way to work at around seven in the morning. This is the time of the day when my brain will […]
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