After reading as much as I can about the literary journeys of different authors, I have come to the conclusion that writing success comes to those who have…mastered the art of finding their way back to their projects. We leave our stories behind for a variety of reasons: We need to distance ourselves from them […]
I’m in the NaNoWriMo trenches and it’s been a tough weekend. At one point things got so challenging I started procrastinating about how the life of a writer feels very similar to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Here are the similarities with Lord of the Rings and being a writer: Your story is the ring […]
Inside the minds of most writers the same questions must rotate on a regular basis. These include: – Am I a good writer? – Am I good enough to write a book? – Do I have what it takes to write a decent book? – Do I have what it takes to sell books? – […]
Bookish friends are special people ❤️ As a bookish person myself I think finding people who are mad about books is one of life’s many pleasures. Here are the essential skills that I believe are required for bookish friends. They must agree with you that happiness comes from reading books and talking about them. Romance […]
During lockdown my loved one found unexpected joy with gardening. He’s growing all sorts of stuff and has transformed our garden. I will also say his fingers are…getting greener by the day. He’s done so well I was gobsmacked at the SIZE and LENGTH of his carrots earlier this week. 🥕🥕🥕 Now, I never thought I […]
Last year I wrote a post on how writing about characters who reinvent themselves can spark a change in your own life. Back then writing about Pippa’s transformation in my book, Instructions For Falling In Love Again, had sparked enormous change in my own life. My post questioned whether writing about change had this magic ability to […]
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 […]
I was chatting with my author friend, Bettina Hunt, on our Friday Facetime with G&T’s, about writing novels. We started off comparing our different novel writing processes and then after a few more glugs of our G&T’s we came up with this superb analogy about writing a novel. We likened it to going on a […]
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 […]
You’ve been working on the latest draft of your novel for weeks and it feels like such a hard slog. My goodness you never expected things to get this tough! This is when the idea of not finishing it becomes so attractive. Maybe you should walk away? Maybe your inability to finish the draft is […]