If you think being a writer is difficult…think about what your loved one or other half has to endure. Can you imagine how they must feel listening to you huff and puff over the opening paragraph of your first chapter? Ever wondered what it must be like to sit and watch the person you love […]
Read More
To the writer their draft novel is a living thing. It communicates with them regularly, even when they are trying to avoid it. A draft novel senses when the writer is ready to write and it knows when the writer is actively trying to avoid it. Once you start delving into this strange phenomenon of unspoken […]
Read More
Storms can take many forms; there are the storms outside which loosen your house tiles, play havoc with your flower pots, fling your recycling bins down the street, flood parts of your home and drench everything in sight. There are the storms in your day to day life which disrupt relationships, friendships, careers and life […]
Read More
This is a tough one and can take some writers several years to come to terms with. You have an unfinished draft novel, sat in a drawer or lounging on top of your writing desk or loitering in your writing file on your computer and the thought of finishing it gives you an uncomfortable gut […]
Read More
The idea for this post came to me after I was reading an article on Medium about the phrase overnight success. I have always been intrigued by the term and the notion that success JUST happens to authors. Surely there is more to overnight literary fame than meets the eye? Once you type this myth […]
Read More
This weekend will be spent clearing out my dressing table and creating a temporary work desk. As I am working from home in my day job, the teenagers are off school due to half term, my husband is also working from home and we are in the middle of a strict lockdown, I cannot spend […]
Read More
It’s not easy being a writer. We find ourselves drawn to tweed based outfits, berets, Twitter, book shops and attractive notebooks. We stare into space a lot, walk around with pencils permanently tucked behind our ears, get excited over word counts, cover our walls in post it notes and lose ourselves while reading books. One […]
Read More
It has taken me a long time to accept this. When you start out as a writer, your ego assures you that ALL your stories will, at some point, turn into bestselling novels. You happily fill up an array of notebooks with stories, quietly confident, they will all feature somewhere in your future writing career. […]
Read More
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 […]
Read More
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 […]
Read More