Overcoming the Fear of Submission

This is an article I wrote this month for the Get Your Words Out online community:   So, you’re fearful of putting your writing out there into the world… Well, you’re not alone.  Every writer experiences anxiety about letting other people read their work.  Every writer fears rejection and criticism of their work.  The first […]

Really Getting Away

Last week, I took a lovely, four-day trip down to Devon, to attend a residential writing retreat at Stickwick Manor, organised by the ever-awesome Charlie from Urban Writers’ Retreat. It was great to get really away from London, escape the distractions of daily life, and forget all about the stresses and annoyances of the day […]

Donations now open for Narrathon!

I’m part of a collaborative writing project this year, called Narrathon.  It’s being organised by NAWG and involves 19 writers completing a chapter each to produce a children’s novel for publication in the second half of the year.  The project is now open for donations, and all the money will go towards the upkeep of […]

It Pays to Follow Up

Back in November, I entered a competition to have one of my stories recorded by a company called Soundwork.  I forgort all about it until this week, when I was tracking my outstanding submissions.  I spotted a note I’d left for myself, saying I would need to check their website for the results – and, […]

Customer Service

My story, Customer Service, has been posted in the February 2017 issue of the web-zine, Aphelion. I’m particularly excited about this publication, as this is the original 1,500 word story, from which my debut novel was developed. You can read it here.

Urban Writer’s Detox

Charlie, who runs the Urban Writers’ Retreats I go to, also just finished running an online writing programme for four weeks, starting on 2 January.  It consisted of a daily email, containing a writing prompt, a suggested amount of time to write (starting at five minutes and working upwards), and either a task to help […]

Just when you think you’re out of the running…

The very day I pretty much decided to abandon my novel as a ‘useful first experiment’, I got an email telling me I’ve been long-listed in the UK Novel Writing Competition! Out of 3,112, mine has been selected along with 249 others to go forwards to the next stage of the competition. So, yay!  I’ll […]

Less is More

I’ve been thinking about my writing goals for the year, in conjunction with my renewed pledge to write 150,000 words for Get Your Words Out in 2017.  And, interestingly, my main goals for this year are actually about writing less, rather than more.   1) Put the novel in a drawer and forget about it […]