I didn’t write anything all last week. Then, I had a tiring, somewhat stressful but ultimately enjoyable weekend away at a gaming event, getting home later last night than planned. And I’d completely forgotten about my dentist appointment this morning. All I wanted to do with the rest of today was sit on the sofa […]
Category: Blog
Music for Writing
My relationship to aural input whilst writing has changed dramatically over time. I used to need complete peace and quiet in order to write, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to listen to music at the same time. Then, I started using instrumental music as a way to focus and block out distracting background noise. […]
Dreaded Revision Not So Dreadful
After two writing weeks on the Six Month Novel Programme, I am six chapters and over 30,000 words into the new draft, which is way more than I anticipated. The outline has changed multiple times, I’ve discovered major issues with the order of events, my favourite character has disappeared from the story altogether, and I’ve […]
The Wonders of Outlining
When I wrote the first draft of my novel, it took five years, a lot of teeth-pulling, and a gradual progression from the original 1,500 word story to the eventual 90,000 word novel. There was a lot of mystery and excitement along the way, coupled with periods of staring into the void, wondering what on […]
A Novel in Six Months? I Must Be Mad!
Whilst on the retreat in Devon last month, I got to talking to my lovely host, Charlie of Urban Writers’ Retreats, and she mentioned she was taking applications for her annual Six Month Novel Programme. Since I had just reached the conclusion that the next step for my novel was a blank page rewrite, I […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
The Delights of Scribophile
One of the other writers on the course I attended recently at Moniack Mhor told me about an online critiquing website called Scribophile, so I decided to check it out. I found signing up and navigating around very easy. They have a checklist of all the various things you can do on the site, which […]