I am learning the inevitable lesson that life as a writer, and interaction with the publishing industry in particular, is unpredictable and sometimes frustrating. There were a couple of months over the summer where everything suddenly felt as if it was coming together. Four of my short stories were accepted for publication, I was offered […]
Category: Blog
Under The Microscope
In this month’s Writing Magazine, author James McCreet analysed the first 300 words of my novel, doing a line-by-line commentary and providing a summary overview of his thoughts, as well as a suggested re-write. When I first heard that this was going to happen (so many months after submitting that I’d forgotten all about it), […]
My Writing Day
Write every day – that’s what we’re told, isn’t it? It’s the only way to cultivate good writing discipline, and train your mind to see every day as a writing day, no matter what. Well, in order to hit a self-imposed target of 100,000 words written in the first half of 2016, I ended up […]
The Benefits of Forced Focus
Writing is a tricky business. It’s the thing I most want to do with my time, and it’s the thing I least want to do with my time. This seems to be true of all the writers I know. We desperately want to create amazing things – and in fact can’t imagine life without writing […]
How It All Began
Way back in October 2010, I signed up for an Open University creative writing course, with a good friend of mine, who is also a writer. The very first assignment was to write a 1500 word short story, on any theme. The idea for my story came from a conversation I had with my husband […]