Last weekend, a few friends and I went to Felixstowe Book Festival. This was my third event of this kind, and probably my favourite so far. NAWG Fest in September last year was an intensive two days of excellent workshops, with a couple of author talks thrown in. Tremendous fun, but very tiring. Chipping Norton […]
Tag: Habits
Same Lesson Every Time
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
Learning About Revision
I spent the whole of last week on a writing course at Moniack Mhor, near Inverness. It was aimed at science-fiction and fantasy writers, with workshops in the mornings, led by the two tutors, Juliet McKenna and Pippa Goldschmidt, and the afternoons left free for individual writing time. I always find these kind of events […]