Tag: #writerslife

Unsurprisingly for an English Lit graduate, I love literature. But here is my secret... I am a bit of a literary snob. But not in the way you might think. Ever since I first picked up a penguin classic (Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, by the by) I have been charmed, obsessed and inspired by the… Continue reading Hands up, I’m a snob

This month saw my name go into print. Not on my own novel, but as part of a collaboration with a chap from my village. The aim? To write a novella, no more than 20,000 words, set in and around our village in Somerset. Other than a poem by Wordsworth, called Anecdote for Fathers, there… Continue reading Collaborative Success!

I have a website. I have a blog. I spend my days banging on about writing on twitter. So it may come as a surprise to hear that, to my nearest and dearest at least, I have kept my writing a secret. Why, you ask? Simple: fear. I had been writing seriously for over a… Continue reading Sssshhh, it’s a secret

I am pretty comfortable with my writing voice. I would go so far as to say that I rather like my writing voice, which is a good job as I spend so much time using it. But this week I couldn’t find it. Instead I found myself rather bizarrely writing in a cross over style… Continue reading The great pretender, or why it is so damn important to read your own genre!

Time is all we had, but, as Take That happily remind me, it was never ours to keep. This week time was never mine to begin with. I have had NO TIME. And by no time I mean no time to write. But as I sat down today to write for the first time in… Continue reading The Perks of Having no Time

This may sound like quite a bold claim and of course it is. There are many more things that kill creativity, but for me comfort is the biggest one. Picture the scene: a cosy living room, a log fire glowing and warming your toes, your belly full of roast chicken and apple pie and a… Continue reading Comfort: the killer of creativity

Ooooh I love a graveyard. A bit of nature, a bit of peace and a bit of the BEST people watching ever. And I don’t just mean the living ones. Try this for a creative exercise: take a walk around a graveyard and examine the gravestones. On a good trip you can discover some fabulous… Continue reading All the fun of the…graveyard

Titles. THE BANE OF MY LIFE. That is, of course, a ridiculous exaggeration born from spending too long on goodreads.com in a green eyed stupor. The Quality of Silence Our Endless Numbered Days The Girl With A Clock for a Heart How do they do it? How do these guys come up with such good… Continue reading A Serious Case of Title Envy

I have always admired authors. Scrap that; I bloody love authors, they make up the bulk of my hero list. Take my encounter with Sebastian Faulks this summer, for example. I had planned a whole ream of interesting and intelligent things to say to him. What did I actually say? “Will you sign this for… Continue reading Work Hard. That is all.

I was taught a tough lesson this week: self awareness. It may come as a surprise, but I have a tendency towards prudishness. Whereas it’s true that, after a G&T, I can curse and joke like the dirtiest of sailors, when it comes to writing I turn into Mrs Prudish McGee. I find it difficult… Continue reading Killing my inner prude