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WTF, Will! parts 5 – 8
Full of enthusiasm for my lockdown project of reading The Complete Works of Shakespeare, I wandered blindly on to play number 5. Some time later…
Love, Christmas
The Long and Short of It I enjoy writing short stories, which is a complete one-eighty compared to how I used to feel. I used…
Beware the Snake Oil Salesman
When I first started down this self-publishing journey, I heard quiet rumours of the dangers of scammers. I knew they were out there. I knew…
WTF, Will! parts 1 – 4
We all remember those drawn out days of the first Covid lockdown, right? I don’t know how you coped, but while other people were learning…
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The Good There’s so much to love about writing – the excitement of that initial spark of an idea; the stimulation of the challenge to…
Be True to Yourself
I recently participated in ALLi’s SelfPubCon, which focused on the business side of writing. There were sessions on using social media, monetising YouTube, website design,…
“Take What Resonates, Toss The Rest”
Giving Feedback The title of this post is a sentence that’s often used at the end of a fellow writer’s feedback in the Lab, and…
Creativity: A Risky Behaviour
There has long been an association between mental illness and creativity with seemingly endless examples of successful creatives affected by anxiety, depression, bipolar and other…
River Cruise down the Danube in Eastern Europe!
We are back from a river cruise down the Danube from Budapest to Bucharest. Well, what did we see? We were amazed at the people…
My Friend Is An Adventurous Snail
It was an irresistible afternoon, the gorgeously seductive late summer / early-autumn sunlight inviting me to come play in the woods… how could I refuse?…
AI – The ‘Loom’ Of Our Time
I’ve been avoiding the subject of AI for a long time. I’ve tried to ignore it, tried to pretend it won’t be as big a…
In Other Words…
I’m Fine Whenever I meet someone new, I try to learn their language. I don’t mean French or German; I mean things like what they…
The Seven Deadly (Writers’) Sins…
Come over here for a moment, would you? But be careful of the edge of the table, it’s rather sharp. Good. Now you can see…
About It All Again
   December 1973… a village called Oberjoch (over the hill) in the Bavarian Alps. Six feet of snow! I was learning to ski with…
Shrek – a Masterclass In Writing Character
I recently had a great movie night with my daughter. We made a fort (three kitchen chairs with a blanket thrown over the top and…
It’s Not the End of the World
Well, it sort of is… I’ve been fascinated by dystopian fiction for many years – any story which explores a dramatic change in the way…
It’s Art If I Say So
Marcel Duchamp said this: it’s art if I say so. He’s the guy who stuck a urinal on the wall and called it ‘Fountain’. And…
Let Them Eat Cake
As a writer, I tend to focus on plot. I love a good action scene, and I also enjoy writing dialogue (probably stems from loving…
Is the future here yet?
As a kid, I watched Star Trek. Some things have come true. I remember at the market you had to push to open the door….
Writing Emotion
Out of the Mouths of Babes This post was inspired by a comment made by my eleven-year-old son. It was prompted by his question regarding…
My Favourite SFF Audio Books
There are debates about audio books vs paperback vs digital formats. This post is not about that. Although that would be an interesting post. But…
Good Writing
I recently wrote a blog post about bad writing in current media and decided that this month I would write about good writing instead. Bad…
Experimenting
Be Brave I’ve been writing seriously for years. The more I wrote (and read the work of other authors), the more I experimented with different…
Journeys and the Importance of Writing Communities
My Writing Journey During my formative years, I had spells when I thought I’d like to be an author when I grew up (if we…
And Another One Gone…
Donald Sutherland is gone. I saw him on stage at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles years ago in a play. What can one…
Bad Writing
Lately, I’ve been hearing lots of complaints about awful writing. Not mine – people aren’t saying it to my face anyway – but some movies…
Forest bathing
A long-lost friend dropped by recently. Myka was in Berlin for a conference, and found herself with a free evening. We offered her a barbecue,…
Play to Your Strengths
Be Up-Front Agent Pete often says that writers should play to their strength and put it front and centre in the opening of their novel….
Titles – What’s in a Name?
A Rose By Any Other Name Would Smell as Sweet, Right? The Silence of the Lambs, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Elinor Oliphant is Completely…
I like this. You like that.
Food, travel, books, movies, television shows, and on…and on… A family member of mine doesn’t like avocado. Won’t dip his chip into guacamole. YUM. A…
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