From Breakthrough Authors To Bestselling Legends
The Most Exciting & Original Voices Writing Today
Think Like A Reader
I always find Beta reading such a great opportunity to learn. I discover things that Iām sure I do myself as a writer that I…
Whatās The Deal? My Experience with Deal Sites
My experience with deal sites. This one is for the writers. Last week, I ran a promotion for my novel The Trouble with Prophecies. I…
Writing ‘Rules’
Donāt Start with a Character Waking Up, Looking in the Mirror, or with a Hangover On Pop-Up Submissions, we received a lot of openings like…
Writing Disability
(Disclaimer: although not politically perfect, Iām going to use the familiarity of the term ādisabilityā rather than, say, ādifferently abledā in this post.) Iām gonna…
Self-Publishing
I decided to self-publish my contemporary romances after unsuccessful attempts at the traditional route. There are pros and cons to making this decision and lots…
Skimming Stones
The pebble skimmed the surface ten times before running out of momentum, then seeming to flounder for a split second, sank into the dark still…
Writes and Wrongs
Remember lockdown? Remember how we all got a bit excited in the first one and felt we had to make it count? And some of…
Can Songs Teach Us Something About Writing Novels?
Rules and Commonalities Iām not a musician but even I know that songs have a structure, verses and a chorus, that they often have a…
What Wordle Taught Me About Writing
Iāve been doing the daily Wordle puzzle since it started. In case you missed it, Wordle is an online game that gives you six chances…
Stories that stay with you
Last time, I spoke about stories that stay with you ā or more accurately, the ones that donāt. This month, I want to take some…
Rejection
You Are Not Alone Most people experience rejection when querying. Beatrix Potter, author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, got so many rejections she ended…
Writing Routines
Time and Head Space When I was teaching full-time, I found it difficult to fit in any writing. Itās definitely not a nine-to-three job! My…
Cue the Music
In that heady, comforting, all-encompassing safety-net that is the deep love forged by a long life together, my soul-mate and I tried to find ‘our…
Self-Critiquing
Who the hell do you think you are? I once heard that authors alternate between two perceptions of their work-in-progress. One is: āThis is amazing!…
Read. Write. Repeat.
āChristmas wonāt be Christmas without any presents,ā grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. That opening line is indelibly inked in my memory. Other fictional characters…
Business Speak
The Brother has a view on modern verbiage ++ Now, cāmere ātil I tell you this. Iām all ears. What is it? The brother has…
What Makes Great Writing?
We All Have Our Own Opinions Of course we do! Life would be very boring if we didnāt. But there are elements to story that…
Multiple Points-of-View
Say What? Writing a novel with more than one point-of-view can be tricky. How can you juggle different personalities and motivations ā and somehow use…
The Cat Blog
There’s something about cats. Yes, in January Ā I burst my eardrum trying to cure the ear mite infection I caught from our two….
Ghost Writing
Sorry! Iāve been a tad disingenuous with this title because Iām not referring to the act of writing on behalf of others, but rather the…
Where Did All The Stories Go?
The last few weeks, I have been replaying a video game from my distant past. An old favourite by the name of Final Fantasy VII….
Over achievers
Over achievers rarely herald from untroubled upbringings. Being born to a mother with low confidence in her own abilities wouldnāt have been so bad, had…
Not the Typical (Ugly) American Tourist (I hope).
Ciao. Getting ready for our two-week trip to Northern Italy. Northern Italy you say. What about the rest of Italy? Well, in due course. A…
Everything is Writing
āArenāt you supposed to be writing?ā I shove the nagging question away. The computer will still be there when I return to it, cursor blinking…
Unreliable Narrators (Spoiler Alert!)
An Issue of Trust Iāll admit, novels with an unreliable narrator are not everyoneās cup of tea, but I love them. You start off thinking…
How The Koreans Are Bossing A Trope
Mention the word Trope to us writers and we’ll recoil. Add the word Cliche and you’ll see us running for the hills. These two five-letter…
Unlikeable Characters
My three psychological novels have unlikeable point-of-view characters. Without balance, they can appear two-dimensional ā and Iāve discovered that achieving that balance is rather tricky!…
Making Sense of Chaos
A writer friend of mine and I have exchanged writerly encouragement to each other for many years. The most frequent reminder we bounce back and…
Postcards from Earth
Dear Grandpoppypops Wish you were here? Look at the size of the stamps now! So much larger than the penny black you showed me from…
A Bowl o’ Stew
Flann O’Brien’s much-loved character – The Brother – transported to the 21st century. What would he make of contemporary trends and fads? This episode imagines…
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