Category: How To and Tips
The Right Time To Write
I remember very clearly, where I was, when I decided I would finally write my book. I had waited for and imagined that inspired lightbulb moment for a long time. It’ll be when my son is a little older and starts nursery, I’d surmise, or when I finally have a desk I can sit at, […]
Things I Wish I’d Known Earlier
Ten years ago I published my first novel and when I look back, I marvel that I’m still here. But also how bumpy the road has sometimes been. Below are some of the things that might have helped if I’d known what I do now: That publishing is as commercial as it is creative, and […]
My Road To Publishing
From a young age I loved telling stories. I know that sounds like a cliché, but it’s true. At school, I couldn’t get to grips with maths, science or languages, but give me a novel and I was set. I would happily interpret them for exams and read books before they were on the syllabus […]
Journaling: A Writer’s Healthiest Addiction
One of the most powerful habits you can develop as a writer is also one of the simplest: keeping a daily journal. This is no secret. Many of the writers we love, who have moved us with their words and influenced our own work, have also been faithful journalers – from Ida B. Wells and Henry […]
Your Writing Group & You: How to Get the Most Out of What Can Be a Challenging Experience
Writing fiction is a solitary pursuit. The writers of Saturday Night Live might have great craic (“craic” being the Irish word for “fun”) aiming paper airplanes across the table, and end up with memorable and quirky sketches, but it doesn’t work for us novelists. We must work alone. Thus, we need to pause long enough […]
Slaying The Sequel
My debut novel, Seeking Eden, gushed into the world like an overdue baby, its gestation barely two and a half years from writing the first line to publication. Words flew from the keys, tumbling over themselves in my haste to tell the story of a group of above-averagely dysfunctional misfits living in a suburban English […]
Writer or “Roadie”: Who Leads the Way – the Author or the Character?
Yes, I created a character in my image … but a way better version, and far more interesting. Sophie Bloom, the protagonist in my new novel, THE UNBREAKABLES, is a hot mess. Her marriage falls apart, her besties betray her, her 19-year-old daughter studying abroad is having an affair with her married professor, and she […]
Getting into the Zone
by Lynne Shelby There are days when the words flow so effortlessly from keyboard to WIP that it feels as though your characters have taken over your plot and are telling their stories for themselves, taking it in directions that you, the writer and supposedly their creator, would never have imagined. You are so deep […]
Why and How Two Strangers Wrote a BDSM Erotic Romance From Opposite Sides Of The Globe
As some of you may know, the online writing community can be one of the most supportive ones out there. Thanks to hashtags on social media, it’s easy to find your little posse of like-minded people. That’s how Amelia Foster and Deana Birch originally met, in a Twitter chat group of unpublished authors all struggling […]
Top 5 Things Pole Fitness Taught Me About Writing
Top 5 Things Pole Fitness Taught Me About Writing Several years ago, I realized an important truth about myself: if exercise is not something fun and interesting, I am never, ever going to do it. However, my tendonitis becomes harder to manage when I gain weight. I also harbor a deep, abiding love for junk […]
Recent Comments