Category: How To and Tips
How to Write About a Marriage Crisis and Keep the Marriage
The Buddha Sat Right Here chronicles the year I tore off my Supermom cape, shuttered the house, and took my husband and young daughters on an eight month odyssey through India and Nepal. Why did I do that, you ask? I had become too stressed-out by working motherhood to appreciate the precious beauty of my […]
The making of The Fortune Teller and Other Short Works by Nanette L. Avery
Inspiration comes to us when we least expect it. Its provocation can erupt suddenly as if fallen from the night sky while we wander the stars, realized in the chemistry lab mixing and measuring, or found while listening to the roar of Niagara Falls. As unique as a one’s fingerprints or as communal as […]
How a Teenage Fantasy Became a Wartime Novel
As a steamy adolescent growing up in rural Herefordshire, I was gripped by the story of Franz von Werra, the only German POW to escape from British captivity during the Second World War. My fascination with the story had great deal to do with the German actor who played von Werra in the film The […]
The Witchcraft Of Writing, By Louisa Morgan
Every writer hears the question “Where do you get your ideas?” many times in their career. Different writers give different answers. The old joke response is “Cleveland,” but there are more serious ones, helpful ones, like long walks, showers, meditation, and so forth. My answer to the question is usually, “I don’t know.” My secret […]
Lessons From My Children…(I Mean, My Books)
Anyone who has more than one child knows the amazement that comes when you’re faced with visible evidence of how different your children are. One loves to run around outside, the other one only wants to curl up inside with the book. One loves everything pink and sparkly, and the other one wears nothing but […]
Writing like Raising the Dead
I write like a necromancer. But not a good necromancer— rather, one who bumbles through the ritual. I begin with the spark of life and an incomplete pile of bones rattling around in a heap on the ground. They’re ideas and connections, images and thoughts, and somehow, I know that if I put them together […]
Writing from Rejection: Inspiration to Publication
My debut novel, My Sister is Missing, was born out of rejection. The first novel I plucked up the courage to submit to agents received three full requests, but all came back with a resounding NO. One lovely agent told me that she loved my main character, but the premise of the novel got lost […]
Inspiration Behind The Little Book Cafe
Inspiration. It’s a funny thing. It comes in many forms. I’ve been inspired by conversations with friends, people watching and eavesdropping (got to be my favourite thing to do, preferably in a pavement café with a glass of wine in hand) snippets in the media, even dreams. Deadlines can prove to be very … erm […]
This Is Why You Need A Team To Support Your Writing
Writing is like raising a child. While you can try to ensure the kind of outcome you desire and imagine, you never how life’s twists and turns will take you in a direction you never expected. I had never held a newborn baby until the midwife put my daughter in my arms. I remember taking […]
The Science Of Writing
Like most of my writer friends, I live a double life. My writing life is a living, breathing thing that exists atop a whole other life filled with work and kids and car pool and soccer practice. In truth, some days it seems there is very little room left for my writing life. Some days […]
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