Category: How To and Tips
Combining First Person Narration with Viewpoint Characters: Why? How? Where?
While once upon a time the use of the first person narrator in fiction was seen as “barbaric”, that time is long past. It is now a popular narrator voice, and it fits well with the feminist opposition to so called “objective” knowledge—something embodied in omniscient third person narrator. Moreover, we are all keenly […]
How a Writer Relaxes
Let’s face it. As writers, we spend hours hunched over our computers pecking at keyboards like a woodpecker on steroids. Hitting that delete button or trying to figure out the commas takes effort—and puts a ton of pressure on us. So not too long ago, I knew it was time to splurge on something that […]
Can We Have It All?
As I sit down to write this blog, I ask myself the two questions I often have to answer. The first, do I want to do it? The second, do I have time? The response I generally come to is this… If I want to do it, I’ll have to make time! Like so many […]
Nevertheless, She Persisted
My novel The Mermaids of Lake Michigan was published earlier this year, but I completed the first draft of it almost twenty years ago. When it was finished, I printed out sample chapters, typed up cover letters, and began querying literary agents via airmail. I still have some of their replies, typed up back then […]
My Writing Process (or Lack of One!)
I always feel a bit guilty when people ask me about my writing ‘process’. It’s the same when people ask me about Game of Thrones. Confession: I don’t really have one and I’ve never watched a single episode (sorry GOT fans!). Basically, I just sit down somewhere – anywhere – and write. I don’t even […]
Writing and NIA
I had not consciously connected Nia—a holistic movement practice—with my work as a novelist until Women Writers asked me how Nia inspires my writing. Once I really started thinking about it, I realized that I can credit my Nia practice with helping me both develop and take great joy in my writing. First off, what […]
How Working with a Critique Group can Improve your Manuscripts
I wrote my first four novels without any outside input up to the point when I sent the second draft to a small group of pre-readers, made more changes and then on to my editor. Then I moved home from London to the English south coast and started work on novel number five, which became […]
Five Things you Should Never Say to Authors
Since my debut YA novel came out I’ve learned a lot about publishing, marketing, and the importance of writing the next book. Another thing I’ve learned is that as an author there are certain statements and questions I hate getting. In general, I think people mean well or they just aren’t thinking at all, but […]
Should You Write What You Know?
I’ve never written about what I really know. As a journalist, I didn’t know what it was like to be held hostage, or to be homeless, but I wrote about those subjects anyway. I wrote of happier things too – a woman who gave birth to twins after seven rounds of IVF, a weird form […]
Writing the Book You Want to Write – Without Barriers
You have had one of your brilliant ideas for a novel. It is shaking you by the tail and won’t let go. You’re excited, energised. ‘But is it commercial?’ you ask yourself. ‘Is it what agents and editors are looking for at the moment? Can you imagine the marketing? There are plenty of soul-searching questions […]
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