Category: How To and Tips
The Second Bell and A Language of My Own
by Gabriela Houston I write in a language that is not my own. It gets more dramatic than that. I think and dream in a language I have no birthright claim on. I’m Polish, but I write in English, which would often surprise people when I told them of my jobs as an editor, or […]
Magic In Writing
So you want to write fantasy. You have your compelling and relatable main character, your wicked villain and a world full of magic that can do, well, everything. And then it hits you: if magic can solve any problem… why are there still problems? Don’t worry, this is an extremely common first-draft woe—and one that […]
Write to Heal, Heal to Write
Write to heal, heal to write They tell you to write what you know. It’s a cliché but that’s what I’m doing – no matter how raw it is. The protagonist in my medical murder mystery series is a doctor (so am I). She also lives with bipolar disorder… It took a bit of guts […]
How Do You Know? On Dubious Faith And Intermittent Certainty In Writing
We eat with our eyes, the saying goes, but our eyes are unreliable gauges of appetite and we often order more than we want. We believe in science, we say, but I read somewhere recently that it is impossible to ‘believe’ in science, which is itself fact and thus requires no articles of faith. Actually. […]
Enter Writing Contests and Succeed
You polish your writing, imagining your audience. You read it over. Out loud. Does it say exactly what you want it to say? You have a friend read it to you. Impressed, she says, “You should submit this to contests. Put yourself out there. Get some recognition for your work.” Maybe you leap at the […]
My Writing Life: Sunday Taylor
When the idea came to me for my novel, I remember racing to my computer and writing in a sort of frenzy. I wrote a few pages in this exhilarating state of mind, then closed my computer and went on with what I had been doing, probably cooking dinner. Reading what I had written the […]
How Arnold Schwarzenegger Helped Me Become A Bestselling Author
When I say that Total Recall – the *chef’s kiss* perfectly named memoir of Arnold Schwarzenegger – changed my life, people think I’m being ironic. I’m not. I’m being deadly serious. I’m pretty sure Total Recall was the first book I ever pre-ordered. Back in 2012, it was a whopping £9.99 on Kindle and there […]
The Process Of Writing Sweet Water
Thanks for having me! Today I’m discussing the process of writing Sweet Water, my domestic thriller released January 1st from Thomas & Mercer. The idea for Sweet Water started as a short story that I published in the Mindful Writers, Into the Woods anthology (2018), a compilation of short stories, poems and essays. The short […]
Writing Taint: A Novel, a necessary fiction
My book, Taint: A Novel, was published by Atmosphere Press in December, 2021. My first handwritten drafts were produced for a novel writing class with Ben Brooks at Emerson College in Boston. In the year 2006. You do the calculus. A wedding, a move from Indiana to Boston, a few houses, a move to Budapest, […]
The Adventure Continues
The adventure continues…novels, flash fiction, no agent no cry, to belong, or longing just to crosspollinate, to write, write, write… Eleven years ago this site was kind enough to publish my contribution How My Day Job Saved My Writing Life. I was just leaving one day job and starting another. Several links in that article […]
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