Tag: featured
Writing Comedy
Humour, Comedy, Being Funny, Banter, Mirth, Being tickled Pink: as I’m writing about Comedy, it seems perhaps sensible to start this piece with some attempt to define Humour, particularly as what one person may find rib-ticklingly hilarious can leave another stone-cold dead. In the same way I am convinced one cannot possibly write a novel […]
Psychotherapy and Memoir: The Talking Cure and the Writing Cure
Without wishing to sound freakish or weird, I liken my vocation—writer and psychotherapist—to conjoined twins. Born in my midlife, they developed from the same fertilized egg, gestated in the same amniotic fluid, were nourished by the same placenta. They share the same interests, the same reading lists, and, dare I say, the same soul. […]
Coincidences Or Not?
Coincidences – a dirty word for us novelists, particularly amongst those ‘who know’, i.e. the more experienced writers, and even more so, those who publish books on How to Write and How to Get Published. Accusations of resorting to outlandish coincidences instead of ‘proper’ plotting cause fiction writers’ hearts and souls to cringe. We are […]
Perpetually Baffled Author Seeks Clarity For Long-Term Writing Happiness. GSOH Essential.
‘Are you all right, madam?’ asks the shop assistant, eyeing me with concern. ‘You look a little lost.’ I offer her the practised smile of a woman who is asked this question on a regular basis. ‘I’m fine,’ I confide with a reassuring laugh. ‘I always look like this.’ She laughs too but there is […]
Q&A with Danielle Marshall, Editorial Director of LAKE UNION Publishing, an imprint of Amazon Publishing
Danielle Marshall is the Editorial Director of Amazon Publishing’s Book Club Fiction imprint, Lake Union Publishing. Some of her recent acquisitions include the #1 Kindle best sellers Wreckage and When I’m Gone by Emily Bleeker, Trail Of Broken Wings by Sejal Badani, and Miramont’s Ghost by Elizabeth Hall. Danielle has also acquired the books of several WWWB […]
When Did You Start To Write?
One of the most common questions we writers are asked is ‘when did you start to write?’ and for me this question always raises a smile as the answer takes me back to my childhood when I used to write songs at a very young age and show them to my mother for her approval. […]
From Dream to Reality – My Six-Month Plan to Becoming a Writer
Ten years ago I had just begun an undergraduate degree at Oxford in Mathematics. My days were spent solving differential equations and making linear algebra summary pages. So if you’d said then that in ten years time I would be writing this blog post on publishing my debut novel Puzzle Girl I would probably have […]
2017: THE YEAR TO END MALE BIAS IN THE LITERARY MEDIA … HERE’S HOW
Women buy two thirds of books. Women writers dominate the best seller lists and came out blazing in the 2016 Costa shortlists. So why doesn’t the literary media give us the editorial space we deserve? Two years ago, VIDA conducted a survey of some of the key literary titles in the UK and US. Its […]
Why Writing Blog Posts Makes Me Queasy
Since I’ve become a published author in 2014 I have been pressured by mavens of the publishing universe and author friends to participate in blogging—a seldom-welcome avalanche of words. Maybe my ten years at the computer, writing, have turned me into a recluse, but I have to admit that I rarely appreciate the barrage […]
Why Would a Woman Write a Male Protagonist?
A few weeks ago, I found my carefully honed work/childcare balance compromised when some emergency editing came up and I had to take a (generally preserved for mothering) Friday to do it. A woman I had not met before stepped in as babysitter and at some point asked about my novel. ‘Is it about […]
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