Tag: featured
What is Success?
From the beginning, I had exactly one professional goal in life – to be a lawyer. And not just any lawyer – a successful one. I wasn’t sure exactly what success would look like, but I knew this – I’d know it when I saw it. By 2009, I had been a corporate litigator for […]
Creative-Hyphenate?
‘What do you do?’ I used to say ‘I’m an author’. Now I’m not sure. The challenge for many free lancers in the creative arts is to describe their occupation. Usually they have several skills in their portfolio for artistic challenge, variety AND in order to pay the bills. Last week, a 4 year old […]
The Highs and Lows of Life After Publication
It took years to get The Lodger published. I chose the traditional route and it was a long, bumpy journey, strewn with rejection letters from agents and publishers. Tears were shed and manuscripts ripped up. Publication was an unattainable goal, a holy grail, an end in itself. Several times, I was on the point of […]
How to Avoid Writing Burnout
Writing is hard work. We all know that, right? We take an idea, move it along, push it this way, that way, leave it alone, return to it, and sometimes scratch altogether. Once we’ve got something substantial, we tear it all apart and put it back together again. We offer our pages to the world, […]
Writing About Infertility: Breaking Down Social Norms
Infertility affects approximately 1 in 10 couples, and 1 in 4 pregnancies result in miscarriage. Fertility rates decline by around 10% per month for women over the age of thirty-five. Recurrent miscarriage (over three losses in a row) affects 1% of the female population. Nowadays, everywhere I go, it feels as though these infertility statistics […]
How I published Four Books in Two Years
For several years I wrote novels that didn’t get published. I wrote them, sent them to my mother or a friend to read, and then put them away. They weren’t strong enough; that’s what I told myself. And in retrospect, I was probably right about those early books. Two of them are collecting dust in […]
Making Time for Writing
My life is full. I like it like that, mostly. So how do I find time to write? The fact is that the busier I am, the more I am inspired. These days the job that pays the bills is a job-share. I’m “half-time” GP / family doctor in Cambridge. I try hard to squeeze […]
How Newspapers Inspire Fiction Writers
Historical documents can be treasure troves for fiction writers. We’ve all read stories based upon real historic events, or people, and no doubt some authors were inspired by historical manuscripts, either accessed in an archive, online, or in biographies. Letters, diaries, wills, government records – these are rich seams for writers to interrogate and use […]
Romance Writers, You’ve Got to Own it!
“Hi, my name is Densie and I write romance.” I could be a member of Romance Writers Anonymous, if such a thing existed. Okay, so maybe being a writer of novels with strong romantic themes doesn’t exactly carry the stigma of addiction, but it sometimes feels that way, especially when hanging with writers who have […]
To Be or Not to Be Agented, That is the Question
I never asked this question. Instead I asked how quickly I could get myself an agent. Unagented authors aren’t taken seriously, I reasoned. You can’t approach big houses without one and I wanted readers and a big contract. Getting an agent was the only way to achieve this goal. So I sent out queries, alphabetically, […]
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