Tag: women writers
Get A Real Job!
Imagine asking a best-selling author for advice on your writing career and being told to get a real job first? Well, that’s essentially what happened on Twitter last week when Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series, started a bit of a controversy with this tweet: ‘English Major = Want Fries With That? Pick something […]
Five Things I Did Wrong In My (First) Novel
Like many writers, my debut novel, Everything But The Truth,is not really my debut. I always feel like a fraud admitting that, but I am sure I’m not alone. The truth is, however latent your talent, however strong your drive, writing is a skill, and knowing how to write a book needs to be learnt, […]
Writing The Dreaded Synopsis
Some authors say that writing a whole novel is easier than writing a synopsis. I’m not sure I’d go that far, but I agree it sure as hell ain’t easy! Why is it so hard? There are a number of factors, I think. First, it seems so unfair that, having spent months or even years […]
My Writing Process: From Idea to Published Book
By the end of this year, I’ll have ten books on the shelves, in two genres and two separate series. Yet, every single one of them started with some kernel that excited me – a “What if” that spiraled into 60-100,000 words. For the latest book in my Profiler series, the kernel came from several […]
From Publisher To Writer
It was a long held dream of mine to write a novel. In fact I attempted it several times before finally realising my dream. The problem was I never truly believed my writing was of any merit thus resulting in many unfinished manuscripts, which were unceremoniously consigned to a drawer that was rarely opened. […]
The Challenges of Writing Women’s History
When I began work on Heroines of Mercy Street I assumed that there were already lots of books on the subject and I feared that there wouldn’t be anything new for me to say. After all, everyone knew what Civil War nurses looked like, right? In fact, I was wrong on both counts. Nurses on […]
Writing Team Spirit
Writing a book is a wonderful, yet often lonely business, especially when writing a book about togetherness and the power of camaraderie, like The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir. After spending days laboring in front of a laptop in an empty room, I can quickly become fraught with plot-related anxieties, character qualms, voice worries, and that omnipresent […]
If Not Now, Then When? If Not You, Then Who?
Let’s face it. No matter which stage of life we’re at, there never seems a good time to do that one thing that we know we want to do: the right time to have children, change jobs, go back to school, or…write that novel we’ve been wanting to write for the last twenty-three years. Why […]
From Blogging To Memoir
During the last six or seven years I owned and ran my bed and breakfast, I began writing again on a regular basis, sometimes 4-5 hours a day. It all started when I visited my youngest daughter and her husband one Christmas. He was in marketing and was constructing a new blog for his business. […]
Why Book Clubs are the New Book Tour
When I announced the release date of my debut novel, The House of Bradbury, the first question people asked was, “When’s the big book tour?” After rattling off a couple of venues in the works, I was greeted with wide eyes and enthusiastic nods. I could tell my reality was suddenly being compared to every […]
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