Tag: women writers
Six Top tips on writing characters
I had to cut 49,000 words from the 100,000 word manuscript of my third book, The Silk Shop in Hanoi. Of my two point of view characters, one wasn’t working. I tinkered, I edited, I tore my hair, and yes, I swore, but the character was still wrong and had to go. It was heartbreaking […]
Girls and Trains: How a Title can impact on Sales
When I wrote my second psychological thriller, it was originally called Dead in her Tracks. My agent at the time, decided it would benefit from a better title and we settled on Girl on a Train. Now, to many of you, that might sound familiar – or does it? At least a year after my […]
The Inspiration behind Burnt Paper Sky
It took me many years to get around to writing my novel. Years of dabbling with one idea or another, and never really taking my ambition seriously. Years of letting life get in the way. So by the time I wrote that first sentence, I was in my early forties, I’d lived quite a lot, […]
Truths and Lies about Self-Publishing
Some say self-publishing is the greatest invention since sliced bread. Others say it’s ruining the industry. A lot of people have weighed in on this hugely popular phenomenon. Now, it’s my turn. I’ll address a few commonly held ideas and say if they’re true, or false. Self-published books are low quality. False. However, there is […]
When to Keep Secrets and When to Tell Truths
Good fiction starts with a good story. Good historical fiction adds a well researched and articulated sense of time and place. Good historical fiction based on a well-documented era in one’s own family provides an author the rare opportunity to bring a loved one’s legacy to the future. Writing my recently released novel, Even in […]
How To Write a Nonfiction Proposal
We’ve all been there – you’ve been secretly scribbling away, researching, collecting interesting sources or articles, and googling like mad. Finally, one day you think, “Could I take my secret project and turn it into a real book? Would anyone want to publish it, or even read it?” In my particular case, I had yet […]
Emily Dickinson – Breathing Life into a Legacy
“She was not daily-bread. She was star-dust.” Martha Dickinson Bianchi on Emily Dickinson The Belle of Amherst’s poetry lives on. It’s been almost 130 years since Emily Dickinson’s death, and yet her works are as popular as ever, with over 1,600 scholarly articles published about her poetry in the last 25 years. Yet whilst her […]
Female Friendships in Literature
Men have dominated the friendship scene in books throughout literary history. Pip and Herbert, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Frodo and Sam, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, Romeo and Mercutio. The list goes on and on. Straight forward, no nonsense bromance at its best. Delve into the archives for a history of female friendships however, […]
Top 10 Tips for Aspiring Authors
I don’t proclaim to be a best-selling author or a writing expert. I don’t have a hundred books or ten years of being published under my belt. I have only been published for eighteen months (though in that time I have had three short stories, five novellas and two full length novels released – so […]
Life Is A Boat
I’ve always wanted to be a writer. What stopped me will be familiar to anyone who’s ever been there: kids, relationships, work, life. During my twenties and thirties we’d travelled sporadically as a family, and moving around always seemed to unlock the words. I’d come back from each trip with a notebook full of jottings […]
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