A ghost of Christmas past. This is the second year I’ve entered the Gold Channel cracker joke competition. The fact that I’m mentioning it at all should alert you to the prospect of a happy or unhappy ending. In this case, both! The brief was for something topical and festive, perhaps with a twist on …
The hidden ingredient in every piece of writing. Ask most writers, whether they are starting out, seasoned, or overcooked, and they all tell you the same thing – they write because it’s a compulsion. It’s the nagging internal voice when you read someone else’s below par writing that whispers, “You could do better than this.” …
You write…WHAT? There is a school of thought that business blogs equate to online marketing, and that all information should be carefully managed to ‘champion the brand’. If your eyes are rolling at this point you’re not alone. I’m all for promoting one’s business – this blog has worked well for me on that score over the …
Recently, The Guardian carried a piece about author Joanna Trollope’s criticism of fellow author JK Rowling. Specifically, JT thinks JKR spends far too much time being far too vocal on social media. You can read about it here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/05/jk-rowling-driven-by-ego-like-kim-kardashian-joanna-trollope The part that really piqued my interest was JT’s suggestion that aspiring authors will look at JKR’s interactions …
“Writing does not protect us from tragedy, but it does give us a way of working through problems and perhaps expressing them differently in fiction.”It’s a truism that writers draw upon personal experience – and that of others – when they create fiction. This is not only part of the writer’s desire to bring authenticity …
Show me a writer who hasn’t declared, some time around the 1st of January, “This will be my year,” and I’ll show you a writer who has given up the struggle. We are bombarded with ways to write faster, to pluck more ideas from the ether, and to formulate the words and ideas into prize …
Sometimes we have to draw a line in the sand – with a pen. When people learn – because I’m not exactly shy about it now – that I’m a writer the conversation usually goes one of two ways. 1. They ask, directly or obliquely, how much money I make from books and freelancing.2. They look …
Are You Guilty of the Seven Deadly Sins of Novel Writing? When I was a teen I went through a philosophical phase. One gem that has stayed with me ever since, associated with bushido and the code of the samurai is: Virtues are no less contagious than vices. Well, I enjoy a virtue as much as …
Everybody loves a sequel, right? Terminator 2, Airplane 2, Dogma 2 (just in case Kevin Smith is out there reading this…). Back in 2015 I wrote a blog post that generated a bit of a debate with fellow writers – but no comments! – and it’s time for a follow-up.Since June 2015 two books has …
It’s long been said – and repeated on social media ad infinitum – that every book written in the English language is just a combination of the same 26 letters. However, the divide between non-fiction and fiction has always seemed a robust one. Journalists and other professionals have been known to cross the border successfully, …
