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on Writers Helping Writers: How can you make your author blog more successful? Whether you’re just starting a new blog or you have one you’ve been working on for a while, the following steps will help you increase your readership. Continue reading HERE 6 Ways to Make Your Author Blog More Successful – by Colleen M Story…

Sometimes You Need to Make Friends With The Delete Button In many ways realising that sometimes you need to delete your work is one of the most valuable lessons that a writer can learn. And when I say delete your work, I’m not talking about getting rid of the odd word or sentence, although obviously sometimes that has to happen too. I’m talking about deleting whole pages, chapters, even sections…

Writing Episodically This bit of advice came from a tutor and published writer on the Creative Writing MA that I did at Lancaster University called George Green who, besides his novels, has written a book called Writing a Novel and Getting Published for Dummies. George Green suggested that it can be a good idea to write your story as a series of events or episodes that you will then decide how…

Observe Yourself First The first practical exercise that Dorothea Brande sets in her excellent book, Becoming A Writer, is about observing yourself. She writes, You are near a door. … get up and go through that door. From the moment you stand on the threshold turn yourself into your own object of attention. What do you look like, standing there? How do you walk? What if you knew nothing about…

The First Draft Should Be a Sprint Not a Stroll I am well aware that this is somewhat ironic coming from a woman who took six years to write the first half of my novel. I do have some reasons as well as excuses for the amount of time it’s taken me to get here – the second half of my first draft. Firstly, as I’ve mentioned there has been an ongoing and terrible family situation that took a huge…

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The Value of the Ideal Reader Day off, hurrah! Needed in the midst of my rising anxiety, although a long weekend spent mostly pottering at home has helped. I’ve done my 30 minutes writing – just over actually as I wanted to get to over a thousand words. Yesterday after a very slow journey home from work due to flash flooding, I realised after I’d had dinner that I hadn’t done my fifteen minutes…

When Anxiety Rears Its Head Anxiety is flaring up at the moment. I’m getting the palpitations, mini panic attacks and a sense of feeling pinned down by everything. I sent an email to the head and my line manager about the fact I’m struggling. I know why, as I explained to the people at work, I’ve got a lot on at the moment. It’s all getting a little overwhelming. I’m a Special Guardian – a…

Get Away From Your Desk When You’re Stuck I’m wondering whether this should be called: What Stephen King Has Taught Me rather than Other Writers as his advise does seem to feature rather regularly. The fact is, I’m re-reading his book and there’s lots of great advice. I wrote about the scary blank screen before. Just sitting and writing and establishing a routine can be so helpful. However,…

Set Writing Targets and Stick to Them Since my last blog, the Easter holidays ended and I’ve been back to work. That’s been a real test of my vow to write for 30 minutes every day. And I need to state up front that I haven’t kept that vow. However, what I did do was to set a more doable target: On work days try to write for 15 minutes a day on my novel at least and then give a few more minutes…

It’s good to be back in the swing of writing again. I’m still a bit daunted by the fact that I’m now having to get on with the writing rather than working on redrafting what I’ve already done. Redrafting is much more fun, and so much easier as far as I’m concerned. Plus, as I hadn’t worked on it for so long – about three years I reckon – there were whole parts of the narrative that I’d forgotten…

Day off yesterday for my daughter’s birthday. I don’t really want to say how old she is: she’s thirty! In-spite of the fact that makes me feel like I’m nearing my use by date, we had a lovely day,and she was thoroughly spoilt, but now it’s back to the writing. New Action Needed I did about thirty-five minutes today as I forgot to set my timer, got writing, remembered and then decided to up it…

It’s been one of those days where you don’t think you have very much to do, and yet you don’t manage to get through it all until after three in the afternoon. And I got up early. And I couldn’t even exercise as my buggery bicep has started hurting even more – just as I thought it was getting better. Very annoying! And this is me in the Easter holidays. How it’s going to be when I get back to…

I saved a lot of sections from this book, which is a good sign! Definitely grab yourself a copy if you can. Here are the writing truths that I found most useful when it comes from writing scenes. Writing scenes: 8 key questions from Windy Lynn Harris I like this advice and I think it’s not only relevant for short stories; it’s got to be good for each individual of a novel too. One for me when…

11th April 2023 Writing to Time or to Word Count I’ve just done my twenty-five minutes for today. I wrote four hundred words in that time, but I was also going back to check certain things in a couple of previous chapters. I used to make myself write a thousand words a day, but I find that’s too much at the moment; I end up keeping my eye on the word count and not on what I’m writing. The…

6th April 2023 Fifty-eight today. It doesn’t feel too bad. Of course Sixty is looming which just feels ridiculous. I keep Googling writers who didn’t start writing until later in life, but I really am starting to push it a bit now. I did a Caroline Girvan lower body, bodyweight only, Bulgarian Lunges workout today. Hate bloody Bulgarian Lunges, love CG, and I need to keep some level of fitness…

So, it’s been near enough four months since my last post, and while I’m still finding reasons to be cheerful, I’m not beating Covid-19 with optimism. It seems none of us are – certainly not the us in the UK.

This isn’t going to be a rant about how rubbish our government are. Well it might be a little bit. The main part of this post is a copy of an email that I’ve sent to my (Conservative) MP; the…