#writewyldly

My debut novella is available to download from the Kindle store for free today! If a morally grey serial killer with a cause sounds like your thing, then why not give it a chance ☺️

My first published short story - Vat of Acid - will be available to download for free until Friday 15th September to celebrate the new cover being finished 🥰

I really wasn’t happy with the original cover and always wanted to replace it, but I initially thought I’d need to save up and get someone else to make it for me.

Then I remembered that I did, in fact, study graphic design at university, and was perfectly capable of making it myself. A few tutorials on YouTube to help find the best places to get assets and make sure I fully understood the licensing rights, and I soon had the new cover ready to go!

I’m much happier with how it looks now; it reflects the contents of the book and catches your eye much better than the original one did.

It’s only available on Kindle right now - I’m working on making it available everywhere else by the end of the year - but you can use their free app on your phone or tablet; no actual Kindle required ☺️

So, if you’re looking for a Gender-Neutral, Serial Killer MC, Second-Person POV story with LGBTQ+ characters and plenty of suspense, make sure to give it a download while it’s free!

Save your work. Yes, I know, I can practically hear you rolling your eyes at me, but we can all forget to do it, no matter how long we've been writing. Even if the software you use autosaves, get into the habit of manually saving before closing a document. It will save your sanity one day, I promise.

Following on from point number one: regularly back up your work. Especially if you write on multiple devices. I lost 2 hours of writing once because, even though I'd saved my document, I was using Scrivener and switched from writing on my laptop to writing on my iPad. When I went to sync the work up, it reverted to the original file, and it's safe to say I nearly cried.

Don't worry too much about titles at the beginning. There have genuinely been times when I've sat for over an hour trying to work out what the heck to call a short story or fic, and not writing a single word during that time. By the time I finally came up with something, I was feeling annoyed, out of sorts, and didn't want to write anymore. If you need to use a placeholder title just so you can open the document and start writing, do it. You can always change it later. I've got a short story called "burningmonsternightmarefic" - I know exactly which story it is, and calling it that meant I could get on with actually writing the story. And no, I still have absolutely no idea what I'm going to call it once it's done!

Every story you write - even that 500-word drabble - will help you improve as a writer. Your sentences will get better. You'll find it easier to show, not tell. Your self-confidence will improve. You won't like everything you write - no writer does - and some of those stories will never see another pair of eyes on them. But each one you write will help you grow just that little bit more.

Do you hate everything you've written and are struggling to string three words together? Take a break. I know that's not what you'll want to hear, but trust me, it will help. Not only a break, but go do something completely different. Have a mad spring clean, go for a walk, blast out some music. Whatever it is that calms you down and helps you relax. There have been plenty of times when I've been struggling to write, gone away to make myself a cup of tea or put some washing in, only to get a burst of inspiration while measuring out the washing liquid.

So I've been tagged by @hallwriteblr in this post here, and I thought what the heck, why not!

Rules: Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, & then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! Tag as many people as you have WIPS. (optional)

This is going to be fun, as I'm notoriously bad at naming things 😅

Work-in-Progress Names...

Burn!Monster

Dark School (Despite the name, this isn't set in a school, it's just a very dark short story that I wrote back for my GCSE's, and want to redo and publish it. And when I say dark, I mean No Happy Ending dark...15 year old me was going through some shit...)

ShelterFic

Unnamed Villain Saves Hero (...yes, I know...)

Tales From The Muses

Tales From The Nile

Tales From The Norsemen

The Little Crab Who Walked Forwards (Kids' book, don't actually know if I'll ever finish this - I've not even opened it since January...)

A Court of Daggers

Assassin

Battleblade

Faebound

Hell

PostApocalipticRadioMM (I wasn't kidding about how bad the names are!)

Queen of Death and Chaos

The Emerald Court

Tricksters Blessing

Tricksters Curse (Book 2 to Tricksters Blessing)

I really do have far too many projects on the go right now! No wonder my little neurospicy brain gets overwhelmed every time I open Scrivener 😂

An old comfortable chair, cold without the body heat,

Of a woman, no longer sat knitting,

With a cup of tea close by,

Listening to the giggles of children floating through an open door.

The collar of a well-loved pet,

Taken too soon,

The earth covering them in turn covered with tears,

Shed by their owner left behind alone.

A lover, long abandoned,

Ears ringing with the final words,

‘I don’t want you anymore’,

But still loving them just the same.

The wind blowing gently through broken windows,

Catching on a creaking door,

Left empty by owners now dust,