My journey through writing and publishing, including reflections on the craft and my humble advice to other writers.
In 2015 I attended the London Book Fair for the first time (If you’ve never been, go, you’ll learn a hell of a lot about how the book trade works). There I listened to a talk by author C J Lyons that completely changed my perspective. She said: Don’t think | Read more…
One of the most crucial parts of editing is identifying your own habits so you can address them. Repetition, crutch words, over use of adverbs, passive voice etc. This is something I usually address in a final pass — a final polish — after having addressed everything to do with character, | Read more…
About two years ago now I started listening to a podcast called Writing Excuses. I’ve been listening more and more regularly. It chimes with me; I can always find ways to relate their advice and reflections to my own work. Recently I’ve become a supporter through Patreon. In particular I | Read more…
A little bit of potted “wisdom” based on my own experience of receiving edits and critiques When confronted with edits, you invariably won’t like what the editor has suggested. They may have changed the meaning, or the tone of a sentence in a way you don’t like. But, don’t get | Read more…
What is your author voice? How do you develop it and bring it to the fore? It’s a tricky question and one many authors struggle with. I myself struggle to reconcile what I know to be good writing practice with injecting distinction and personality into my writing. I went to a | Read more…
The classic advice to writers is to write what we know, or the more accurate alternative: “Write what you know, or can research.” There’s an inference in the quote above, that information you research is inherently different from information you know. Which, I suppose, may be true, depending on your definition of knowing. | Read more…
I’ve been having a think about what makes a good piece of flash fiction, and while I don’t think I can say it any better than David Gaffney does in this article – Stories in your pocket: how to write flash fiction (which came out just before the very first National | Read more…
Tomorrow I start the mammoth task of turning my 70,000 word manuscript into a finished novel. I may not finish in the month of April, but I plan to put a shed load of work in. 60hrs or more. I had a little personal celebration moment today and indulged my | Read more…
My main goal for Camp NaNoWriMo is to spend at least 50 hours editing my novel, Mime. I currently have an incomplete rough draft of 70,000 words. Now I say edit, but a more accurate term might be revise, more accurate still might be re-write but let’s stick with revise. | Read more…
There’s less than 1 week until writing starts at Camp NaNoWriMo! My challenge during April 50 hours of editing time on my novel, Mime 10k words of new material in the form of short stories, to include… 30 pieces of micro fiction That’s a whole lot of work but I | Read more…