Blog posts from all categories back to 2012. For earlier posts, go to the “dusty archive“.
It’s been said it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert. If you spent an average of two hours a day for six days a week, it would take you 16 years. I don’t know how accurate that claim is, but I do know many people balk at the | Read more…
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…
For the last two or three years I have been in a kind of progress limbo. Various time and financial commitments have forced me to side line my own personal projects more than I would have liked. 2017 marked a turning point for me. A year of extracting myself from | Read more…
Earlier this year, having been unscrupulously recruited into producing a story for their second anthology “The Dark Half of the Year”, I moved from the tentative fringe to being a fully fledged member of North Bristol Writers. It’s a very dynamic and proactive group; rather than simply focusing on writing | Read more…
A little rant about why I hate going to the hairdresser Four months after my last trip to a hairdresser, I still find myself replaying the memory whenever I wash my hair. It evokes an uncomfortable combination of embarrassment and anger. I regard going to the hairdresser in much the | Read more…
Arrival is sci-fi tale told with an air of intense realism. Alien objects appear around the world and humans are “invited” to check them out and try to figure out what’s going on. The aliens make no hostile moves, but tensions and miscommunication between the nations of Earth escalate nonetheless. | 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…