Tag Archives: writing

Sound the trumpets! Throw the confetti! I have hit my deadline! Yes, after months of meandering through rewrites and then a gruelling eight weeks of further editing, I finished this initial draft of The Merchant of Dreams and sent it to my editor – one whole day ahead of schedule! I’m slightly worried I may have set  Continue Reading »

As mentioned in my last post about social media, Twitter is my favourite social network. I tend not to use the main website, as (like Facebook) the interface is full of stuff I don’t want to see, e.g. trending topics, but there are plenty of third-party applications for computers, smartphones and so on. I know that  Continue Reading »

One of the advantages of a long-running blog (or a diary, for that matter) is that you get to look back on previous years’ New Year resolutions and laugh – or cry. Now, this main blog of mine has only been going for about fifteen months, but my writing journal goes way, way back to  Continue Reading »

November winners Congratulations to Michelle and Lyn – I’ll be in touch! December giveaway So, we reach the last pair of books for this 2011 giveaway, and I’ve saved the best until last. How to Write Fantasy and Science Fiction, by Orson Scott Card (hardback) “This award-winning classic on the art and craft of writing  Continue Reading »

Last time I covered setting up your author website, and suggested using one of the popular blogging platforms as an easy way to run it. If you’ve done this, you now have full blogging capabilities at your fingertips – but what do you blog about? Choosing a topic Your knee-jerk reaction might be “Well I’m  Continue Reading »

October winners Congratulations to Mark and Edith, who won copies of “Characters and Viewpoint” by Orson Scott Card and “Jack Cloudie” by Stephen Hunt, respectively. Watch this space for more great books in the run-up to Christmas! November giveaway How to Write a Damn Good Novel II, by James Frey (hardback) “Frey expands on his  Continue Reading »

Way back in 2005/6, I was stuck in novel-abandonment hell: I’d write twenty thousand words or so on a new book, then realise I had no idea where the story was headed and give up. There was always a newer, cooler idea beckoning, and every time, I was convinced this would be The One. Of  Continue Reading »

In the first installment of this series, I talked about the importance of claiming your name online (before someone else does!). Once you have a domain name, you are probably going to want a website for it to point to – even before you have a book out, people such as agents may want to  Continue Reading »

July winners Congratulations to Felicia (Creative Writer’s Workbook) and Felix (Avilion) – I’ll be in touch! August giveaway Stealing Fire from the Gods, by James Bonnet Subtitled “A Dynamic New Take on Storytelling for Writers and Film-makers”, this is basically James Bonnet’s take on the hero’s journey, drawing on a wider range of mythologies and  Continue Reading »

I don’t usually blog about writing because, yanno, I’m trying to avoid creating Yet Another Writer’s Blog. But a number of things have happened this week that got me thinking, and I felt I had to share them. On the personal side, I’m struggling with the plot of The Merchant of Dreams, Book Two in  Continue Reading »