As most writers know, finding time to sit and write as you have a great idea is unlikely. Keep a pen and notebook with you AT ALL TIMES and you can jot down any particular inspiration or sentence/line that you have thought of. You can then refer back to your notes when you have a [...]
A great writing lecturer once told me that, in order to write your best work and effectively edit and take criticism, you have to be fully prepared to kill your babies.
What he meant (rather than brutal child murder), is that your favourite line in a poem, or paragraph in a story, or chapter in a [...]
If you were a high quality editor, who got sent hundreds of manuscripts a month, or even a week, which ones do you think you’d reject without even reading? None – do I hear you say? Rubbish! Why waste the time of reading event the front page of someone’s work, if they haven’t been bothered [...]
Most full time authors (think J K Rowling, Margaret Atwood, Bernard Cornwell etc) will tell you that they have to treat writing as you might any other occupation: you need to have work time, and home time. Obviously if your writing doesn’t pay the bills (and, given you’re reading this, I presume that means [...]
I get a lot of people writing to me asking if they can contribute to websites or applying for writing jobs. There is often one significant gap on their CV – writing experience.
‘But how do I start out with no experience?’ people ask. My answer is that you don’t have to do writing work in [...]
