‘Never trust people who don’t have something in their lives that they love beyond reason.’ – Fredrik Backman Write for the love of it. Write because you have a story to tell. Because you have stories to tell. Write because you need to figure out the stories inside of you. Write to be known, toContinue reading “Love”
Category Archives: Writing
Edit
How I edit my stories I love hearing about different writers’ processes. I’ve already chatted a bit about how I write a first draft, but this time I want to talk about how I edit my books from unholy first drafts to readable, polished stories. This is just how I do it, so please don’tContinue reading “Edit”
Yes
What happens after? Hearing yes from an agent was the dream. It was quickly followed by lots of other dreams (sign with a publisher, get optioned for TV, write books forever in a cabin by a lake) BUT the agent one was important. Agents are the gatekeepers, the stepping stone to a thousand other dreams.Continue reading “Yes”
Options
Some more detail about my editing services I genuinely love working with other writers to help them make their writing stronger. I have worked with writers who have penned several books or just one, those who are agented and those who are dreaming of being on shelves, those who have polished their manuscript for yearsContinue reading “Options”
Tough
Get tough… or don’t I can be downright mean to myself when I don’t meet my writing goals. I don’t sit down when I’d planned to and I tell myself I’m wasting precious time. I don’t manage to edit as many chapters as I wanted to and I feel like I’m desperately behind. The wordsContinue reading “Tough”
Sustain
Thoughts about writing during this strange time I keep going through periods of wildly fluctuating productivity with my writing. Or maybe that’s not strictly true. My output might stay the same, but a chapter can take me half an hour to edit or a whole morning. And writing feels easy, the ideas flow, or itContinue reading “Sustain”
Start
Why I began writing – the origin story I always wanted to be a writer. Books were my refuge when I was small. Authors like Jacqueline Wilson, Roald Dahl, and Jill Murphy were my heroes. My writing tastes diversified as I grew, diving into Malorie Blackman, Louise Rennison, and Jane Austen. I read widely andContinue reading “Start”
Habit
How do we make writing a habit? A lot of you will have experienced that wave of creativity when you first start writing. Suddenly, something clicks and you’re away. It may last for only an hour, or a few days. Mine lasted for the whole of the first draft of my first book. I wasContinue reading “Habit”
Failure
How you feel about failure will affect your writing Nobody likes failure. No one is pleased when something they’d dreamt about doesn’t go how they’d planned. We don’t like it on a small scale (that poem that just will not come together in the way we want), and we especially don’t like it on largerContinue reading “Failure”
Comparison
Don’t let comparison titles steal your joy There is a lot of talk about using comparison titles in query letters to agents and it can feel like a minefield. How do you find the right things to compare your book to and why go to all that effort? The main reason – they are aContinue reading “Comparison”
