Starting the day with writing

During lockdown when we were all looking for outlets to put a chink in the monotony of our days, I heard about London Writers Salon. Which is a bit of a misnomer now, as people take part from all across the globe. But it's true that it started…

When a novel sprouts wings and takes flight

Last June I went to a writing course in Wales. My current novel, at that point, was at its fairly early thinking stages and one afternoon I sat in an old barn enthusiastically telling the tutor (a writer I really admire) my ideas for the book.…
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How to write the future?

This ia a very good question, and one I'm struggling with. For my work in progress, I have four female protagonists spread across four centuries. I'm used to writing historical fiction so I know and enjoy that process of research: going to…
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Publication Triumph in Mslexia Magazine

This may not sound very exciting, to have a short 300-word piece of creative non-fiction published in a magazine. But for me, it is a real triumph. Let me explain. I have been subscribing to Mslexia Magazine for about eighteen years, a fantastic…
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The Stories We Tell Ourselves

I realise that I'm pretty good at telling myself - and other people - carefully crafted stories that have endured over a long period of time; stories that I've never thought to question. In my non-fiction book coming out later this year…
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Write to Travel

In my previous blog, I penned a few thoughts around the curbing of my incessant travel habit. As I was writing it, I considered a poetry competition I entered last year with Trip Fiction (a brilliant online resource pairing books with travel).…
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The Curious World of Waiting

There is a great deal documented about the process of writing a novel: crafting a plot and characterisation and the story arc or the editing process, for example. There has also been much written about the finished product of a book: working…
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Creative Writing Workshops with a Danish Gymnasium

I recently had the opportunity to teach a series of creative writing workshops to students at Herning Gymnasium in Denmark. I feel so fortunate to have been encouraged creatively as a child at primary school (doubtless helping to shape me into…
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Second Prize in Trip Fiction Sense of Place Competition

I was delighted to discover last week that I had come second in a writing competition which 400 people from 35 countries entered. The remit was to write a piece of fiction or non-fiction under 3000 words that had a strong sense of place. I…
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Dipping into Novel #4, The River Days of Rosie Crow

Despite lockdown-kids-at-home-all-day-slow-progress (!), I've been working really hard on my novel, The River Days of Rosie Crow, and I'm over half way through the first draft. I thought it was about time I gave you a small peek into the…