Question of the Month is on writing craft… What is your favorite writing craft book? Think of a book that every time you read it you learn something or you are inspired to write or try the new technique. And
#IWSG August 2020 | Writing Craft
July 2021 #IWSG | Quit writing? Or Reading?
Would I ever quit writing? That’s effectively the question today. What would make me quit writing? I’ve had the odd month or two recently when I’ve not written anything much… not in the way of fictions or non-fiction. I’ve generally
#IWSG June 2021 | In which we talk Drafting
Drafting, and specifically going back to your first draft and redrafting. That’s today’s subject, and I confess I never think of any of them as a ‘draft’! I’m writing and editing, although I might call it a draft until it
Reflections on the #AtoZChallenge2021, Camp NaNoFinMo, #writephoto and #IWSG
Reflections on an extremely busy month of April! I decided to wrap all my thoughts into one blog post and make it my IWSG post, too. Insecure Writers Support Group Each month there is also an optional question as a
Questions to ask your Characters #AtoZChallenge2021
Questions help you find out about your characters; lists of them can be found everywhere on the internet. Try these from NaNoWriMo (Googledoc). I first found out about question sheets in my Creative Writing Course. When I did a workshop
P is for Plot, especially Losing It #AtoZChallenge2021
Losing the plot… something I seemed to be up against over the Easter weekend. And then again the following weekend. And as for last weekend, well I spent a goodly part sorting out important things around the house… As you
F is for Fate #IWSG #AtoZChallenge2021
Fate… how much of my writing is left to it? It was fairly difficult to come up with a topic for today, since it is Insecure Writers Support Group day, where we blog about things pertaining to writing, and support
B is for Background – Getting it right #AtoZChallenge2021
Background in the third of a series is vitally important. Especially when you discover it’s several years since you published book 2. This year’s AtoZChallenge is mainly about my writing, and my Work In Progress, a science fiction adventure called
Thank goodness it’s February #IWSG
Thank goodness January is over. I’m not sure how much of my attitude for the last couple of weeks has been down to the start of the year, Covid, hiding away in my little lockdown space and wondering what the
#IWSG December | 9 years of self-publishing
9 years since I published the Princelings of the East. It seems a very long time ago, now, and I feel like a different person from the embarrassed pseudo-author I was then. But this is my IWSG post for December,
Character Wrangling in the Princelings World
Character wrangling is a term I put together when writing my guest post for Ronel Janse van Vuuren today. I was writing of the discovery I made when I started writing the Princelings series, that characters do what they want,
#IWSG October | In which I’m a co-host!
I’m a co-host today! In all this time (I signed up on 7th January 2015) I’ve never been a co-host before. Being somewhat insecure (of course), I wondered whether you had to do something special to qualify. The answer is
#IWSG September | The Beta-reader question
Beta-reader of your choice… who would it be? That’s (roughly) the question for this month’s IWSG post, an event that has crept up on me, despite thinking about it last month. It’s probably down to two things, well, maybe three.
#IWSG | How this writer stopped blaming her tools and got writing
Hello IWSG-ers. Welcome to August. I know, how did we get here so fast? This month’s IWSG newsletter poses a very long question. The end of it was: Have you ever written a piece that became a form, or even
#writephoto | Darkness – an excerpt from Princelings 10
Darkness is today’s #writephoto prompt from Sue Vincent. The picture is below. I took my inspiration from the word rather than the picture of dark roiling clouds over a rolling meadow. As soon as I saw the prompt I thought
#IWSG | And it’s July 2020. What about July 2030?
July 2020. The IWSG team suggest today that we tell you our predictions for writing and books in ten years time. Yesterday, I read a thing on what it’s like to have to go on a ventilator if you get
It’s another April editing at Camp Nanowrimo project
April this year is dedicated to my Camp NaNoWriMo project for 2020. I’m revising Princelings book 10 ready for the beta readers. Have you read several Princelings of the East books? Would you like to give me feedback promptly on
#IWSG March | How does one write under pressure?
Write under pressure? Yes, it’s IWSG day again, and I’m wilting under the pressures of life. How anyone with a job and young family does it I have no idea! I’m writing this in advance as momentous things might happen
#IWSG | Message to my younger self
A ‘message to my younger self’ was a comment I made in response to Damyanti Biswas on my review of Record of a Spaceborn Few. I thought the idea complemented January’s IWSG question, which was about the tipping point that
IWSG – Welcome to 2020, Insecure Writers
Yes, welcome to 2020, all insecure writers. Thank you to Alex J Cavanaugh and the IWSG team for letting us miss New Year’s Day as our posting date this month! The awesome co-hosts for the January 8 posting of the
#IWSG | The December Question
The December question from the Insecure Writer’s Support Group relates to hopes and the reality. It suggests that insecure writers still in the ‘aspiring’ phase write about where they see themselves in a few years time. For those who have
#IWSG | Have you tried Audiobooks?
Audiobooks. They used to be something you listened to on long journeys if you didn’t want to or couldn’t read. Or maybe while you did boring tasks around the house. According to the stats I’m seeing, they are coming into
#IWSG | Do things creep up on you?
Things creep up on me when I’m busy. When the season changes, the urgency shifts. One minute it’s summer, and I have ages to prepare to launch my book in November, the next minute it’s September, it’s autumn, and there’s
Why I’m not writing about a Red Wheelbarrow
‘Red Wheelbarrow’ is the WEP/IWSG prompt for August. As you know I’ve been turning out some ‘interesting’ stories in response to these prompts. I’ve enjoyed them. I’ve also enjoyed and welcomed the comments on my stories. Caged Bird | Flash
#IWSG – Welcome to July, no, August, insecure writers!
Welcome to July. No. I was all set to write my July IWSG post but I couldn’t access my website. Then things got worse. If you’re interested you can read more here. Welcome to August. A thousand things I thought