Writing and reviews with an environmental, science fiction, and fantasy touch
This month’s IWSG asks about passages you’ve decided to include, or not, in your books. One passage sprang to mind immediately. More of that later. To Include or not? Have you ever been conflicted about writing a story or adding
Surprise! It’s the first Wednesday of the month and time for the Insecure Writers’ Support Group. I’d already started thinking about the suggested question for the month when I got a horrible surprise. I’m going to try to work out
Pet peeves; something I don’t really have, save for badly edited books and wrong homophones. But this is the first Wednesday of the month, and it’s Insecure Writers Support Group, so I’ll go with the flow. I’d like to thank
It’s the Insecure Writers’ Support Group today, asking about a valuable lesson you’ve learnt. I’m at Camp Nano, so this is just a quickie to show willing. My most valuable lesson The most valuable lesson I’ve learnt while writing comes
subtitled: How to edit yourself into print One of the most helpful books I’ve read. Distils each of the main issues into easily assimilated chapters, with good ‘before and after’ examples, checklists, and exercises. I suspect some editors could do
This quote crossed my path, thanks to The Story Reading Ape and the Blonde Writer… and the originator, Angeline Trevena. “Your first draft is a petulant teenager, sure it knows best, adamant that its mother is wrong. Your third draft
I think writing a book is the easy bit. Then comes editing. And re-editing after your editor has been through your carefully edited version. And then you have getting it ready for publication, which turns out more complicated than you think, after
Not only is it time for the Insecure Writers Support Group again, it’s time for me to sink into that depression known as September Blues. It creeps on through August: my book needs editing…, my book needs a rewrite… , my
Hi all Things are going well, but I must be the only writer in the world who edits a book and ends up with thousands more words. Most people say they tighten it up and remove at least 10%, often more.
Hi all I’ve finished my first read-through of The Perihelix and really enjoyed it. There weren’t as many problems as I thought, but I do feel it needs a punchier opening. I want to pay more attention to description, too,
Have you noticed it’s the end of September already? In theory, I should now be sitting with a completed and published book of my dad’s memoirs and have set up the new paperbacks for the Princelings series. Those were the
One of the things I decided to do this year was an occasional post on things I’ve learned about being an author-publisher since I first started to send my stuff to agents in 2010. Once I decided to take the
Ok, so I’ve left Camp NaNoWriMo for another year. It’s a really good challenge to keep me focused on writing every day. What it stops me doing, really, is reading long books (I can read something that takes me one
I’ve been wondering whether I got it right when I re-wrote the start of the Princelings of the East to draw you into the action more quickly. Maybe the more descriptive start would settle you into the world of the
I know it’s only five days since The Princelings and the Pirates was published on Amazon KDP Select, but I have already started editing the third book, The Princelings and the Lost City. I am aiming to publish it on