Writing insights
Find what you love the least by Claire Moss, author of our forthcoming Northern Soul Revival (2010)
Everybody who writes knows the worst thing you can say to a writer – yes, even worse than ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’. It’s ‘I’d love to write, if only I had the time.’ Yes, if only their life were as leisurely and pressure-free as yours.
A more welcome response I often get when [...]
Interview with a vampire: S Roit interviews her character Michel Lecureaux
For those who’ve not met him, I would like to present one Michel Lecureaux, who, in-between doing serious vampire business (he has to rule a country of vampires, after all), eviscerating those who deserve it (which all depends on his point of view), and seducing whomever takes his fancy (all the while never actually cheating [...]
Bloodletting: by hand
Mike McBride writes all his novels by hand. Wow. You can see the first three pages of his most recent forthcoming novel, Bloodletting, here.
To blog or not to blog: how blogging can feed your creativity by Fiona Robyn
I’m a writer, and I love blogging. Just in case you’ve been in Outer Mongolia for the past five years, blog is short for web log. A web log is an online journal where information or the author’s opinions are instantly published to the web, where they can be read by anyone worldwide. I’ve been [...]
The Magic of Morning Pages by Fiona Robyn
I’ve carried out a certain ritual every single morning for the past few years. It takes half an hour, and brings me clarity, insights, relaxation, stability, and helps me to stay in touch with the source of my creativity. It works almost like magic.
This ritual is my Morning Pages. Three pages of flow-of-consciousness writing with [...]
On the joys of self promotion by Fiona Robyn
I used to hate the idea of marketing my novels. I wanted to do the writing, and then hand the books over to someone else to flog them – an agent, my publisher, the bookshops. I hate the idea of blowing my own trumpet. I hate the idea of nagging people to buy something they [...]
How to survive rejection and be your own biggest fan by Fiona Robyn
My experience of being a writer is of walking a constant tight-rope between processing negative feedback and rejection, and feeling good enough about my work to not give up completely. There have been extreme highs and extreme lows over the years, and I’m not expecting things to get any easier as time goes on – [...]
On writing schedules, by Thomas Emson
WRITE WEEKLY, NOT DAILY
by Thomas Emson
SETTING a daily writing target can be disastrous. You’re asking for trouble. You enthusiastically commit to producing 500 words every day, confident that you’ll have a 100,000-word novel in 200 days. I’ll start on Monday, you tell yourself, and then get to my desk first thing every morning after that [...]
Author Insight: Thomas Emson
Thomas Emson writes horror. He is the author of Maneater, Skarlet and a host of other books contracted to Snowbooks due to be published over the next four years. He’s a joy to work with, and is good enough to share his working practices with us here. Here are his words on writing Skarlet:
THE “SKARLET” ROUTINE.
“THE [...]
