Inspiring the Uninspired
Notebooks, notebooks, notebooks. How many have we filled? And how many have we bought and not used yet?! As writers, notebooks are so important. They're great for jotting down observations and inspirations, for keeping ideas safe until you're ready to grow them, for moving your novel forward. As I writer, I'm obsessed with notebooks and… Continue reading Places All Writers Should Keep a Notebook
For the past couple of weeks I've been focusing on query letters, and they've been the subject of my previous two blog posts. So now we've discussed things to include in a query letter, and things to leave out, I thought I'd share my step by step approach. Please note, as with my synopsis writing… Continue reading Writing a Query Letter – A Step by Step Method
Query letter writing isn't easy. Last week on the blog I spoke about some of the things you should include in a query letter. So today, I thought it'd be neat to write about some of the things you shouldn't include in a query letter. Remember, the letter should be a product of your own, and different… Continue reading Things You Shouldn’t Say In A Query Letter
This week I've been spending a lot of time on query letters. They're an essential part of your pitch to an agent/publisher, because it'll be their first impression on who you are, and what your book is about. I'm by no means an expert on this subject, but I have been doing a lot of… Continue reading Things to Include in a Query Letter
Writing a synopsis is often dreaded by writers. While some love it, others loath the process of condensing down their story into a page (or less). I use a step by step process to write a synopsis, and I still find it difficult. I've been working on my synopsis for novel 2, Vanishing Act, this… Continue reading Things You Need to Know to Write Your Synopsis
Edits. Edits. Edit. Editing a novel is a long process, and it can be all too easy to become disengaged. Maybe a new exciting idea has formed, and you want to work on that, instead of the novel you've read through already 100s of times. But you have to stay loyal to your work in progress. Finishing… Continue reading How to Stay Motivated During Edits
Writer's guilt. We all get it, right? That feeling that we should be writing, or we should be writing more, or it's been too long since we last wrote anything. It's a horrible feeling, that niggles in the back of your mind and sends a flare of anxiety to your gut. One of my favourite, and most relatable, writing quotes ever… Continue reading How to Handle ‘Writer’s Guilt’
Recently, I've been craving particular writing environments. A book shop in Edinburgh, a cute tearoom in a historic village, a bench by the sea... It's so easy to think of these places as the perfect writing environment, and sometimes I even find myself thinking I'll wait to write until I'm there, so that I have… Continue reading The Perfect Writing Environment
A big thank you to Lorraine Ambers for nominating me for the Round Robin game. Check out her blog post where she shares her own WIP, Mischief and Mayhem. The aim of this game is for writers to share some of their Work in Progress, and then encourage others to do the same. So at the… Continue reading Introducing my WIP: Vanishing Act
Social media. It's fair to say that this area of the internet has the good, the bad and the ugly. I'm only here to focus on the good, but within a very specific part of the social media world; the online writing community. So, why do I believe that, like me, unpublished authors should be… Continue reading 10 Reasons Unpublished Writers Need Social Media
