Revised Draft Woes!

The revised draft of Against the Clock is almost complete. There is a beginning, middle and end. The gaping plot holes have been cobbled together. The continuity errors have been sorted (I think!). It will go to my developmental editor at the end of the week. I should be really excited, but instead I feel

500 Consecutive days writing: how many words did I write?

Yesterday was the 500th day in a row that I wrote 200 words or more. It feels like a huge milestone and I’m still reeling from the total word count (I’ll get to that in a minute)! If only I’d discovered the concept of #200wordsaday years ago! But what have I learned over the last

Character Interview with Ellen Ingram (main character in ‘Angel in Disguise’)

And we find ourselves in May already! How did this happen? As usual, life is galloping by, and no, book 2, Against the Clock is still not finished… (Some irony in that I am now very much against the clock myself as I struggle to get the manuscript ready in time to meet my developmental

I wish I was a plotter! (Confessions of a pantser novelist)

Let’s be clear, plotting in advance of picking up your pen – or putting fingertips to keyboard – is the way forward. There are so many advantages, for instance: How do I know all this? From the bitter experience of being a “discovery writer” (a.k.a. “a pantser”). All the advantages of the above are the

How do you choose a book? 5 factors readers consider

Have you ever stopped to think why you choose to read the books you do? Are you a fan of a specific author? A specific genre? A specific format (ebook, audio, paperback, hardback – the physical feel of the book in your hands, the turning of pages, the smell of the paper)? Selecting a book

Lynne Reid Banks: an inspiration

Lynne Reid Banks died last week at the age of 94, after battling cancer. During her long and accomplished life, she wrote over 40 books for both adults and children, and for me, reading them over thirty years ago, they were inspirational in a truly motivating way. Like a lot of teenagers, I took myself

2024 Quarter 1 Review: Wrangling First Drafts and a Progress Report

Incredibly, we are already nearing the end of March (although, if like me you’re in the UK, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s still February – cold, grey, windy and still wet, wet, wet!), so today is not only time for a monthly review, but also a review of the first quarter of 2024

Harnessing Happiness: 3 simple ways to find joy

It’s International Day of Happiness, so today’s post is all about three ways to boost your happiness and wellbeing. Much like reading, the physical act of writing can also encourage a zen-like flow state where you become unaware of the passing hours and are totally immersed in your fictional world. Creating something – a story,

Mums in life and fiction

As we have just celebrated International Women’s Day (Friday 8th) and Mother’s Day (Sunday 10th), I’ve been thinking about my own mum, and mums in fiction. My mum was super. (I suppose the vast majority of us think that about our own mums, but even so, I’m confident that mine was really super.) She was

20 Years of Read an Ebook Week!

Incredibly, Read an Ebook Week has been going for 20 years – yes, 20 years! I really can’t get over that fact. Twenty years ago, I’d never even read an ebook, let alone written one. So, hurrah for Rita Toews, who was ahead of the curve, and who had the foresight to get the ball