Check listers – the life-saving nerds A check list. Not the most flamboyantly creative solution to a writer’s journey, but a pretty useful base camp. Masters of a craft of course have an auto-checklist – just as any experienced traveller… Continue Reading →
I’ve been taking the scenic route again. One thing I’ve found more helpful than it ought to be is to accept that ‘scenes’ can be meaningful in the novel as well as the play and screenplay – whatever ‘scene’ is… Continue Reading →
The kindest rejection letter I ever got was from a literary agent in the US. He gave me a few pretty solid reasons why he thought the MS wasn’t going to suit his lists and why he had doubts on its saleability…. Continue Reading →
So what’s a blog? A question to answer as we go along, maybe. Is it tone, is it format, is it regularity?…hmm. This one might be a blog or not, but, whatever it is, has its beginnings in a hodgepodge… Continue Reading →
Surprisingly, given the common sense of most business practice, universities are often less than excellent in communicating their greatest asset. What most people want from university is to engage with staff, staff who will help make an experience for us,… Continue Reading →
A couple of sobering thoughts this week along with home truths and lessons from the mouths of pre-teen upstarts. So, why wasn’t my son able to finish that manuscript I was testing on him… Story not quite exciting enough? Characters… Continue Reading →
If you’re reading up on how to write, you’ll have been sieged, bombarded, pelted and shelled all in the name of conflict. It comes up in every “how to do” and you’ll be told and told to the point of haemorrhage itself… Continue Reading →
Improvement. Like many would-be writers, I’ve been through a few periods where advice, information, tuition, critique were all doing their job well and I really felt that I was improving. Thrilling times. There’s no better feeling than a sense of… Continue Reading →
5th April is Swinburne day – if you think you may have read some once and liked it, today’s the day to go and look him up again. New to Swinburne or wondering what he might offer? Today you can… Continue Reading →
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