Category: Writing Tips

Taking Inpsiration from famous writers 0

Taking Inspiration from Famous Writers

Earlier this week I read a fascinating article about Ian Fleming’s wartime mistress Maud Russell, a fashionable society hostess, who was seventeen years his senior.  The bulk of the article is made up of excerpts from her personal diary, which was written during WW II; and one of the things that struck a chord with me is how often she mentions that Fleming is tired.  At the time Fleming worked for the Admiralty in the Intelligence Corp, was involved in a multitude of meetings with top-rank officials and undoubtedly feeling the pressures of war. Russell writes of Fleming, ‘He is...

write what you know 0

Write what you know – make the rest up

There’s a long-standing premise that as writers we’re supposed to write about subjects we have a fair amount of interest in or knowledge of. This doesn’t mean that we have to write stories about ‘the day job,’ because, trust me, a blow by blow account of what I do for a living would make for a pretty dull read. What it does mean is that we use the knowledge acquired through our day job or hobbies to enrich our writing. Researching an unfamiliar subject is much easier now that we have the internet. The trouble is that when we actively...

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Short Story Success

As a writer it’s easy to get into the doldrums and believe that your work simply isn’t good enough to stand out amongst the crowd. If you have a book out there it’s uplifting to receive a five star review because it affirms that what you’ve written is readable and enjoyable. Your work gave someone pleasure, so much so that they took the time to reward you. When your readers are busy reading and not feeling like pressing the ‘rate this book’ button, then you need to explore other roads for encouragement. This is why I tried my hand at...

How a negative ritique can provide useful feedback 2

How a negative critique can provide useful feedback

After last week’s rant about negative and unhelpful feedback on creative writing, I thought I’d show you how to mine for diamonds in amongst the dross. In my critique group we read our work to each other, and this is the format that many creating writing groups choose because it’s interactive and offers an opportunity for constructive discussion. Group Dynamics: the Soul of Critique Every writer is respected no matter what their level of expertise Every project has worth. Every reader’s opinion is valid. Critique techniques will: Help the author distinguish what was conveyed versus what was meant Find strengths...

Legendary Writing blog post Part 1 0

Author Interview with Legendary Writing Part 1

I was so excited when LegendaryWriting of Instagram invited me for an author interview. I’ve been following their posts for a while and they have a fabulous writing community, offering loads of inspiration for writers and generating true conversations. When my interview questions arrived they hadn’t simply churned out the same old stuff, such as ‘when did you start to write?’. They took a genuine interest in my writing and geared their questions towards me, which is pretty awesome – and refreshing. Here are the questions they posed: What do you think is the biggest mistake writers make when writing...