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Where do I write?
Every time we sit down to write, our objective is to let those good old creative juices flow and the perceived wisdom seems to be that the more comfortable we are in our space, the more likely this is to happen. For many years, after the word-processor became accessible, my writing place of choice was…
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Today’s tips
I don’t consider myself skilled enough yet to give the impression I actually know what I’m talking about with this writing lark. Ten years ago I had the enjoyable experience of having a new house built and working with an architect to design our dream home. Even before we moved in we saw things we’d…
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Can writer’s block be selective?
“It’s no good”, “Stop, you fool”, “Who told you that you were a writer?” they shout. Unfortunately I’ve started listening.
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Going off on one …
There’s always a tension in writing between enjoying the process and hitting a deadline, even if that deadline is self-imposed. I’ve written before in this blog that I’m a planner; I like to have the skeleton of the story and an outline of characters in place before I put metaphorical pen to paper. In my…
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Is it ever good enough?
Most days I try to write, with ‘try’ being the operative word. Some days the words just won’t come, and if they do they stumble across the page, tired and listless. On other days I might be happy with what I’ve produced and feel motivated to do more the next day, which is good. Then…
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So November is gone – Is NaNoWriMo worthwhile?
My hope that trumpeting of committing myself to NaNoWriMo this year would force me to show the dedication required to put down 50,000 words in a month proved to be in vain. It’s a punishing schedule and one thing I have learnt is that it probably isn’t for me at this time in my life.…
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So much talent
Last weekend I had the enjoyable experience of attending a number of sessions at the Allingham Festival, a now-annual event in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, honouring William Allingham. On Saturday, a literary lunch, with poetry for dessert, was followed by a discussion between local writers and the Irish Writers Centre. We then moved on to the keynote…
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NaNoWriMo – Let battle commence!
So I’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo. Actually I signed up a couple of years ago but this time I’m actually writing something. Honest. I’ve been working on a new novel all year, but had to take a break to redraft material for Wild Atlantic Words, a collection of short stories which is being launched next…
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They were friends after all
So, after only five months from starting our project on putting together a collection of stories from our writers’ group, MEAS Writers, the book and ebook are now out. Wild Atlantic Words hit the shelves this weekend and we’re very proud of it. We went down the path of self-publishing through Ingram Spark and found it…
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Old friends or foes – next steps
In my last post I referred to a short story collection I was working on with six other writers and was looking forward, with some trepidation, to digging out and polishing some old stories as my contribution. I’m now surfacing from that exercise and we’re hoping to begin the publishing process of Wild Atlantic Words in…
