Remind yourself that we don’t read because of a single tweet, or recommendation, or review. We read to connect with a feeling, and as the writer you are the best person to represent the feelings that your book evokes.
My next novel That Which is Left is Lost will be released on 16 June. And, this time – unlike my debut which is only available as an Ebook only – there is going to be a paperback version! [Check out my Books & Stories Page to see when it’s live!] When we writers talk […]
As a debut author, and a short story writer, it’s taken me a long time to accept that the only way I can share my stories with the world is to talk about them! It seems to be one of the final stages in the writer’s triathlon of self-belief. First you have to swim through […]
When I was little I wanted to be a writer. My head was always full of detailed stories about fairies and far away lands. I remember telling my primary school teacher that I was going to write books when I grew up. Her reply? She told me it was a lovely dream, but that’s what […]
Okay, I’m going to be honest here. Last year when I quit my job to become a writer and writing coach, and then I re-read the Spy Thriller that I wrote for fun in 2016 – I never expected to publish it. But here we are. It’s out there on Amazon Kindle for a reasonable […]
In my previous post I wrote about following your dreams. What a lot of writers are faced with when deciding that they want to become an author of published work is that following this dream means accepting that writing is actually a business. In order to have work published there has to be involvement with […]
Not too long ago I stepped down from my role as Secretary to Huddersfield Literature Festival. It wasn’t an easy choice, but I recognised that it had become the ‘reason’ I wasn’t writing; I was prioritising the work for the Festival over my own desire for a writing career. As such, it was time to […]
It’s finally arrived; after three months of debating and editing and proofreading The Memorial Tree and other short stories is now available to purchase over at Amazon! It’s odd to think that at the end of March I was halfheartedly planning a search for further agents to whom I could send out my novel, and here I […]
So, this week will see me publish my first ever collection of short stories as an Ebook! How exciting is that? It’s taken me a long time to get to this point and I’ve amassed such a collection of writing that it seemed only right to share some of them with the world. So, on […]
Writing competitions. If you write and want to get your work published this is one of the first routes into authorship. There are some writers who excel at applying their material to the various competition topics out there, others still who tend to focus on particular genres or types, and then there’s me. I’m great […]
