“Write what you know”. Is it merely a dangerous idea, or could there be something genuinely useful in this controversial writerly advice? Read more…
In our continued effort to improve our writing, we can be very sensitive to the advice of others. Here’s a reason not to follow so-called “common knowledge” advice about what is a very personal craft. Read more…
Pinterest might not be the first choice of social network for writers, but with a little thought, there are certainly ways it can be useful – for research, a way to communicate with readers, and as a promotional tool. Read more…
This week I have mostly been doing research, and as always I’ve found surprising things I can’t wait to use. Read more…
I have a confession to make. I play things fast and loose when it comes to doing research. Maybe it’s because I went to university and spent a lot of time doing research for assignments, so that when it comes to doing ‘real’ research for something I’m writing, it seems like a little too much effort. Besides, I (mostly) write sci-fi. That’s the genre of making stuff up, right? Read more…
Despite the minor hiccup I had last week, having to redo the final episode pretty much from scratch, I finally managed to finish this opus this week. And how do I feel? Am I overflowing with a sense of achievement? Satisfaction for having gotten this mammoth under control? Relief? Read more…
So, I decided to get back into blog subscriptions, which I abandoned before because of too many unread items (Google Reader gives up counting after 1000). I’m merrily gathering blogs to read, and suddenly I find this site! Read more…
A while ago, I made a blog entry about getting inspiration to come to you. Some of the ways I mentioned to do this would actually help as research tools as well. Read more…
Following on from the last couple of posts on the nature of inspiration, and how to find inspiration, now I’ll talk about a kind of automatic inspiration. Read more…
I have mentioned that when I was still in secondary school I used to feel inspired quite a lot of the time. In fact, the majority of my current dormant ideas for stories still stem from that period of my life. Maybe it was because I was engaged in active learning (at school), or maybe it was because I had more time to pursue my interests or to muse on what I had learnt, or maybe it was just that I was a teenager and my mind was more creative then (I actually have no idea whether this might be true of teenagers, but it certainly felt like that at the time). But whatever the reason, the fact remains that it doesn’t happen automatically any more. Read more…