Category: Blog

  • 16th March

    The Books that shape you I find it interesting that the things we like as children seem to really stick with us, and yet at times, in our grown up worlds, we can feel like we’ve lost touch with who we are, of the essence of who we were when we were young.  I only have to look back to those…

  • 9th March

    Girl with red hair There’s a kind of dichotomy, I think, between writing that takes on a fantastical element, and writing that is gritty and very real.  Some writers will say they write to escape, submerged in their own world.  Others, that writing puts them in touch with themselves and helps them to realise who they…

  • 2nd March

    How to get cream-crackered and a lump in the throat at same time Firstly, for non UK readers, cream-crackered is slang for… erm… very tired, exhausted, wrecked… that kind of thing.  School visits do that.  They are also decidedly lovely, for many reasons.  I’ve done a few now, but this week’s visit, in celebration of World Book…

  • 24th February

    A new way of writing Writing has always been a solitary experience for me – part of my love for it in a way, even from being in my teens, sat gazing out of a window and scribbling down angst ridden words of unrequited love… that kind of nonsense… and until recently, I have continued to…

  • 17th February

    Not THIS one… but the one after I think it’s fair to say that there’s a strong feeling for most writers of wanting to be published… but perhaps ‘strong feeling’ isn’t strong enough – maybe ‘desperation’ is closer to the truth.   That’s certainly how I have felt at times.  Mostly, for me, it’s that feeling that I need confirmation that the hours I spend in my head…

  • 9th February

    The end… or is it? A short and sweet one from me today – and an early one – today I BLOT (Blog on Thursday) as opposed to BOG (Blog on Friday)! This week, I have finished my first YA work in progress … well, I say ‘finished’ – first draft is completed and I’m having a…

  • 3rd February

    A Poem Sometimes writing – what I think of as ‘proper writing’ goes a bit awol.  It happens to the best of us I think… life gets in the way, we’re tired, distracted, anxious, or all of these.  Sometimes we have to push through this and there’s no doubt in my mind that writing is…

  • 27th January

    In the real world I remembered something this weekend, something I’d forgotten… how important it is to retain a sense of equilibrium in this rather surreal 21st century world that we live in.  As a writer, it is easy to become so involved in our stories, our creations, that we shut out everything else.  I…

  • 20th January

    2 in the morning This wasn’t the post I had lined up for today, but sometimes stuff happens, and at 2am yesterday morning, I woke up with a bright new shiny idea in my head.  It was an idea for an adult novel, brought about by a sequence of events that have happened over the…

  • 13th January

    Let me tell you about gates… Last year, I was lucky enough to attend a poetry writing workshop hosted by Derbyshire County Council.  They do quite a lot of these types of workshops – always enjoyable and a great opportunity to meet fellow writers and have a good chin-wag about writerly kind of things.  This particular one…