Some people have a million stories rattling around their heads just waiting to be told. But I’m not one of them. Faced with a blank page I’ve no idea where to start. Nevertheless, I like writing. I love the creative process and the craft of writing, the feeling of something forming, of giving it shape, of saying something, of discovering something about the world and myself. Continue reading
A long time ago I enrolled for an on-line writing course because I wanted to write a novel and thought I’d better learn how to do it. So imagine my disbelief when the first thing I was asked to do was write a poem. A poem? What did poems have to do with writing novels? But I’m an obedient soul so I did it. It wasn’t very good and to prove it, here it is: Continue reading
When I started writing I was a bit dismissive of short stories. I enjoyed reading them but I didn’t want to write one. I was going to be a novelist so why should I bother writing short stories? However, for one reason or another, I’ve written a whole pile of short stories – 88 at the last count – and it’s turned out to be really helpful to me as an aspiring novelist – for all sorts of reasons: Continue reading