1 Decide when in the day (or night) it best suits you to write, and organise your life accordingly. 2 Think with your senses as well as your brain. 3 Honour the miraculousness of the ordinary. 4 Lock different characters/elements in a room and tell them to get on. 5 Remember there is no such […]
Roddy Doyle’s Ten Rules for Writing Fiction
If you’ve never read any Roddy Doyle, you’re in for a treat. From the exquisite Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha to the more famous Commitments from The Barrytown Trilogy. Roddy has the ability to inhabit his characters so seamlessly that when I read The Woman Who Walked into Doors I was convinced the author was female. Then […]
Anne Enright’s Finest 10 Tips for Writing Fiction
In this humble offering before the next longer post, author Anne Enright, who was named the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction, won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction for her novel, The Forgotten Waltz, and won the Man Booker Prize for her novel, The Gathering, shares ten writing tips gleaned from her fiction writing […]
9 Potent Ways to Use Music to Enhance Your Writing
Amp up your creativity and your sounds with these nine ways to enhance your writing using music. Plato said that ‘music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything,’ while Nietzsche believed that a “life without music is a mistake.” Much like writing, it can transport us to a […]
Are You an Introverted Intuitive Writer? Why the 2 Most Common Pieces of Writing Advice Probably Won’t Work for You
Delighted to welcome the endlessly inspiring Lauren Sapala, novelist, author of The INFJ Writer & writing coach like no other. If you too are one of the rarest personality types, introverted, sensitive, even feeling a little misplaced in our extroverted world, read on to translate what you may have until now seen as flaws or hindrances to your writing into your […]
7-Step Process to Align Body, Mind and Soul for Optimum Creativity
Allow your creative conduit to open with ease by using a few ancient healing practices to quieten your inner critic, ground and centre you, refresh your thinking, spark inspiration and refine your focus. Spending a few moments aligning your being before you begin brings clarity to your creativity, so you can create unfettered by distractions or doubt but with gentleness, calm equilibrium, and aplomb. It’s also a perfect practice to do during […]
When Life Takes Over Your Writing—How to Find Clarity & Put the Drama on the Page
“Your art is where the drama belongs, not your life,” wrote artist, and author, Julia Cameron. Yet life by its very nature is frequently laden with drama, difficulties too, and sometimes that may prevent your writing from happening, distract you, or hamper with your flow. It’s hard to create anything if you’ve a thousand other concerns or your heart hangs heavy in your […]
The Finest Way to Reignite Your Love of Writing
A sequel, or perhaps prequel to: 15 Ways to Fall in Love with Writing [All Over Again] “Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatise our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we […]
10 Brilliant Tips for Writing Fiction Inspired by Famous Authors
Discover Your Story in the Act of Writing It’s natural to want to know where your story is headed or at the very least, know that you are not wasting your time — especially on something as grand as the first draft of a novel — but it’s not always easy to relinquish control and let the act of writing itself discover your story. Yet often it is in doing […]
10 Rules for Writing Fiction by Helen Dunmore
Due to exceeding my silly [CRPS] limitations through the love, necessity and unquenchable want of writing, there’s a slight delay on longer offerings but not wishing to leave you short-changed, here novelist, poet, children’s book author, and essayist, Helen Dunmore, offers ten of her finest fiction writing tips. 1. Finish the day’s writing when you still want to continue. […]