Record temperatures: Books set in hot summers
it's still June and already records have been broken. I feel quite fortunate to live in Edinburgh and not Spain. But I'm fascinated by extremes of temperature. In fact I've got the first draft of a MG book which is set entirely in the summer of 1976, when all our...
What use are Travel Books in the age of the internet?
We're off to the Canary Islands for a week, and as my bags sit waiting in the hall, full of suncream and fiction, I find myself thinking about travel writing books. We have a small shelf of guidebooks which we never look at these days because of course we look online...
Write every day? Creating an effective writing routine
An interesting article in the Guardian recently made me think about that advice you hear all the time - to be a successful writer, you should write every day. I’ve never found that works for me. I’ve done Nanowrimo a few times; this is where you try to write a novel...
New website, new city. Is Edinburgh the place to be if you’re a writer?
To celebrate the launch of my new super dooper look website, I thought I would re-visit my first ever blog, which was basically me musing about Edinburgh being chockablock with writers. I was sitting in Inverness at the time, working pretty much full time as a...
Managing Social Media without sacrificing writing time
I am not going to claim to be any expert on social media, but thought I would just share with you some of my ideas about managing social media without it affecting your writing time. Firstly I hardly ever post something spontaneous. All my tweets and posts for my...
Five best ‘how to write’ books
I do love books about writing. I've never picked one up and not found something that speaks to me. Maybe I'm just a terribly slow learner, and information falls out of my brain all the time which I have to keep stuffing it back in. But never mind my deficiencies....
Best Books of 2018
When you've read more than eighty books in a year, narrowing down the best reads is quite a job, but I'll give it a go. This year's reading has brought home to me how writers are really pushing at genre boundaries. Now if you pick up a crime book, it is not...
Nanowrimo: November Novel Writing in a Month
November is over. For those who write, this means the end of another Nanowrimo. A chance to splurge out a first draft of a novel in thirty days. I haven't participated in Nanowrimo every year, but I always find it an interesting experience. Twice I tried 'just...
How to hook an agent
I have just signed with an agent, and what I have to say about the process might contradict other advice out there, but I think it's worth considering. Those who did not know me BC (before children) might find it surprising to know that I used to sell life insurance...
Films about writers
One of the most misunderstood professions has to be writing. Everyone seems to think you don't need to spend any time doing it, that as soon as you have a book published you'll be a millionaire, that it's easy to get said book published in the first place, and that...