I’ve had a productive few weeks which has resulted in me sending four completed projects to my agent – with profuse apologies, but she said something interesting. She said this time of year was often a ‘finishing off and unloading’ time of year for her clients, and I found myself wondering why. Is it the lack of guilt about staying indoors, hunkered over a warm keyboard when the weather outside has changed? Is it the approaching end of year and the feeling that we need to be ready to start the new year with new projects? I’d love to know your thoughts.

Nanowrimo  happens in November and I assume that is scheduled in that month for a reason.
October is also Halloween, and so this month’s blog is all about the top ten scariest books of all time. I was interested when I was writing this blog, to notice that some of the scariest books in my opinion, are not always supernatural. Sometimes it’s just about pacing. Have a read of the blog, see if you agree, and maybe have a go at the writing exercise (below) to get your creepy ideas going.

I mentioned last time that I would share the write ups of the events I was involved with at EIBF. Here you go! Enjoy. 

How to write

This month’s recommended how to write book looks at first glance as if it’s about writing spooky but actually it’s not that at all, although it is invoking that gothic fairy story journey we all know, into the woods. It is instead one of the classic how to write books. The premise is that there is a deep human instinct for story, and if you understand how humans view stories, then you can use that basic structure to create your own tales. It has chapters on characterisation, dialogue etc etc, but the chapters you really want to immerse yourself in are the ones which explain what is a story, and then show you how yo use these in the three act structure or the five act structure.

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