Thank you for dropping by my blog. I post about a variety of topics including book reviews, my author journey, the writing craft and more. All my blog posts are listed below, but if you fancy looking at a particular topic, you can check the drop down menu on 'blog' on my main site menu. New blog posts added weekly, Monday or Tuesday afternoons GMT. Hope you enjoy!
Way back at the start of 2020, I set my goals for the year in this blog post. This is probably my last blog post before 2021 so I thought it would be a good time to reflect on how many goals I met! Here were my goals: 1. Finish first round of edits of my historical fiction novel I actually met this goal all the way back in March, just in time to start prep for Camp NaNoWriMo in April
Right from the first page, I knew Skyview was going to be epic. The story starts with meeting our hero William Ward, an employee who works at the family business, the Interlaken Beer Company (IBC). William’s bloodline dates back to the original Ward, one of the IBC’s founding members. After a work party, William discovers that there is a fortune, his ancestor’s share of the IBC He embarks on a quest to trace his ancestor’s movements through history and find the
For this week on the blog, I thought it might be time for another post about the writing craft – this time talking about dialogue. What makes ‘good’ dialogue in writing? It can be a tricky balance of things to achieve. Aptly, the subject of dialogue sparks much debate. Should ‘said’ be used after most dialogue, or is mixing up better (eg muttered, murmured, replied, asked answered, etc)? How much should writers use ‘action beats’? These are lines describing an action
Yesterday, at about 10 past 5, I finally closed the lid of my laptop. I’d just finished my science fiction project for NaNoWriMo2020! I had actually ‘won’ by crossing the finish line with 50k much earlier in the day, but I was determined to also finish the project itself by the end of the day. Hence why this blog post which normally comes to you on a Monday is coming on a Tuesday – I just couldn’t face doing any more
For this week’s blog post ‘Where in the World?’ I thought it would be fun to discuss worldbuilding. To put it simply, worldbuilding is the construction of the world that characters inhabit. Depending on the genre, this might be another realm or a different planet, or it could be a small village in the south of England. Wherever you put your characters, developing that world means building the space that they live and breathe and interact with one another. Here are
Review of Osbert by RA Currier Just to note, I originally read and reviewed ‘Osbert’ by R.A. Currier on my blog in 2018. However, when I moved to a new site a month ago, not all of my blog posts moved across. So, I thought I would upload a few of my oldest ones that disappeared – and this has certainly made me remember how amazing this book was! Definitely need to read this one again, if I ever get space
Hello all! It’s finally time for my Lottie’s Locket announcement! I’ve been looking forward to giving you a publication date for Lottie’s Locket, as well as showing you the final front cover design. Here it is! *Drum roll please…* Lottie’s Locket has the provisional publication date for the 26th November. Only 2 1/2 weeks’ time! Here is the gorgeous front cover that my wonderful publishers designed. I couldn’t be more delighted with the job the design team at Olympia did. 🙂
NaNoWriMo is here! It’s that time again for National Writers Writing Month! Writers all over the world started adding words to their projects. The challenge is to write 1,667 words a day throughout November and therefore to have a 50k by the end of the month. We’re only in day 2 so if you’re interested in the challenge, you can find out more the NaNoWriMo website here. This will be my 3rd time participating! If you’ve been following my writing journey
I’ve moved home! Welcome to my new website! A few weeks ago, I had no idea I would have to design a website from scratch. However, for a few months now I’ve been considering starting a newsletter, where I send a monthly email to subscribers a new way to communicate to readers about what I’m up to and spread the word a bit about my books. It’s a bit less ‘flash in the pan” than advertising on social media and a
It’s been a while since I last shared a blog post about writing, so I thought I’d do one today about character development. This is quite handy timing, as I am about to start thinking properly about prep for NaNoWriMo (affectionally named by participants as Preptober). If you’ve somehow not heard me talk about Nano before, it stands for National Novel Writing Month and it is an organisation inviting writers to try to have a 50K novel written in 30 days.