The idea of marketing yourself as an author can be understandably overwhelming, especially if you are in the early stages of your writing journey. Aspiring authors may wonder what they can do to enhance their chances of making money from their future books. Recently published authors may question what they can do to increase their profile and book sales. The …
I love being a writer. It is all I have ever wanted to do, but doing it for a living and balancing it among other work and life priorities can be downright hard. Whenever I do need a boost, inspiration, motivation or writing tips I turn to a few key books – here are what I think are the top …
So many of us struggle at one time or another to find where we belong. From kindergarten to university, to the communities we live in, our jobs, and in our relationships – we all want that feeling of belonging. We want to feel we are a part of something, and we can be ourselves. Even superheroes aren’t immune to this. …
Creativity has many definitions but when it comes to writing it often refers to the innovative use of the imagination or original ideas to create something. Whenever we write we’re creating something, but our level of innovation may feel like another matter. Some days we feel the muse with us, but on other days, weeks and months even, we remain in …
Passion is what drives many of us to undertake the Herculean task of writing a novel. However, even the most passionate writers suffer from lack of the motivation from time to time. Motivation is important no matter what you do. In order to stay motivated, writers need to have techniques and tools to help them finish their novel. Tips for …
I’m a writer. I’ve been writing for a living for more years than I care to remember. At risk of sounding up myself, I aint too shabby when it comes to putting a few words together. I can be pretty damn persuasive as well, when I want to be. There’s one caveat though. I may be the cat’s meow (at …
‘My writing has just stalled completely. I haven’t written anything for weeks.’ I was sitting with a lovely writer, on our lunch break from a writing workshop, listening to how she didn’t know what to write next, so she’d stopped writing. She was devastated, because she was so attached to the story and its characters, but the ‘muse’ had left …
Uncharacteristically, I had a hour or so to spare the other day, and I remembered that a new episode of Vikings should have been available SBS On Demand. I was bitterly disappointed to find that the show hadn’t aired that week. Instead I poked around for something else to watch. My eyes fell on Jiro Dreams of Sushi. As a …
Every writer has heard at some stage the phrase “show don’t tell”. At first I was a little puzzled by what exactly this meant. As a former journalist I was used to writing straight news stories where you needed to ‘tell’ without your own embellishments or clues. Over time though, I’ve found it a little easier. Here are some great …
Image source: http://awwccordion.com/ (memory books) Farts. Bottoms. Wee. Poo. Underpants. Just why are little boys obsessed with toilet humour? I typed this question into google hoping to find some research explaining this phenomenon and all I could find was forum after forum of mother’s asking the exact same questions and how do deal with it?To be honest Master Five’s obsession isn’t something …