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Writing Advice
12 Ways to Beat Writer’s Block
Writer’s block can be incredibly frustrating – here are some ideas for smashing through! Writer’s block can present itself in different ways. We may be struggling for inspiration and ideas. We may be paralysed by the desire for perfection or the fear of not being good enough. We may be stuck on a particular point…
Read MoreThe Secret to Writing the Perfect Synopsis
This is a guest post by Ali Harper, author of The Disappeared (HarperCollins). Unsurprisingly, every novelist I know hates writing synopses. Of course we do. Writers are creative beings and we’ve just spent the last god-knows-how-long trying to imagine something that wasn’t there and having conversations with people who don’t exist. We’ve grown a germ…
Read MoreWriting the First Draft of Your Novel
Plough on, keep looking forward, don’t hesitate By far the most important piece of advice you can follow when writing the first draft of your novel, is to plough on through, and not hang around editing, polishing and tweaking. It can be tempting to redraft the first few chapters several times before you have even…
Read MoreThree Reasons You Should Probably Quit Writing Your Novel Now (And One Reason You Should Keep Going)
It’s hard. You probably won’t make any money. Your heart will be stabbed with a thousand tiny rejections. Give up writing now. Read on for more reasons to throw your manuscript out the window – but before you do… make sure you read to the end. It’s hard If I had a penny for each…
Read More6 Writing Success Tips From a Business Owner Turned Writer
Ten years ago I launched my software business, perfectly coinciding with the biggest economic downturn in decades. But while other companies were laying people off and downsizing to cope with the pressures, my company thrived, grew, and is still going strong. When I decided to turn my hand to my passion of writing, it seemed…
Read More9 Steps to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) Success!
National Novel Writing Month – or Nanowrimo as it’s better known, is an initiative that many writers take part in – where they try to write an entire novel in the month of November. Despite the name it’s actually international – with people all over the world taking part, and rather than having a completed…
Read MoreHow to Do Fiction Critique (Feedback) in a Writer’s Circle
Getting constructive criticism of your writing is one of the best ways to improve and learn your craft. However, giving critique to other writers isn’t just a way of paying people back for the critique they’ve given you – you can also learn a great deal from analysing other people’s writing to find out what…
Read MoreHow Aspiring Authors Think Writing a Novel Works, Versus the Reality
A Novel in One Year (Infographic)
We just made this little infographic to visualize the breakdown of using our novel writing roadmap to write a novel in one year.
Read More7 Ways to Gamify Your Writing to Improve Efficiency
We’re pleased to present a guest post from Joan Selby, about gamification and how it can kickstart your creativity if you’re in a rut. Gamification is a huge buzzword in education. By making the process of learning into a game, students don’t even realize that they’re studying while having fun. But can this concept be…
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