Writing a novel is a time-consuming labour of love. Over the past year I’ve learnt that the process of writing a novel involves lots of ebbs and flows. To write 80,000 words is a challenge for anyone, and it takes dedication and determination to make it happen – it’s the marathon of writing challenges. To help facilitate a smooth writing process, most writers I know […]
Novel Writing 3: The Long and Winding Road.
How the road turns unexpectedly. Ten weeks ago, I hit the halfway point on my first novel, and was assessing where to go next with my story. I had expected to be able to press on quite quickly from that point, but life had other plans! Since I was taking a long-overdue holiday, I soon found myself with little time set aside to write, and […]
Friday Focus: Five Tips for Writing Twitter Fiction.
This Friday Focus will look at Twitter, that lovely short medium which requires succinct styling to get a point across smoothly. Last week I took part in the #TwitterFiction Festival, which was a blast. During three one-hour tweeting sessions, I sent out a total of 600 tweets telling the story of one of my characters from the Empire. I already wrote a preliminary list of things […]
Friday Focus: Amazon Keyword Changes
So a couple of weeks ago I made some changes to my keywords on Amazon based on some research I did into Amazon search optimisation. This post is an analysis of the results. Please note that this isn’t entirely scientific, but I believe it’s fairly accurate. For the purposes of this piece, I’ll focus on Amazon.co.uk. I hadn’t had a lot of success there before […]
Friday Focus: Three Lessons in Pacing from J. K. Rowling & Harry Potter.
There are many aspects to J. K. Rowling’s writing that I could focus on today; from her amazing ability to weave a story, through to her colourful, intricate characters. This week, though, I’ve decided to focus on three of the ways Rowling keeps the pacing of the Harry Potter series lively. She moves between scenes effortlessly: Rowling isn’t afraid to jump forward in time a long distance, and […]
