It took me ten years to write The Waiting Room, my debut novel. Well, actually, that’s pure fiction – I made the number up. It was really more like thirty years. Writing my novel felt at times akin to …
The Writer Laid Bare
Going on a Reading Diet
One of the best pieces of advice a writer can get is – read, read, READ. Read as widely and as voraciously as you can. Make reading a priority even over writing, at least for some years. Be adventurous in …
A Guest Post by Laurie Steed: The Family Guide to Writing & Parenting
Once, I was a full-time writer.
My day began at six, with coffee and a slice or two of fruit toast. I’d ruminate on character arcs and plot developments as though they were the very stuff of life. If time …
Inhabiting Your Characters
Some time ago I was approached by a writer asking me to mentor her. She was writing a novel set in seventeenth century Spain. I read the synopsis. The story – a young woman has to choose between her sexual …
A Guest Post by Maria Katsonis: The Writer Who Reveals
In an interview with Design Matters, writer Dani Shapiro stated: ‘When you bring out a memoir, the feeling is of the life being reviewed — not the book being reviewed.’ Many memoirists, as they start unfolding their lives on …
Let me count the ways in which I dislike you, my beloved character
Recently I read the novel Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. I didn’t like much any of its main characters – an angry, depressive rocker; a housewife who spends her life not doing what she wants; her saintly husband who nevertheless sells …