Tag: Writing advice

Writing POV: The Opposite Sex

“I can’t believe a woman wrote this!”

There I am, minding my own business, pounding away on my keyboard, trying to get a little quality writing time in, when my sister calls to tell me someone she barely knew told her the above after she’d read a book I’d written. At first I was a tad miffed. How could someone even question my womanliness? I mean, I shower daily and apply eye liner. I enjoy foo foo stuff like candles and perfume. I even like watching historical films and the occasional rom-com. Continue reading “Writing POV: The Opposite Sex”

The Limits of Cheese

John Barlow
Author John Barlow

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks up to my eyeballs in cheese and honey. Not quite literally, but there was a point when I had to requisition a shelf in my neighbour’s fridge to accommodate all the samples I had acquired.

I recently got two commissions at the same time, both with the same tightish deadline: an article on cheese and another on honey. The publication I write for has recently succumbed to the effects of the global downturn, and freelancers like me are feeling the pinch. Eighteen months ago it was 4000 words and take your time, John, we reserved the flight and hotel. This time it was 1500 words and buy your own sandwiches. Continue reading “The Limits of Cheese”

Techniques to unblock the creative flow – Meditation teacher and author Dr Lesley Phillips shares her secrets

Guest Post
by Dr. Lesley Phillips

Let me start by confessing that I am a relatively new author, and I did not suffer from writers block at all when I wrote my first book “The Midas Tree.”

Although I do teach people how to access their intuition and creativity through meditation. Writing a novel was a new experience for me, but allowing my creativity and intuition to flow was not. I attribute my success in writing “The Midas Tree” so effortlessly to the meditation techniques that I use every day to keep myself clear.

My hope is that I can share some of this knowledge with you and that you will find it useful if you ever hit the common bump on the writer’s path, known as writers block. Continue reading “Techniques to unblock the creative flow – Meditation teacher and author Dr Lesley Phillips shares her secrets”

EX-PERTISE

This article makes me feel a little weird because it runs counter to a longstanding peeve I’ve had with internet writing information. Namely the widespread impression that anybody with a keyboard is equally qualified to tell other people about how to write and publish, whether or not their degree of knowledge on that subject is greater than or equal to the average ass of the average rat.

I know of two blogs in which 13 year old writers give advice on how to write novels. Dozens with invaluable insights on writing from high school kids. How many more with scintillating tips from people who just wrote their first book, or are going to finish it any day now, except blogging writing advice takes up so much of their time? Many of the newbie forums like Writers Digest are packed with total wannabes who have no sense of irony when it comes to contradicting published authors, even best-selling authors. The equality of information seems to reduce experience to the quotidian.

You can imagine how fond I am of this sort of thing. Continue reading “EX-PERTISE”