I have a date every Thursday evening. My writing group meets do read, dissect, critique and applaud our works in progress. Each member has their own unique strengths which I'm finding really helpful with my work in progress. In the past I have used beta readers and professional assessors. Some have been good, others not …
My author marketing tips
In my last blog I shared my writing tips. This week the focus is on marketing. Let me start by saying that what works for some doesn't work for others. It's subjective, but you will sense if the following advice is relevant to you. But one tip I highly recommend is check your stats! It …
My rules for writing
There's lots of advice out there. And yes, in the field of writing there are always new things to learn. Recently I've seen social posts where questions have been asked by writers (and writers-to-be), so I thought I'd share some of my tips based on the questions asked. In my next blog, I will share …
My writing group
I'm part of a novelist writing group. Every Thursday evening we meet with copies of the next scene from our manuscript. We read it out loud while our fellow writers follow along, making corrections and notes. Then we workshop, and sometimes debate, certain aspects of that chapter. While I'm no spring chicken, three of the …
The writing life
At a book fair, a stallholder was complaining. It was a quiet Sunday afternoon with hardly any visitors at our event, so she stood in front of my display and shared her disappointment in a traditional publisher who was not interested in her work. In her opinion, everything was there. Both illustrations and text. All …
I’m about to read gay sex scenes to straight older men
I'm part of a cool writers' group. Each week we read and review the next scene of each other's projects. Some feedback is relevant. Some is not. And we all have our quirks when we receive critique. Although I'm not exactly young, three of this group of five men are older than me. And unlike …
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I’m writing Romance
This is new to me. Well, almost. I have written two Romance novellas before (see images below), which were guided by a couple of years of binging Sex and the City. There were mixed reviews, making it clear the Romance purists weren't impressed. But at least those who loved them, really loved them. This time …
Acknowledging your Writing Journey
I don't remember the first time I heard this phrase. But it's the way I viewed my writing life ever since. When I first began this journey over a decade ago, a representative at the Australian Society of Authors told me how many new releases flooded the market that year. The amount was staggering. It …
Fictionalising my life
Stop fictionalising your life! This was advice a friend's psychologist told him to tell me. Both me and my husband are talked about often during his sessions, and his analyst has read my books to gain a better understanding of his relationship with us. In a recent writer's hashtag, someone wrote: Trying to get my …
Writing Tin Men and Scarecrows – Part 4
This project gets bigger and bigger. I started a second draft before I finished the first, and even this draft is getting rewritten in ways which would normally happen later. My desire to complete this draft as close to perfect has come from using The Snowflake Method (see link at bottom of the page). It …
