Tag Archives: writing

January and February are the NaNoWriMo ‘Now What?’ months. For those of you not in the know, every November thousands of crazy writers sign up to attempt writing 50,000 words in one month, which makes the better part of a novel’s ...

I have been a fan of Amanda Palmer’s for many years. I can’t remember who or how I was first turned on to the Dresden Dolls (her band before going solo), but I fell in love with Yes, Virginia and ...

Authors and their publishers (and marketing people) are always coming up with new ways to encourage readers to buy their books. You go on any writing course and ‘promotion’ of you and your work will be included in some way, ...

NaNoWriMo is all about quantity over quality. Quality comes later. As any writing course will tell you, your first draft won’t be good. No matter how awesome you think you are, you just aren’t that good. Sure, I wish everything ...

Recently I attended the Writers’ Workshop Festival of Writing where I had the opportunity to have the first chapters of my work in progress novel read by an agent. The agent in question told me my prose was excellent but ...

If you are in the northern hemisphere, winter is finally approaching (‘Winter is coming!’, I hear you shout!). What does this mean for us bookworm types? Well, beyond the obvious cup of tea (or coffee, chocolate – whatever your hot ...

Noemi Gamel first came to my attention as a strong proponent of the We Need Diverse Books campaign. The campaign’s goal is to highlight the need for diversity in children’s books, be that the representation of LGBT characters, people of ...

There are many reasons to attend a writing festival or conference. You may be going to meet other writers, to test the waters of what its like to put your work out there to be read by others, to network ...

For better or worse, I was listening to Justin Timberlake’s album 20/20 while doing some free writing. The track, ‘That Girl’, came on and the lyrics inspired me in a rather unusual way. I’ll say no more than that. I ...

Ben Peek is the author of the upcoming novel, The Godless. His previous novels include, Black Sheep, Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth, and Above/Below. His short story collection, Dead Americans and Other Stories, was released earlier in the year by ChiZine Publications. He ...