Category writer
The improbable story line
“How unbelievable is that?” “That would never happen in real-life?” I’m sure some of us have said these things when reading a novel? How far should authors go with storylines that rely on remarkable events and coincidences, especially ones that requires readers to suspend their incredulity for the sake of moving a plot forward? But […]
The Last Thing She Said – Who will be believe her?
Birthdays are family time. The giving and receiving of presents, a cake maybe, and perhaps a party. For Rose, a birthday is a day to spend in the company of her granddaughters. She likes cake, especially chocolate cake, and always has one candle on top of it to blow out. What she also does is […]
An apple a day #flashfiction #shortstory
I’ve been very lazy about this blog recently. No particular reason behind it. I went to the Festival of Writing in York this weekend and met many inspiriational writers, published and unpublished. The message is – write what you love and don’t give up. So, I’m a story teller and I’ve a few stories to […]
Catching up on castles and stuff – #amwriting
Gosh, it’s been a while since I posted. I have a wonderful excuse – I wrote a book. Well, that’s a little bit of a cheat. I wrote the first draft of it years ago, but it wasn’t right. So now that I’m learning the art of editing, I ditched half of it, totally re-wrote […]
A cursed existence – #flashfiction #amwriting
Welcome to Friday Fictioneers – hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. I usually write something original, but today I’m hijacking a few sentences from my current manuscript because they fit the picture. This story is about a curse. ‘Does it matter,’ he sighed, ‘because the reality is, I’ve not left this estate in over one hundred and […]
Draft after draft – #amwriting #firstdraft
I recently read Kate Atkinson’s Life after Life and thoroughly enjoyed it. The life of Ursula is repeated throughout the novel and each time it replays, her various choices and outcomes lead her down different paths. It’s like a butterfly effect, the recuperations of one seemingly inconsequential life rippling into countless others. Ursula has the […]
#AtoZchallenge – reflections on a month of blogging
I’ve had a breather and it’s time for a little reflection on the A-Z challenge – the 26 posts on castles I wrote for April’s blogging challenge. This year was my second attempt – I participated last year on the theme of inspiration and with this in mind, I chose what I thought was a […]
The manuscript dilemma
I have a manuscript. It’s there, on my computer, on my Kindle, my tablet. It sits there waiting. What now? Months of slaving away on it and it’s come to the point I’ve always dreaded. It would be so easy to tuck it away in a drawer and start work on another project. I want […]
What if….
Been very absent from this blog for a while. School holidays, family visits… no time to write or edit, just coasting. I’m posting up some photos of my two favourite abbeys, both ruins, of course, because Henry VIII had them destroyed in the 1540s. Such a pity not to have the foresight to imagine a […]
Editor’s block – the flip side.
I finished the first draft of my book (hooray!). I immediately, and foolishly, started to edit it (boo!). It doesn’t work – switching from writing to editing. I guess it’s the brain thing. The right side is supposed to be the creative part, the left the home of the analytical, logical and verbal reasoning. I’m […]
The Quiet Writer 