When you write a story, a poem, a novel, it’s always best to let it breathe for a little while afterwards. You write it. You edit it. Then – you put it away in a drawer and you let it be. You let it rest. I thought I’d done that with my manuscript last year. […]

With many musicians now turning to crowd-sourcing (or crowd-funding) to finance their latest album, it was only a matter of time, perhaps, before writers got in on the act. True, with singers and bands, it’s mostly the newbies who are making the most of this creative way of getting their music out there sooner rather […]

A quick one this week, in keeping with the subject matter… How do you choose your titles? Whether it’s poetry or prose, how easy do you find it to sum everything up in a tight little title? Do you sum it all up? What inspires you when you come to this part of the writing process? […]

I’m often late to the party and this weekend I finally joined the abundance of writers who have enjoyed the wisdom and wit of Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’. To be honest, through my own experience and reading to date, I can’t say it was a revelation as such, but it’s always good to hear these things again and […]

The only thing which could possibly warrant a late blog post is… well, it has to be a literary festival of course! The past four days have seen a wealth of poetry, literature, art and music mingle with sumptuous amounts of tea and scones at the lovely Laurel Villa Guesthouse in Magherafelt. This was the […]

As someone who grew up with a love of reading in the pre-internet age (yes, really) – before the invention of e-books and digital, well, anything really, the local library was the holy grail of book lovers everywhere. Period. I even remember the library van – that clumsy looking box-shaped old van which had seen better days but […]

Do you remember the story which sparked your imagination and prompted you to write? Do you remember the very first story you wrote? I’m not sure I remember the exact first story I produced, but I do recall the book which, as a young teen, made me stop and think – I could write a […]

‘My imagination is a Monastery and I am its monk.’ Keats’ words to Shelley (as the Romantics caught hold of the concept of ‘imagination’ and ran with it), caught my attention this week as I read an article on William Blake. I, like most writers I would assume, like to think about my approach to writing fairly […]

What is a short story and how long should a short story be…? ‘A short story is a work of fiction, often in narrative format that is shorter than a novel in length but longer than a novella. The elements of a short story are: setting, conflict, theme, character, plot and point of view.’ This […]

With the evenings already beginning to draw in, the wind gently buffeting the house and the rain (oh, the rain) streaming steadily down, one would think it was a day designed for writing. It is August, yes, but a small fire is burning merrily in the hearth and it’s cosy with a capital ‘C’. The problem is – writing […]