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Imagine

Imagine. Remember John Lennon’s brilliant song? He said people called him a dreamer because he could imagine a world without hunger or greed. And he said making this imaginative leap was easy if you tried. Fair enough. But as any novelist will tell you, sometimes the imagination needs a little push and a shove. We’ve …

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A new look

There is nothing like a makeover. It not only brings with it a new look, but creates an exciting buzz. And that’s what has happened with WriteOnline. Last week it relaunched with a whole bright new look, extra features, and a team putting a huge amount of energy and thought into the future. I couldn’t …

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Telling our stories 1

How books get written is one of those issues which really intrigues me. Sometimes they are written in a rush – at least I’ve heard some authors admit to this – but mostly they take weeks, months, years to write. Years and years is how long it took A’Eysha Kassiem to write her first novel. …

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Score a publishing deal

One of the great spin-offs of the Writers’ Masterclass is when a writer gets to score a publishing deal. There have been a host of books published by WriteOnline’s Masterclass writers since it began in 2012, and there are more coming up next year. The latest to add to the list is by Luc Zwaenepoel. …

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Writing the last line

It’s always a bit scary getting to the end of your first draft and writing the last line. I was there again the other day and I have to admit the final sentence came as a surprise. For one thing, the novel ended with dialogue and the last word went to a minor character – …

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Writing as therapy

All my life I have never thought of writing as therapy. I’ve always thought of writing as a job. Something you sat down to during the day and worked at for as many hours as you could afford. It was a seven days a week job and it had nothing to do with my emotional …

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Letting go

Last week I wrote about ‘completion fear’ and was then asked if I’d ever thought it worthwhile letting go of a manuscript. The person asking was someone I’ve never met, except virtually. She did one of my short courses some years ago and has been on my Masterclass twice. The first time she wrote a …

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Fear of finishing

Have you ever worried about finishing your manuscript? a student asked me recently. He should have completed his reworking of a first draft in March 2020 and it was now October. He’d started writing at the beginning of 2019. The intervening months of this year had been spent researching, adding text, deleting text, moving text …

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Writing a memoir

Writing a memoir, especially when it involves the famous, friends, family or foes, can be tricky. Do you get legal advice before you start? Do you write it all down and worry about the consequences afterwards? How are publishers going to react to a manuscript that could bring with it suits of defamation? I recently …

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