Getting Started

Making Your Mark in Genre Fiction, Clare Dowling

Tue, 08 May 2012 10:07:55 +0100

I got a prompt and courteous rejection letter for my efforts. The editor suggested I try to ‘develop an original voice’ and ‘three-dimensional characters’. I was advised to read extensively within the genre, especially their top authors who managed to write prolifically yet originally every time, and then to pin-point what I might have to say that would be different.

It was the most useful rejection letter I was ever to get.

So the real question is, how t...

From Chaos to Control, Ciara Conlon

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 10:05:03 +0100

“With all I had learned, and armed with the enormous benefits I had gained, the next obvious step was to write it all down. I wanted to compile all of the tips and techniques I had learned to help me transform my life and share them with others. That’s how Chaos to Control came about. There are many books on productivity on the market but none that took a holistic approach. Learning a new productivity system or tool can help you to become more productive but it is also important to en...

The 7 Most Useful Books on Writing Fiction

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:02:03 +0100

1. Solutions for Writers by Sol Stein. First published in 2005 this is the essential guidebook on how to write for our times. Broken up into sections and covering both fiction and non fiction it contains a mother lode of practical advice on issues from the writer’s job, to the Keys to Swift Characterisation, to adding Resonance.

What grabbed me about this book though was the focus on practical advice. Almost every page of my copy has a section underlined and a corner turned. This is th...

The Write Inspiration: Starting a Writing Group

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 17:15:34 +0100

Decide on a location for your meeting (typically your local Library, School or Community Hall, even a Local Cafe) anywhere that is convenient, the important thing is to get started; you can always relocate at a later date.
Establish your day and time.
Advertise, advertise, advertise. Local newspapers, bulletin boards and community newsletters are ideal to let people know about your group, remember to include your name and contact details.
Decide on the aims, objectives and purpose of the gro...

5 Ways to Create Meaningful Success in Your Writing

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:24:29 +0100

So, let me introduce you to the 5 States of Success:

1. The State of Insight – which creates CLARITY.

2. The States of Connection – which creates EMPATHY.

3. The States of Certainty – which creates CONVICTION.

4. The States of Vitality – which creates ACTION.

5. The State of Spirit – which creates PURPOSE.

1. The State of Insight – creates CLARITY.

I have always been a fan of people that can deliver brilliant insights. The reader is hugely engaged when we can cr...

A Beginners Guide to Blogging - Setting Up Your Blog

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:48:40 +0100

Why you need to blog

If you are a writer you need to have as many links on-line as possible. We live in an age where the standard talk is “I will tweet / Facebook you” and “what is your Facebook fan page / blog / web address?” Having a blog will increase your readership, hone your writing skills, give your immediate publication and feedback, give you a “Likability” (if you do it right) and ultimately increase your book sales. You need to decide which blog platform you are going...

The Scribbler's Apprentice

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 11:13:13 +0100

Kevin Holohan, MA? Not likely. After graduating, there being little else to do, I emigrated. I felt no draw to the alien familiarity of London. I opted instead for the teaching-English-as-a-Foreign-Languish route, believing it to be part of the Joycean/ Beckettian apprenticeship protocol of exile, introspection, and creation. What was to be one year in the Under the Volcano–like world of Puertollano on the plains of Castilla La Mancha turned into six. Franco in his paranoia had built an oi...

Inspiration Vs. Perspiration

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 10:15:17 +0100

…what the author actually looks like.

The ideas themselves, of course, usually come through a flash of inspiration. It’s what we do with the ideas, though, that matters, and that’s where the perspiration comes in. I remember reading a writer talking about how people would often come to him with an idea for a novel, saying that he should write it and they’d both be rich. Ideas are ten a penny, he would tell them; it’s what you do with the idea that’s important. So, aft...

Becoming a Writer with Orna Ross

Mon, 16 May 2011 12:46:54 +0100

That writing has to be, or become, more important to you than at least two of the following: money, family, friends, TV/web.

That you’ve got to have principles and practices that cocoon and strengthen your inner self, keeping it safe from the buffeting of outer distractions.

That publication can be one of the noisiest of those distractions.

Becoming A Writer.

As you forge your connection to the act of writing, you will find yourself making vows: “I’m going to write every day”; “I�...

So You Want to be a Writer, eh?

Thu, 12 May 2011 07:16:41 +0100

In 2000, his short story "Uneven Ground" was selected to appear in Seekers, a school textbook published by the Educational Company of Ireland. He has also written and performed plays for stage and radio and his work has been translated into French, German, Italian, Swedish and Polish.

So as a writer who has juggled a full time job with learning a whole new skill set, AND writing, and who has gone, not only to be published in multiple languages but who has also crossed genre, he is very well qual...

The Seven Stages of Creativity: Part 7 Completion

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 13:28:52 +0100

All necessary, all just as it should be. But some writers get lost at this point. The German writer, Thomas Mann, once said, “A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people” and this stage is no exception.

As the end approaches - the end of the book and the end of the book in your life - it is easy to let unacknowledged anxiety about the quality of the work, or the reception of the book by the outer world, derail the process. To move into endless tinker...

Michael Carroll: Get Writing!

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 09:18:54 +0100

Can't think of any ideas?

Really? You're a human being and you can't think of any ideas? Rubbish! Of course you can. Ever told a lie? That's fiction. Ever found yourself wondering "What would happen if...?" That's also fiction. Remember the other day when you were expecting an argument with someone and in advance you ran the conversation in your head so that you'd be more prepared? "If he says this, then I'll say that..."

You want ideas? Look around you. Read the newspapers. Talk to your friend...

The Seven Stages of Creativity: Week 6 Clarification

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:52:13 +0100

The good news is that this next stage of the challenge is one that you can seek help from others with. During intention, incubation and deepening, writing is more art than craft and you’re largely on your own, trying to give expression to what is uniquely you. In the editing phase, the balance shifts. The techniques of this craft can be more easily transmitted and learned than the vagaries of art.

Like stage five, this phase of the writing process is characterised by deep attention to your own...

The Seven Stages of Creativity: Week 5 Amplification - Deepening

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 23:27:08 +0100

All this is good. Editing is what separates professional writers from amateurs, hacks from artists. But so does deepening. Before you start on cutting and curing (phase six activities), you first need to amplify what the draft is saying.

Writing the first draft has been an excavational activity. Much of the time you’ve been finding out what you think and what you’re writing about. In the deepening draft, you think about how you can enlarge upon, elaborate, add to, supplem...

The Seven Stages of Creativity Week 4: Composition (Drafting)

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 21:50:37 +0100

Good writing is fed by bursts of inspiration but equally by slow, steady, painstaking work. The pace of creation is generally slower than we, as writers, want it to be - and the more ambitious the creation, the slower the pace.

Add to that the challenge that few of us know what we are doing until we've done it. Your conscious mind has some idea about what it is trying to create but as we discussed in Part One, our minds operate at three levels, much of which is obscured or denied. I...

The Seven Stages of Creativity Week 3: Investigation (Capturing)

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 21:54:31 +0100

You know, however, that you are moving into the stage that is primarily about investigation when incubation (stage two) of your intention (stage one) is beginning to settle into some non-negotiables.

You have come to realize, for example, just how your hero will be punished to teach her the error of her ways. Or how there simply has to be a battle scene three-quarters way through. Or that the book will be short, no more than 70 pages.

Whatever limitation is setting in, it forms a n...

The Seven Stages of Creativity: Week 2 Incubation

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 13:13:28 +0100

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has given us a wonderful insight to what he needed to encourage this most enigmatic stage of the process: 'When I am… completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer — say, travelling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly.

'Whence and how they come, I know not; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory…[and] if I c...

The Seven Stages of Creativity: Week 1 Intention

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 22:05:02 +0100

With conscious creation, knowing which stage of the process we’re in allows us to follow the right steps at the right time — and enjoy the dance.

The Seven Stages of The Creative Process are: Intending -> Incubating -> Investigating -> Composing -> Deepening -> Completing -> Going Public.

These stages are not mutually exclusive, as implied by separating and laying them out in a list like this. In practice, they weave around each other in an interactive dance but isolating each stage is...

Achieving Your Goals

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 21:49:17 +0100

I wanted more then anything to sign a publishing contract. I’d finished my first book, but at that stage I had no offers and no agent. However, I did have a feeling that 2009 was going to be a good year. So I would read that sentence to myself almost every day. It’s true what the say, a goal not written is only a wish. Writing it down made it seem more attainable. Months went by, but still I had no offers. Then on November 20^th 2009, on my 23^rd birthday, I signed a two-book deal wit...

Rose Doyle's 10 Step Plan

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:23:04 +0100

Day 1:

Write one sentence summarising what the book is about.

Day 2:

Jot down the characteristics/name/age and relationships of your major characters and repeat for the minor characters.

Day 3:

Note the location and settings that will feature in your novel.

Day 4:

Define your character’s goals – set up the plot and create tension.

Every character needs something hard to get.

Day 5:

List the obstacles that prevent the main characters from what they want. These could be psychological,...

Starting Your Journey with Mary Malone

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 22:50:39 +0100

What I’ve briefly described is my winding way of writing a novel. Every author follows their own path, some planned with ‘Satellite Navigation’ and others (like me) make it up as they go along - literally!

WHERE DO IDEAS COME FROM?

Stephen King’s ‘the boys in the basement’ theory suggests that most writing is done in the subconscious by unseen helpers. From experience, I’ve come to believe this. I have allowed my imagination the freedom to develop the story and have given the char...

How to Encourage Your Inner Author

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 21:04:55 +0100

The process of writing will reveal what sort of writer you are. What are the ideas, situations and feelings you feel drawn to exploring? What do you want to share? What do you want to know? Writing can be a great teacher. The saying ‘a writer writes many a thought he didn’t know he had’ is absolutely true. You can find yourself gaining precious insights into your characters as you spend time with them. Let them guide you.

If you decide to show your work to someone, only share it with someo...