Upcoming etc Why is upcoming such an ugly word? It almost seems Chaucerian, but not. I used to believe it was one of the nastiest words in the English language, but now its place of loathing in my heart has been replaced by the hideous phrase ‘going forward’. What does it even mean? I think […]

Identification, writing and empathyFollowing on from my last post, and having emailed to and fro with a couple of wonderful writers who are either languishing or writhing in the throes of the issue of ‘am I writing like me, or am I writing like somebody else’ (and they know who they are and which of […]

What do you want for Christmas? Fame, fortune, a three book deal? Francis Ford Coppola to option the film rights to your as yet unpublished novel? Well join the queue! Actually, all those desires boil down to the same thing – you want to be published, to have your work read. And if that’s what […]

The insatiable desire to peer through windows … Over the past five years, I’ve come to pride myself on my instinct about fiction writers. I can’t tell who’s going to be a best seller or a dud, but what I can tell, with a reasonable degree of certainty, is which writers will be around in […]

Posted by on Jun 24, 2008 in advice for writers, editing | 6 Comments

What advice would you give to writers? That’s what somebody asked me on Sunday, and I’ve been thinking about it since then. 1. Don’t listen to advice – that’s the first thing I’d say. If I’d been given any advice before I launched into what people now call my writing ‘career’ (which makes me laugh: […]