A favourite “how to” title & other stuff

Wednesday, 15 February 2012, 15:38 | Category : fairy tales, movies, Stuff, writing
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Rambling blogpost warning! A bit of a promo for one of my fave “how to” titles: From Amazon’s description it says: Learn what a young adult novel is, how to write young adult fiction, how to get it published, and how to promote it. This title covers writing for young adults from start to finish: [...]

Creativity

Wednesday, 8 February 2012, 14:02 | Category : Stuff, writing
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A friend of mine, Graham Marks, recently told me about these TED lectures that someone sent him the link to and how interesting some of them are. We were speaking about writing and creativity and interesting subjects and research and such.  I watched a few since then and they are genuinely interesting.  Randomly I followed [...]

Motivation Masterclass

Tuesday, 7 February 2012, 15:37 | Category : SCBWI, writing
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On Saturday, 4th Feb, I attended the Motivation Masterclass: Staying Motivated and Beating Procrastination All Year Long by Bekki Hill hosted by SCBWI British Isles. There were many familiar faces, but also some new faces, which was exciting. We all settled in at the Bullfrog, our usual haunt and chatted whilst Bekki set up her [...]

The End? Or just the beginning, again?

Tuesday, 31 January 2012, 22:46 | Category : fairy tales, Stuff, writing
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A few things.  I’m a Neil Gaiman fan.  I know, who would have thought it.  But last year I spent a bit of money and got myself a copy of his Adventures in the Dream Trade, mostly because I remember it had some great poems in it. And there is a poem he call’s A [...]

Gifts for Writers

Tuesday, 13 December 2011, 15:03 | Category : Journals, Stuff, writing
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I have been thinking about doing a blogpost about this for a little while now and so I thought what with Yule being a mere snowball’s throw away, I’d go ahead and do it. Writers are really fun people to buy for.  I have several writerly friends and enjoy buying things for them.  Personal things [...]

Undiscovered Voices 2012 – The Shortlist

Monday, 5 December 2011, 11:54 | Category : writing
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Sadly, I am not on the shortlist for this year’s Undiscovered Voices.  HOWEVER, two really good friends of mine are, so eventhough I was upset for maybe a day, I can’t help but be excited and over the moon for them.  Here is the list – I am so proud of them! Some I know [...]

Thoughtbubble and Leeds

Tuesday, 29 November 2011, 19:11 | Category : Stuff, Uncategorized, writing
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I wrote this blogpost and completely forgot to set it “live”.  Sigh.  Where is my head? Wow, what a fab weekend.  Mark and I trained it up to Leeds and it all went so well.  Got to write and edit for just over 2 hours, so that was superb.  Also, first class travel was super.  [...]

I am on the UV Longlist!

Monday, 17 October 2011, 15:17 | Category : writing
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that is actually the short list… A great swathe of SCBWI British Isles members were watching the internet in panic this morning as the chosen UV list was due to be announced.  I know, I checked at half past six this morning, over breakfast! And then news broke on Twitter.  And it is fantastic news [...]

Some random things I have thought about today

Thursday, 13 October 2011, 15:46 | Category : movies, writing
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In my daily wanderings I always come across some utterly cool articles and comments by people I follow on Twitter and via my RSS feed.  And I really should make more work of it to pass along bits of cool things I find on my site and not just on Twitter. 2012 will be a busy year [...]

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark

Monday, 10 October 2011, 14:28 | Category : fairy tales, movies, writing
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Blackwood Manor from DBAOTD Mark and I watched DBAOTD yesterday.  And I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Probably more than I should have, as really it was a pretty standard script: 1. young girl travels to live her dad in a new home 2.  the dad has a new love interest. 3. the love interest has doubts [...]