I was talking to a writer recently who had set themselves the goal of writing ten words a day in 2021. That might seem like an odd goal to have (“Ten words is a sentence or two! It adds up to about one chapter a year! Why not be more ambitious?”) but we talked [...]
All that time, all that effort, all that blood, sweat and tears. Make sure it’s not wasted. A few simple changes can transform your first novel writing experience from failure to success.
Chapter one is where your reader decides if they’ll keep reading, or put your book down and move onto something else.
(And what to do about it.) There is no two ways about it: writing a novel is a mammoth task that, if you decide to undertake it, is going to consume a significant amount of your waking hours (unless you’re John Boyne). Even so, persistence should eventually bring you to the point where you’re [...]
Sharing your writing with others and asking for their feedback is daunting at the best of times, but if you want to improve your skills as a writer, it is hands down one of the most useful things you’ll ever do. Receiving a critique of your work, even when you have asked for one, [...]
Tell us a little bit about yourself My background is in education, and I’ve been a historian for twenty-odd years. I have lived in Auckland for almost a year now, but I’ve been in New Zealand for four years. When I started writing, I started with speculative fiction and science fiction, all sorts of [...]
Tell us a little bit about yourself I live in west Auckland with my grown-up (mostly!) son and my ginger-and-white feline overlord, Fang. I currently wear my hair in a Mohawk cut (‘cos why not?) and for my fiftieth birthday, I decided to have my eyebrow pierced. I am not known for my brilliant [...]
Tell us a little bit about yourself Generally I don’t like to talk about myself all that much! I have been a dweller of the Auckland suburbs my entire life. Writing, however, is something I haven’t been doing my entire life. I think my first attempts at writing (outside of forced schoolwork) were fan [...]