I was recently asked to answer some questions on my experience of novel-writing by a creative writing student from the University of the Highlands and Islands. Of course, I was happy to oblige – and thought I would share the interview here for anyone who would like to find out more. Read on for tips…
Read More
If, like me, you self-published your first novel during the pandemic, you might be wondering how on earth to go about promoting it. With bookshops – and indeed most places – still shut due to lockdown, it may not feel like the ideal time to be attracting new readers to your book. Thankfully, there are…
Read More
If you were reading last week, you’ll know that I’m soon to publish my first novel, a Young Adult fantasy inspired by the folklore of my home county, Caithness. I’ll be sharing more details on the story soon, but for now, I wanted to share a little on why I was inspired to write the…
Read More
We are now entering week five of lockdown here in the UK (at least I think it’s week five – it could actually be week four, or six, and I’d currently be none the wiser). The days and weeks are melting into one somewhat, and a sense of routine is becoming ever more important –…
Read More
At this point in December I like to emerge from my turkey-induced fog and write a few words to usher out the year that’s leaving us. Of course, this year, we’re ushering out a whole decade, and I’m excited about what’s to come in the ‘twenties’ (not least because we’ll finally have a decade we…
Read More
The last few weeks have been very busy here in wellies, with both our kids’ birthdays, a weekend away, a Harry Potter sleepover and of course most recently Mother’s Day. It’s also been a busy time on the writing front, and I’ve managed to reach 70,000 words on the second draft of my book, and…
Read More
Last week I wrote here about the very basics of setting a blog up, with a promise to return this week with some answers to questions that people commonly ask me when they find out I write stuff on the Internet. As I mentioned last time, this is also good preparation for me as I prepare to talk…
Read More
Whenever I start to write a post like this I find myself grappling with the same internal monologue: who am I to tell anybody anything? After all, I’m just a small-time blogger with a modest readership – who would want to read a list of blogging tips from me? But then I remember something I heard…
Read More
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions in January, instead preferring to make small, incremental changes whenever things need changing. Last week I wrote about making time for self care, and the number of comments and messages I received in response indicated that a lot of you reading have been through similar experiences of your own. This week,…
Read More
November has well and truly left the building, but I really didn’t want to miss out on this year’s final Little Loves. I have a few things I’d like to share before 2018 sneaks off and leaves us, and besides, what’s a day (or 6 for that matter 😉 ) between friends? November was a…
Read More