I’m not one of those writers who sit down and write a story from beginning to end. All three of my novels have started with scattered notes about ideas or visuals and random half-completed chapters littering my inbox. So, the first thing to do is put everything in one place. I remember attending an interview…
Firstly, you need to rearrange your ideas regarding time and, probably, writing. You do not need a dedicated and allotted time to write a book. Nice, you bet, but not necessary for completion. The idea that you need a particular place and a certain amount of daily writing will keep you from starting. It automatically…
I was recently asked this question and thought it might be helpful if I addressed it in my weekly blog. There isn’t a hard and fast rule to laying out a book of poetry, but there are a few considerations to consider. Formatting works like sentence structure in that it directs a reader, so genuine…
It is difficult to return to creative work after any length of the interruption. I’ve left projects for ten hours, ten days, ten years, and upon each return, I have felt acute anxiety at having left my intentions unfinished. A fear that I’ve internalized as meaning that I, too, have remained unfinished, which is an…
Why You Should You Cut Your First Chapter.
I know it’s daunting but trust me.
It takes a while to get into voice and tone. It’s like running before the endorphins hit. You have to write yourself and your characters into realization through crafting; that’s a multi-faced exchange. This takes training.
When to Cut a Character? Even if you have finished a draft!
Do I know Enough to Write this Book? (Internal Voice)
When a small press editor reads a book submission, they consider the impact the book might have on the world first, then how to reach as many people as possible with the message.
Short talks to inspire writing To generate ideas, do all the obvious things, such as reading, looking, and listening, but you already know that, so try leaving the house as a spy. I’m serious. Spying is not just listening and watching. It’s espionage which places one in an entirely different frame of mind, where everything…
Short talks to inspire writing “An artist’s job is to articulate what might otherwise be incoherent.” Nancy Spero My love affair with the artist Nancy Spero is recent and on point with my psychological, therefore artistic, development. Recently, I’ve begun experimenting with imagery alongside text because I’ve found that, increasingly, the topics I want to…
Research and write in batches of time if you want to increase your writing diversity and become prolific. This means choosing a weekly slot of time (I batch on a Wednesday from 8 am to lunch) and placing multiple documents on the screen, an article, poem, manuscript, blog, script, or whatever you’re working on, and…
Before You Edit Your First Draft… Read. Read. Read. I choose three books to study after completing the first draft. One is similar in genre and plot, another is similar in tone, and a third is completely different but linked by a particular subject. For instance, I read A Convergence of Birds by Jonathan Safran Foer after finishing…
Today is International Women’s Day. It is also the day that children in the UK are able to go back to school after roughly a year in lockdown home-schooling. I don’t think it’s a wild stretch to say that women have felt the brunt of life in lockdown more than men. In fact, we’ve held…
Occasionally, I am asked why I run Backlash Press. It’s a fair question and, truth be told, one that I have wondered myself sometimes…
To engage in creativity is to extend yourself as an active witness of your own truth.
It may seem counterintuitive, but the best way to see something is from a distance.
To speak, through words or image, is to activate. Very soon, you’ll go from working alone to belonging to a social movement. It’s powerful.
A Helpful 5 minutes.
Here are some things you should consider before you choose and why.
Darren C. Demaree Reads Unfinished Murder Ballads at Secret Studio!
Learning to draw the space around shapes is learning how to write the actions around an emotion.
Illustrator of ‘The Life in The Sky Comes Down’
Deep breath…
Outside the leaves were spinning in the morning sun
After all, most people have the ability to be emotional; artists tend to be hyper-emotional, but it’s the special ability to observe though emotion that creates a writer.
