Category: Blog

I remember the gist of what I’ve written in the first draft, over three books, but by the time I get around to editing something, it might be a year or more since I wrote it. This means I’ve usually forgotten the details, and it’s almost like reading and editing someone else’s work. This is…

‘Bit’ and ‘just’ are two narrative components that have hit the cutting room floor, so to speak, in the editing process. I must use them in my own thought processes, because they both featured quite regularly, in draft #1. Zoe was just devastated. She cried a bit. Then she just smiled, etcetera. (No commas.) It’s…

Something happens, when I’m writing. I didn’t understand it, for many years, but now I know that this is because a different, more creative part of my brain is driving the process than the one I need for more drudging tasks, like editing. In order to activate that creative part of my brain, (I wish…

In a word, no. Okay, there are big similarities. I can see why the question would be asked. We’re both middle aged, both mothers. Yes, we both home educated our children. Is that it? Er, no. There’s more. We both live in a Northern town, we’re both interested in History… We both want to see…

I think I’ve spent about 400 hours on this trilogy, so far. I’ll spend many more on getting it published and then selling it. I guess that’s only the equivalent of ten weeks, though, at a full-time job. I certainly haven’t been working on it full-time and – other commitments being what they are –…

I wrote draft #1 without much thought about grammar, punctuation or – most especially – commas and abbreviations. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but we tend not to use them much in speech nowadays. We can cheerfully write whole sentences and paragraphs without feeling the need to invoke that little item divider at all.…

My History Maps books have two distinct voices, outside of the characters’ spoken words. The narrative voice tells you what’s happening, and the contemplative voice – usually in italics – contains some of Zoe’s thoughts, word for word. But it was not ever thus. The first draft was far more messy, because I was writing…

Reaching a certain, nit-picking stage in editing the book, I realise I should be blogging around now, if not, six months ago. Well actually, three years ago. But, as I didn’t then, it has to be now. To host a blog, you need a website and I didn’t have one. The decision to get one…