This very enjoyable Q&A took place on the last Friday of January. I’m archiving it here, but it’s also a pretty good FAQ for those new to A Writer’s Diary.
Tag Archives: novel
If you’d like to read everything in one go, here it is…
I wrote Lilian’s Spell Book to be a really gripping supernatural adventure story, a Chinese box of a haunted house mystery, and a study of a normal family in a very weird place. Here’s a plot summary: Lilian’s Spell Book is a paranormal adventure novel about an ordinary English family – mother, father, pre-teen […]
But right now a lot of people, and I’m guessing that includes you, are going to have a lot of spare time – or potentially spare time. You can use this positively. You can learn to do something you’ve always wanted to do. But I suspect that a lot of you are going to go back to the novel you’ve already dreamed about or half-started or abandoned midway.
You may have heard that I’ve written a novel called Patience, and that I started it over twelve and a half years ago – you may know this because, recently, I’ve been doing my social media dance to alert as many readers as possible to the fact it exists. Today, it exists. I realise that […]
The opening of the new novel: and the opening of the new novel: Until you have read this through, do not write in it. If you choose to do so thereafter, that is your own mistake. It was spooked England, all laid out below and invisibly rushing up towards one—thirty-two feet per […]
A while ago, I wrote a novel – a ghost story… Lilian’s Spell Book was written compulsively, under the power of the story, which was – at the same time – very complicated and very simple. I was hoping to publish it under a pseudonym – Alex Warden. And it went out to editors, […]
The first thing you need to write a novel is… Time. The second thing you need to write a novel is… More Time. And the third thing you need to write a novel is… Even More Time. This perhaps seems a bit obvious. But let me explain. Time, More Time and Even More Time are all necessary. […]
1. Don’t Bore Yourself When I’m starting a writing class, I usually emphasise that the most important thing in a first draft isn’t the idea, it isn’t the atmosphere, and it certainly isn’t the individual sentences. The most important thing in the first draft is excitement. If you write what you know are in-between bits, they will read as in-between […]
The first thing you need to write a novel is… Time. The second thing you need to write a novel is… More Time. And the third thing you need to write a novel is… Even More Time. This perhaps seems a bit obvious. But let me explain. Time, More Time and Even More Time […]
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