She Kills Unable to forget about her rescuer André Warner, Liza Power sets off to France to find him. But Warner’s home in Andorra is vacant and his boat is now occupied by a couple of dubious-looking characters. And to make matters worse, Liza’s movements attract attention that puts her mission in jeopardy – with…
Category: Technique
Book Covers, Book Reviews, Books, Characters, Children's Books, design, Editing, Horror, Indie Authors, Interview, Ken Stark, Paranormal, Social Media, Technique, Teen & Young Adult, Writing, Young Adult
Indie Author Interview – Ken Stark
Canadian-born author Ken Stark grew up on a diet on comic books and disaster movies so it’s no surprise that he ended up writing horror novels. Dig in for a scary ride… You are known mainly for writing horror, so what scares you? Not much, actually. I can imagine myself getting scared in certain situations,…
Standing with Hemingway
What’s that you say – you wanna stand up to write? Some years ago, I hosted a writing course called Stand Up and Write. I forget why I worded it that way, since the course was certainly not about standing up to write, however, this post is about that very activity. Ernest Hemingway apparently had…
‘She Receives the Night’ by Robert Earle
She Receives the Night Short story collections are often used to display a writer’s range of skills – whether in dialogue and description, or in their ability to handle a variety of different writing styles and genres. On the other hand, such collections can equally present a handful of the crap at the bottom of…
How to Be a Crap Writer (Part 2)
In my previous post on the topic of being a crap writer, I looked at ways of identifying those among us who are not literary greats, and how those writers might justify churning out dross. This time, I’m interested in the kinds of basic errors many people seem to make between the title and the…
How to Be a Crap Writer
Back in April 2016, I started writing reviews of the books I read. This prompted me to look at adding a bit more variety to my reading habits. Now, that doesn’t mean I was suddenly going to start perusing the sort of books I wouldn’t normally touch with a barge pole, just one or two…
The Something of the Some Thing Thing…
Why ‘something’ is my favourite word. Writing can be a choosy business – choosing which direction to take with the plot, choosing the settings, atmosphere and time of day, and (my favourite) choosing who to kill off, push down the stairs or throw into bed with the leading lady. But choosing which word to use…
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Word…
Way back at the end of 2013 I posted a short piece celebrating finishing my second novel. It went something like this: And the last line is finally on the page! The Architect’s Apprentice is finished and the bad guys are finally unmasked. Course, there are still questions, leaving plenty of scope for a follow…
Stand Up and Write!
Some years ago, I hosted a writing course with the above title. I forget why I worded it this way, since the course was certainly not about standing up to write, however, this post is about that very activity – writing standing up. Ernest Hemingway famously wrote standing up. Even though he apparently had a ‘tower workroom’ which…
Hitting the Blyton Target
Continuing my ramblings about deadlines (and strange references to Enid Blyton), I decided to try something new today – setting a daily target. This radical idea was also prompted by a couple of points I saw in a list of writers’ tips on Book Baby’s Blog. Two of them got me thinking: Don’t edit as…
