So the outcome of my talk with Saga Fiction Publishers, is that they don’t have the marketing strength to take on my books. AKA I don’t have a large enough social media presence. We also realised that my fiction was for another demographic than they were focusing on. I have Read more…
First lines. Confused? May be we sweat a little too much about first impressions. There’s nothing to them. The best way to find them is often to write and a sentence will jump out at some stage. In other words, don’t worry about first lines until you’ve written the entire Read more…
A Friendship of Thistles … I’m clearly not focused on self-promotion, as my newest book was published in May and I haven’t posted here about it yet! I am also offering a fiction-related giveaway here. Or get your paperback/ebook copy here for the US, and here for the UK. The Read more…
Jodi Picoult, I love her writing. I was stopped in my tracks today by this humble sentence about a character’s eyes from Jodi Picoult’s The Book of Two Ways: “They made me think of the heart of a glacier, of how, even when you touch dry ice with your Read more…
Surprised I managed to finish it, what with juggling work and writing and some time for relaxation and mental health, but this month I read the above novel. And I am struck by the characterisation of The hippopotamus, and thus delved deeper into Stephen Fry’s writing psyche. But not Read more…
Post-Brexit, coronavirus, whatever the current political or global crisis writers keep writing. Don’t they? Not always. During 9/11 it has been noted that creativity took a nosedive… okay, I’m going to be honest here… I couldn’t find my original reference. Some years ago I read something related to something. Just Read more…
Cut these filler words to tighten your writing. Cut those words and still stuck? If you would like futher proofreading help get in touch. I can help you with a quick typo check, or more detailed grammar check. Who is Emma? Emma is a proofreader with 18 years of writing Read more…
Communication is a general phenomena. Wherever life exists, communication also exists. You cannot have human relation without communication. However, good and effective communication is essential not only for good human relations but also for excellent and successful business. If we talk about the professional world, what professionals do more than Read more…
From my experience, one of the best writers I have worked with was dyslexic. Yet, they doubted their own writing ability! Their ideas were clearly expressed, uniquely expressed, and while there were some errors in spelling and word selection… Wow! This person could write. So I wanted to share a Read more…
As someone who had been testing out Grammarly’s services for a few months, … nothing the company does could allay its true underlying problem: its services just aren’t that good. …many of the “fixes” in Grammarly’s advertisements are either unhelpful or actively wrong. For example, in the sentence, “Let’s suppose you’re Read more…