Sleeping Beauty Wakes Up

I feel like I've woken up, and I'm kind of mad at myself. I hadn't realised I'd fallen asleep. I started this blog because I love to write. It's my happy place. Yet after a while it became a place of apology, excuses why I wasn't the writer I thought I should be. Word count …

What to Get Your Writer For Christmas…

When it comes to buying gifts, getting into your writer's good books is easy. Forget trawling through endless book blurbs in the hope you will come across something they might like (trust me, if it's any good they've probably already downloaded it) - this is what they really want for Christmas: 1. Time Actually top …

The Best Writing Advice Ever

I know I've succumbed to hyperbole with this title - but I promise I'm not selling anything. *checks pockets* Nope all out of snake oil. But I would like to offer you a story today. A story - one of many that have been told around the tables of Cafe Novella during the course of …

Stories that Stick – A Word About Courage

Some stories just stay with you. It might be a moment in your life when you got a glimpse of something a little bit bigger than you. A poem or a lyric that struck a chord. A picture that stirred your soul. Or a conversation that changed the way you looked at the world. For …

A Plan So Cunning…

Right now I'm gearing up to participate in NaNoWriMo, the great November writing marathon where tales are spun upon gossamer threads, fingers develop calluses as tough as the sole of a hobbit's foot and stories are shaped and forged in the fire of imagination. You might think I've been spending this time warming up my …

To Thine Own Style Be True

In my post Writing the Ravine: A View from a Rope Bridge, I had in the back of my mind my own habit of writing in circles.  For me writing can be a slow and laborious process.  Right now I'm about to tip into the second act of my WIP and yet I've become bogged …

Writing the Ravine: A View From a Rope Bridge

Have you ever crossed a rope bridge? A really rickety one, not much more than a few pieces of rope strung across a drop of bone-breaking proportions? Living in New Zealand, I've had my fair share of encounters with these no-frills crossings - especially on school camps where they are deliberately built that way to …

When Writing Gets Hard – A Light For a Dark Place

Trust me; we all have days when we wonder what we're doing.  When we've read our work so many times it seems to blur on the page and we couldn't spot a spelling mistake in our name.  These are the days we need to dig deep, to remember why we thought we were writers at …

Injured in the Line of, er… Writing

There are a series of TV advertisements in NZ with the catch-phrase "Want Better Work Stories"?  Today I find I can relate, because this week I've been in a world of pain.  And the thing is, no matter how creative we like to think we are, there is no way to make an injury exacerbated …

A Case of the Wobbles

I read a lot of writing blogs, and craft books, and hope that I am on my way to becoming a good writer.  However this week I came across a blog that popped my fragile bubble of self-confidence and made me really doubt myself and my writing dream. The subject of this blog?  The first …