I’ve been struggling with writing again in the last few weeks. I may have been positive and upbeat in my last post, but once the rejections start rolling in and you read articles about how celebrity authors are shutting children’s authors out of their own trade you can very quickly feel like writing to get published is pointless. In fact, I’ve even decided that it’s not over-dramatic to compare the…
The great writer, David Almond, was the keynote speaker at the SCBWI Conference I went to this weekend. Until a couple of weeks ago I’d only heard from others that he was a great writer, but I discovered it for myself when I decided to do some conference prep and read “Skellig”. It shocked me. It was beautiful and magical, but it was ambiguous. What was real and what wasn’t? …
I never set out to write sci-fi/fantasy. I wouldn’t have thought of myself a particular fan of it and even now I’m nowhere near as voracious a reader of it as my 13yo. Nothing makes my eyes cross in confused boredom quicker than a book which starts with a random star-date and a place I’ve never heard of. Genre is a massive debate within the writing community (here‘s a long…
Mike Wilson via unsplash.comVoice. When you ask an agent or a publisher what’s the key thing they look for in a manuscript, they nearly always say voice. When pressed on what exactly that means, the answer is usually some version of “it’s hard to define, but I know it when I see/hear it”. Cue all writers dropping their heads into their hands and crying out “arghhhhh!”. The bottom line is that “voice” is…
What a year 2015 has been! If I’m honest, when it started I’d hoped to be further on in my writing journey than I currently am, but that’s because my expectations were unrealistic not because I haven’t worked hard or achieved loads. The main thing I’ve learnt is that every step on a writing journey takes a LOT longer than you think. When I look back to roughly a year ago – when…
Some of you may have noticed that I haven’t blogged for quite awhile! The reason for that isn’t because nothing’s been happening or I haven’t had anything to say (as if!), but because I’ve been questioning the point of this blog. When I first started blogging 3 years ago here on my old blog, the plan was to share my writing/publishing journey with family, friends and anyone else who was interested. …
Last week I crossed an important literary threshold – I went to the Hay Festival for the first time (twice)! If you love books and ideas then there probably isn’t a better place on the planet to spend time. While there I went to Radio 3’s recording of “The Essay” – three writers talking about “Why I Write” (the title of George Orwell’s 1946 essay). I confess I mostly went along…
Hi, I'm Mel (you figured that out already though, right?!) and this is where I chat about things that relate to and inspire my writing, as well as share some of it.