What’s Happening? How to be sure each chapter is moving your story forward

When it comes to novel writing, each scene is about moving the plot. Every chapter should play its part in keeping the story moving; be it through action, character progression, revelation, or added suspense/mystery. It can be tempting, when we love our characters, to fill in their backstory, fluffy side plots, or general information and…

6 Must Have Resources for Editing Your Novel

Editing is such a vital, and long, stage of the novel writing process. Personally, it's my favourite stage. I love turning my early words and ideas into something stronger. Without a doubt, there are some essentials tools and resources that I use to get me through. Take a look; Research toolsIn the draft stage, it's…

Ways to Reuse your Characters

Good morning creators of worlds! I hope you've all had a great week. Mine has been typically full of non-creative pursuits, but all things that needed doing. I'm hoping to kick start September with a bit more productivity! I hope it's going to be a great month for you all too. What're your goals? I…

World Building: Creating Maps

Good morning star gazers and explorers. I hope you've had a good week. This week I was feeling a little downhearted at times, so I took a look back at some of my old writing. It's helpful to see how far I've come at times like this. As I looked back, I found an old…

Creating Characters: Hobbies and Interests

Morning daydreamers, I hope you've all had a great week. I am still in the editing stages of novel 1 right now, but also using my down time to flesh out ideas for novel 2. I find this a more relaxing process, so it counts as down time and productivity all at once - perfect!…

Want to be a Writer? Embrace It!

Morning all, I hope you've had a week of smiles and stories. This week's blog post is focusing on something I've been thinking about a lot lately, and something I think other aspiring authors and unpublished writers should think about too. I've always worked full time, I've been in marketing for 10 years.  And I've spent many…

Creating Characters: Choosing Names

Good morning word warriors, I hope you're having a royally wonderful weekend. I seem to have a bit of a mini blog series going on about creating characters. Previously, I've discussed physical character traits and positive and negative personality traits. But today, I'm going to talk about choosing character names. Personally, choosing character names is…

5 Reasons to Print Out Your Work In Progress

Hello writers and good morning to you! I hope you've all had a great week. Last week I spoke about finishing the third draft of my novel, and with the third draft done I took to printing my work in progress out. Having this physical copy was important to me for the next stage of…

Novel Writing: Finishing the Third Draft

Good morning writers. I hope this week is treating you well. Recently, my writing has been on a role, so I'm pleased to say I have finished my third draft! When I say finished, what I really mean is, I have loads of notes, some chapters that need to be written from scratch and a…

World Building: Houses and Homes

Good morning writers and world builders. I hope you've all had a fantastic week. I wanted to spend some time this week focusing on world building, as I continue to work on my novel writing and piecing my story together. I've spoken a little about world building before, with blog posts on how to choose…