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    Writing courses, free resources and webinars, and developmental editing Writing courses, free resources and webinars, and developmental editing
    • Home
    • Mentoring
    • Retreats
      • Venice Writing Retreat
      • Stow-on-the-Wold Writing Weekend
      • Karoo Writing Retreat | Memoir & Fiction Getaway in South Africa
    • Courses
    • Resources
      • Free offerings for writers
      • Downloadable writing resources
      • Blog
    • About
      • About Us
      • Testimonials
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    Archives

    Monthly Archive for: "November, 2019"
     Black Friday Special: 40% off all online courses for today only
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    By All About Writing
    In Promotions
    Posted November 29, 2019

    Black Friday Special: 40% off all online courses for today only

    Black Friday Special: 40% off all online courses for today only To recognize Black Friday, we’ve got an extra-special, once-off sale on. Receive 40% off any of our online courses (including [...]

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     Writing Secrets: Let the clues fall lightly
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    By Jo-Anne Richards
    In Jo-Anne Richard's blog, Tips for Writers
    Posted November 27, 2019

    Writing Secrets: Let the clues fall lightly

    A woman in her late 40s has lived for some time entirely alone in a forest hut as a conservation ranger. A man travels through her area of the forest, one she is ambivalent about, but is [...]

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     Monday Motivation: Seek to be honest, seek to be truthful
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    By Richard Beynon
    In Monday Motivation, Richard Beynon's blog
    Posted November 25, 2019

    Monday Motivation: Seek to be honest, seek to be truthful

    The world, our institutions, and our so-called opinion-makers, speak a great deal about facts v. fiction, about fake news v. the truth. But where does the writer of fiction stand when it comes to [...]

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     Got any story ideas? Join us for a free webinar on brainstorming
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    By Richard Beynon
    In Webinars
    Posted November 21, 2019

    Got any story ideas? Join us for a free webinar on brainstorming

      Brainstorm? Good idea? Join us on a free webinar We are committed to giving as much value as we can, and as many free offerings as we can manage. So, here are the details of our latest [...]

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     Writing Secrets: We like a little bad – but not too much
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    By Jo-Anne Richards
    In Jo-Anne Richard's blog, Tips for Writers
    Posted November 20, 2019

    Writing Secrets: We like a little bad – but not too much

    We were recently approached for help with a writing project in which the writer wished her sole protagonist to be a true psychopath, who enjoyed killing. I’m not saying this hasn’t been done, but [...]

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    By Jo-Anne Richards
    In Invitations
    Posted November 19, 2019

    Join us for breakfast and some literary fun at Casa Labia on Saturday 7 December

    The creative writing workshop will be of equal benefit to more experienced writers wanting to augment their skills, and to those with no experience at all, who are looking for a place to start.

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     Monday Motivation: This is how stories begin…
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    By Richard Beynon
    In Monday Motivation, Richard Beynon's blog
    Posted November 18, 2019

    Monday Motivation: This is how stories begin…

    In the spirit of innovation and invention, let’s devote the next five minutes – yes, while it might take me an hour or two to compose these little missives, that’s all it takes for you to gobble [...]

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     Writing Secrets: The humbling lessons we learn from writing
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    By Jo-Anne Richards
    In Jo-Anne Richard's blog, Tips for Writers
    Posted November 13, 2019

    Writing Secrets: The humbling lessons we learn from writing

    Writing can teach you as much about yourself as it can about the craft. Over the past weeks, I’ve been sharing with you the advice of a few of our mentoring participants – those who are writing a [...]

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     Monday Motivation: Story is alive and well on the small screen
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    By Richard Beynon
    In Monday Motivation, Richard Beynon's blog
    Posted November 11, 2019

    Monday Motivation: Story is alive and well on the small screen

    Of course, we’re all members of the box-set society. No social gathering passes these days without someone asking for recommendations about the latest, or the best, or the overlooked gems of [...]

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     November Newsletter: Write your way to a more creative life
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    By Richard Beynon
    In All About Writing, Newsletters
    Posted November 7, 2019

    November Newsletter: Write your way to a more creative life

      Write your way to a more creative life Today we launch our schedule of courses for 2020. They range from our mentoring programme to a Venetian retreat; from an introduction to creative [...]

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     Writing Secrets: A little bridge over all that mud
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    By Jo-Anne Richards
    In Jo-Anne Richard's blog, Tips for Writers
    Posted November 6, 2019

    Writing Secrets: A little bridge over all that mud

    The middle can be the most daunting part of the book to push through. The beginning rushes out after you’ve been thinking about your story for months. But the middle is where writers get stuck, [...]

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     Monday Motivation: Read like a writer, write like a champ
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    By Richard Beynon
    In Monday Motivation, Richard Beynon's blog
    Posted November 4, 2019

    Monday Motivation: Read like a writer, write like a champ

    Writing can be hard. When you set out to write a scene, you are conjuring into existence circumstances, characters, actions and dialogue that you have never, in life, precisely encountered [...]

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    📚🎉 Community books to celebrate 🎉📚 We 📚🎉 Community books to celebrate 🎉📚
We could burst with pride. We have a swathe of books coming out from members of our community right now. These are all authors who either attended our Creative Writing Course, were part of our mentoring programme, joined our Venice retreat or received assessments and advice from AAW (or a combination).

They’re part of the AAW family, and we are thrilled to celebrate this monumental achievement along with them. 

📚Gail Gilbride: An Unsuitable Woman (Karavan Press)​
Gail Gilbride's much-awaited second novel follows Deborah Morsey, a journalist shaped by the traumatic realities of apartheid South Africa, who finds unexpected love with a widowed sheep farmer and attempts to reinvent herself as a farmer's wife and stepmother. But secrets surrounding the death of his first wife, and the reappearance of a human rights lawyer, make her question everything, and ensure that the quiet life she hoped for remains elusive. A bold, warm-hearted exploration of love in all its confusing forms.

📚Mona McAlpine: A Shetland Girl: Memoirs from the Shetland Isles (Lomond Books)​
The third volume in Mona McAlpine's Shetland trilogy takes her from a childhood in Shetland through nursing training in Elgin, Stirling, London's Chiswick and Glasgow's Gorbals, and back to a career as a nurse and midwife in Shetland, Fair Isle, Edinburgh - and South Africa. Told with the warmth and charm that have made her previous memoirs so beloved, this is a life fully and generously lived. 

📚Vincent Pienaar: Crimes of Indifference
Veteran journalist Vincent Pienaar brings his sharp eye for South African social reality to this compelling crime novel. When journalist Gerrie Carelse is killed during a house robbery - a man meant to be forgotten - Detective Sergeant Piet Masipa refuses to let the case die. In a city shaped by quiet compromise and moral fatigue, Masipa must ultimately choose between the law and justice. Gripping and morally serious. 

CONTINUED IN COMMENTS.
    Richard asks, who do you write for? In his newslet Richard asks, who do you write for? In his newsletter this week, he delves into the various audiences, plus shares some advice from Mr King himself on why you should write with the door closed (don't worry, you can open it later.) Let us know in the comments who you're writing for when you sit down to craft your stories.

Uncover more in this week’s newsletter and if you don’t yet subscribe - visit our link in bio.

#iamwriting #allaboutwriting #writingcommunity #writingmotivation
    We pick up on our conversation about observation, We pick up on our conversation about observation, this time with @joannerichardsauthor . She takes us beneath the water for some writing advice in her blog: 

"Snorkelling in a new environment is like writing a new setting – it affects what you focus on. It has its advantages, but it has dangers too, to watch out for... if you’re writing about a new place, be aware that you’re not seeing it as a local would. Use that naïve eye to notice all the concrete details that locals take for granted. Don’t discount the beauty of the damsel fish, merely because they’re everywhere. But that shouldn’t be where your focus begins and ends. That way lies stereotype.

Dive deeper, look further, stick your head inside that wreck and find out what lies below. That’s where good writing hides."

Read more on our blog at www.allaboutwritingcourses.com
    ‘This is a story of love rather than a love stor ‘This is a story of love rather than a love story,’ Gail Gilbride said at the packed launch of her new novel, An Unsuitable Woman, at Exclusive Books in Cape Town last night. ‘It’s an exploration of love, and different kinds of love.’

We’re immensely proud of Gail, a long-time member of the All About Writing family, alumnus of our Creative Writing Course, our mentoring programme and our Venice Writing Retreat.

In fact, Gail began this novel in Venice, nearly 10 years ago. In the intervening years, she turned to memoir to tell the story of her treatment and recovery from breast cancer, in Cat Therapy, before returning to the story that wouldn’t let her go.

The story is set in Grahamstown, in the Eastern Cape, now Makhanda, which holds a ‘very special place in my heart’. The time is 1990, a period of turmoil and transition in South Africa, and which forms the backdrop to Gail’s character-driven second novel.

On the night of her launch, her book was already at number 3 on the Cavendish Best Sellers shelf. We wish Gail every success.

💡📚 All About Writing will be hosting Gail, in conversation with author Penny Haw, on our free monthly webinar on 7 December. Don’t miss it. 

#allaboutwriting #writingalumni #writingcommunit #gailgilbride
    What goes on off stage when cozy mystery writers a What goes on off stage when cozy mystery writers are at work?
Join us for a fun online conversation about what goes on behind the scenes.

On Monday 26 October Richard (wearing his RJ Beynon hat) will be in conversation with Jassy Mackenzie, who now writes cozy mysteries as Emma Park, about what goes on behind the scenes when they're at work. They'll talk about where their ideas come from, how they build the small worlds their characters live in, and how they devise the puzzles that keep readers guessing. Jassy made her name with crime thrillers before trading them for vampire hairdressers and rogue donkeys, so they’ll be asking her what that change of genre has taught her.

You’ll be invited to ask your most burning questions too.
Monday 26 October

10:00 US Pacific | 13:00 US Eastern | 17:00 UK | 19:00 South Africa
**Free on Zoom** Sign up via LINK IN BIO

Can't make it? No problem; we'll send the recording to everyone who registers.
    🔍 Observation Challenge 🔍 This week's writi 🔍 Observation Challenge 🔍

This week's writing motivation newsletter involves a challenge. We invite you to join in, and then send us your creative piece. Maybe we should put together a blog of some of the submissions? What do you think? 

So here is your challenge: Take a break from your writing and go on a walk you do often: to the shops, round the park, the same route with the dog. This time, go looking for what has changed since you last did it. A new crack in the pavement. A tree that's started to turn. A shop sign that's faded. Write a paragraph about them and post it in the comments. We'd love to read what you found.

#creativewriting #writingcommunity #writingchallenge
    It’s the final step on our conversation on James It’s the final step on our conversation on James Webb Young’s ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas.’ 

Step 5:
Very cunningly, I’ve foreshadowed this final step. Fix it, dear Henry, fix it. Or, as James Clear, (author of Atomic Habits) in a blog on creativity had it: 'Put your idea out into the world, submit it to criticism, and adapt it as needed.'

It's worth saying plainly: none of this is mystical. Young wasn't describing inspiration, he was describing digestion – you feed the mind raw material, let it marinate, and it comes back rearranged. The gap most writers get wrong is Step 3. We treat the walk, the weeding, the washing-up as time stolen from the work, when it's actually where the work is quietly getting done without the apparent involvement of our conscious minds.

So if you're stuck on a plot that won't cohere or a character who refuses to breathe, try trusting the method rather than the muse: load up on facts, worry them for a while, then go and do something that has nothing to do with writing at all. The idea that turns up afterwards won't arrive polished. That's fine. Fixing it was always Step 5, not Step 4.

#WritingCraft #WritingTips #AllAboutWriting #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #WritingMotivation #FictionWriting #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice
    We continue our conversation on James Webb Young’s ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas.’ His system involves five steps. Let’s look at number four.

Step 4:
Now allow your mind to reconsider the problem – the story that needs a great inciting incident; the character that simply isn’t gelling; the ending that is unsatisfactory – and you’ll find, nine times out of ten, that you do now have an idea. It might not be perfect, in fact it might feel quite rickety – but what you’ll do in Step 5, is fix it. Stay tuned for the last step!

#WritingCraft #WritingTips #AllAboutWriting #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #WritingMotivation #FictionWriting #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice
    We continue our conversation on James Webb Young’s ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas.’ His system involves five steps. Let’s look at number three.

Step 3:
Go and work in the garden, or spend an hour or two pottering about in your workshop, or go for a long walk in an area you’ve not visited before. In short, put the problem you’re trying to solve completely out of your mind and do something entirely different that fascinates and energises you.

#WritingCraft #WritingTips #AllAboutWriting #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #WritingMotivation #FictionWriting #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice
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