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In the final paragraph of his Origin of Species, Charles Darwin talks about the grandeur of nature in its many forms. He remarks on the fact that the complexity of […]

One of the most interesting of all writerly processes is how a story slowly – or sometimes quickly – takes shape. Here’s an evolution of a story. Trish and I […]

What’s your Monday Writing Motivation? And how does it fit in with paleontologists? Palaeontologists have discovered, in the scrolls of rock that constitute a unique repository of ancient [...]

Monday writing motivation. Here’s a thought: what are characters up to when they’re not active in your story? Remember, they’re not human beings. A human being is busy with all […]

Who is your best and wisest reader? Who is able to offer you the most cogent and practical advice in your quest to make your story as good as it […]

I’ve often celebrated the many gifts writing bestows on the writer: the sharpened eye, the joy that springs from creating something from nothing, the pleasures of devising the felicitous phrase, [...]

Introducing an episode of a series of short radio programmes recently, the presenter* said: “I’d like you to imagine strapping on a big eye mask. It completely covers your eyes. […]

Yes, of course literary conflict provides the driving impetus of all narrative. But from time to time every writer earns the right to indulge their desire simply to celebrate beauty […]

War talk is much in the air these days. We talk of “the war” in the way that our parents and grandparents must have referred, in their day, to “the […]

St Neots, a small town straddling the River Great Ouse a few locks down from Bedford, holds a market every Thursday in the town square. It was the site, in […]

I was paging idly through an old notebook this morning and came across a passage in my handwriting that will serve as the hinge of today’s piece. Yes, I frequently […]

I found myself embroiled in a conversation the other day about that most intractable of writers’ problems: getting published. It’s a fraught subject. Behind the question of publication, though, [...]