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A little Latin to perk us up: Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requires. Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. Of course you’ll all recognize this as one of Catullus’s most memorable [...]

Richard is on a much-deserved break, so here’s a re-post of one of our earlier Monday Motivations, from 2016. Doubt sits at the right hand of all writers. We spend a day at work, struggling [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Last week, and in the next couple, I am featuring the writing advice of our mentoring participants – those who are finishing a first draft, in the middle or who have recently begun.

I’ve sometimes stressed how important it is, in creating the world of story, to use accurate details. Accuracy is really important because it lends credibility even to situations that are, on the [...]

In our mentoring programme, we have a number of writers who are either just beginning, in the middle, finishing a first draft or working on a second. I asked a couple of them to share with you [...]

There are as many writing “practices” as there are writers. Donna Tartt begins, as I believe I’ve said before, with a random scene, involving random characters, the drama of which piques her [...]

A piece of writing is like a set of dominoes. Overset one aspect and you overset all those that follow. We come across this problem a great deal in our mentoring programme. Each scene follows [...]

“He was drinking brandy, pouring double mouthfuls into a glass that had somehow survived from his grandfather’s time, the glass tinged green and bubbled with the air of the old century. He had [...]

If the yearning to write is in your blood, then to stifle or ignore it is a crime. Our writing programmes – both face-to-face and online – encourage and shape that yearning to help you tell the [...]

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” – Pablo Picasso There’s a certain point at which writing skills must melt away and become part of your being, [...]