Monday Writing Motivation: Give your readers a bonus
Let’s fantasise for a moment. You’ve finished your book, you’ve secured an agent (you only had to write thirty-seven emails to do so), and they’ve managed to place your manuscript […]
Writing Secrets: Focus on what’s important
Something has shifted this year. We’re (many of us through necessity) spending less. We’re more aware of what’s important. That means focusing on the people we hold dear and on […]
Monday Motivation: The secret beneath the words
“Meaning” is the thing that lies behind, or beneath, or beyond. The sighs of a lover are what we note. But the meaning of those sighs is what we interpret. […]
Writing Secrets: Write to seek, not to preach
Those who are “given the job of telling stories,” according to Italian novelist Elena Ferrante, “should construct fictions that help seek the truth of the human condition”. I love her […]
Writing Secrets: Keeping a weather eye on beginnings
Elmore Leonard famously said: Never start with the weather. “But does this mean I never, ever mention the weather at the beginning of my book?” one of our participants asked […]
Monday Motivation: A character by any other name would be – wrong
Let’s think about a series of very tiny – but, some say, enormously significant – decisions that every writer has to take when beginning a story, and that is, what […]
Writing Secrets: Write for yourself, not for others
This is a counter-intuitive piece of writing advice. After all, you want to get your writing out there, I know that. You do want to be read, even if only […]
Writing Secrets: Action shows us what people are capable of
We all know the old writing truism: never tell when you can show. But I’ve recently come to realise that many people misunderstand what it means to “show”. I’ve come […]
Monday Motivation: The love affairs we have with books
I’ve always been fascinated by the relationship that springs into being whenever a reader picks up a book, opens it and begins the journey to which it is an invitation. […]
20 Quotes on Writing from South African Women Writers
Today, 9 August, marks Women’s Day in South Africa, where half of our team is based and where (in normal times) many of our courses and workshops take place. It’s […]
Monday Motivation: It might be crappy, but does your chapter work?
Here’s a very short reflection on an absolutely essential attitude to writing. It can be encapsulated in a single, short dictum: The only question to worry about in your writing […]
Writing Secrets: Are you bored by your story?
When I taught young journalists, I told them to stop halfway through their story and ask themselves: Am I bored? Last week I suggested a couple of questions you could […]
