This Itch of Writing

WRITE YOUR FIRST NOVEL Part Two: People in Pencil

This new series on The Itch is aimed at people who've always wanted to write a novel, but have struggled to find the time, or the way in, or the courage - or all three. I am aiming to keep the posts short, concentrating on prompts and processes. And since this is only one possible recipe, of hundreds or even thousands, I'll try to give options that leave room for you to work in ways that suit you and your material - and I hope, too, that some of these may be useful new ideas or prompts for more experienced... Read more →

WRITE YOUR FIRST NOVEL Part One: Character in Action

As we all know, thousands of people would love to write a novel but can never find the time. And without wanting to ignore the real fears, anxieties and griefs that we are all living with, a great many of us have suddenly got time at home that we didn't expect - if only the time we're no longer spending travelling to work, walking to the gym, going to church, and so on. However, I suspect what people really may not be able to find is actually the way, or the courage, to start. So this is the first in... Read more →

Join us to discuss the Art and Craft of Writing Sex

Words Away Salon with Jacqui Lofthouse on Be Your Own Writing Coach The Words Away Salons are back after a slightly extended break while Kellie was in Australia, and next Monday, 10th February, we're thrilled to welcome acclaimed novelist and short fiction writer Leone Ross who joins us to talk about the art and craft writing sex in fiction. It's a perennial problem - opportunity - hot topic - in writing, because (I reckon) it poses all the same problems as writing anything else, only much, much...harder, shall we say? Kellie and I will be cooking up some questions for... Read more →

The Ten Line-edits I Most Often Suggest

December 2022: I've revisited this post, because my latest one-month online course, Make Your Novel Shine, begins on January 3rd at RNA Learning. If you'd like to learn not only how to set about editing your work, but how to go beyond that to make the novel the very best it can be, do join us! Find out more here: - or check out all my forthcoming teaching events on my website. *** Whether you're getting to grips with a wild NaNoWriMo first draft, or have seized the time between Christmas and New Year to do some hardcore editing, the... Read more →

Notes Made While Reading: books for writers

First things first. If you're busy with a shitty first draft, you will probably not want to get stuck into any of these just now - though some of them are just the right size for a stocking. Hurling a story down any old way that comes, "building up, not tearing down" as the NaNoWriMo website puts it, is usually not helped by an attack of standing-outside-it-ness, of self-consciousness, or a cool new costume for your Inner Critic. But for the rest of us (and NaNo-ers in due course) these are all books that I've read recently which have been... Read more →

Being Published 9: Book Prizes

This is the ninth and last in a series of posts inspired by my new book, This is Not a Book About Charles Darwin, which was published in February. In each post I'll try to shed light not only on the practicalities of what happens when your book is being published, but also the sometimes surprising ways that each stage of the writing life can affect you and your writing. The whole Being Published series is here. If book prizes have become an ever more visible feature of the literary landscape, that's partly just a result of the industry's ever... Read more →

All the posts I mentioned at York Festival of Writing

I'm home from the York Festival of Writing and the dust is settling. As ever, it was a wonderful weekend put together by Jericho Writers, full of writers of fiction and non-fiction at every stage, from beginners to multi-best-sellers and - always one of the highlights - a reunion of several dozen of Debi Alper's and my lovely graduates from the online Self-Editing Your Novel course, including one of the keynote speakers, million-selling Cathy Bramley, and one of the exciting debuts of last year, Amanda Berriman. Old friend Ruth Ware was another keynote speaker and I devoured her The Death... Read more →

Ten Things To Know About Being Published

1) Enjoy it. Really enjoy it. You are a communicator, a storyteller, a weaver of words, and now you have an audience: don't fix your eyes so much on the past, or the future, that you can't feel that audience, relish it, and reward yourself as you deserve and can afford. You will never again be an unpublished writer. In the interests of truth, some of the nine things that follow are not sweetness and light, but don't let your Inner Pessimist close your eyes to the sun that is shining. 2) Succeeding as a writer is not an exam... Read more →

On Psychotherapists, Confessors and Other Narrative Conveniences

Recently, a blog-reading veteran of our online course in Self-Editing Your Novel - let's call her Caroline - got in touch. Her main character - let's call her Zainab - is shattered by the death of her father and struggling to come to terms with her past choices and actions, as part of working out a new future. Caroline was finding it hard to work out the shape of such a journey, so she sent a very reluctant Zainab to see bereavement counsellor. These scenes weren't for the book, just the most efficient way for Caroline to get her imagination... Read more →

Being Published 8: Reviews

This is the eighth in a series of posts inspired by my new book, This is Not a Book About Charles Darwin, which was published in February. In each post I'll try to shed light not only on the practicalities of what happens when your book is being published, but also the sometimes surprising ways that each stage of the writing life can affect you and your writing. The whole Being Published series is here. Longstanding book industry people and literary types will tell you that reviewing isn't what it used to be - which is true, of course, though... Read more →

Nearly finished a draft? Can't quite write "The End"? You're not alone.

A friend has just asked for advice about how to get over the finishing line of a first draft. They're less than 10,000 words from the end of the first draft "for yourself", and until recently they were powering along, longing to reach the end and get stuck into the second draft "for your reader" - and from thence into the third draft "for your agent". And yet day after day they're procrastinating, dodging, fiddling, doing anything rather than actually getting to the end of the story. I've blogged a lot about procrastination, but this is a very particular case,... Read more →

Being Published 7: Events

This is the seventh in a series of posts inspired by my new book, This is Not a Book About Charles Darwin, which was published on 12th February. In each post I try to shed light not only on the practicalities of what happens when your book is being published, but also the sometimes surprising ways it can affect you and your writing. The whole Being Published series is here. To get a flavour of the sort of events you might do, have a look at the Events page on my website (and if you're inspired to book one, do... Read more →

My 10 Top Tips for Revising and Self-Editing Your Novel or Creative Non-Fiction

Everyone - well, mostly - knows that finishing a first draft is just the beginning of writing a novel or creative non-fiction that really works. If the definition of an editor is the person who helps you to write the book you think you've already written, then when you're self-editing, you need to keep in touch with what you hope you've written, while getting ruthlessly real about what you actually have written. Debi Alper and I developed and have co-taught the six-week online course Self-Editing Your Novel at Jericho Writers for many years now, and when the next course starts... Read more →

Being Published 6: The Book

This is the sixth in a series of posts inspired by my new book, This is Not a Book About Charles Darwin, which was published on Tuesday - Darwin Day - 12th February 1019. In each post I'll try to shed light not only on the practicalities of what happens when your book is being published, but also the sometimes surprising ways that this stage of the writing life can affect you and your writing. The whole Being Published series is here. ENJOY! The moment when you first hold your book, or see it on your tablet, is one of... Read more →

As a Mentor and Teacher and Writer and Reader, there's something I want to say to you

Floating around on the net is this excellent post by Bruinhilda, As a Library Worker There's Something I Want to Say to You. It was originally posted on Tumblr and, as with the original Jerusha Cowless, Agony Aunt column, and "Everything About My Writing is Awful and No, I'm Not OK", I found my mind riffing off it, to create a version for writers. So here goes, with huge thanks to Bruinhilda for the inspiration: As a mentor and teacher and writer and reader, there's something I want to say to you: You do not have to apologise for the... Read more →

This is Not a Book about Charles Darwin is available for pre-order

So my forthcoming book, This is Not a Book About Charles Darwin, is available for pre-order. This thing has just got real, in other words, and I'm in a familiar state, at once wanting to tiptoe away with my fingers in my ears before anyone notices, and wanting my words (which means my self) to go out there and be heard come what may. What's more, various festivals and other writerly places have asked me to join them and talk about the book, though most I can't specify yet (sounds much more cloak-and-dagger than it is). One that I can... Read more →

Being Published Part 5: Publicity

This is the fifth in a series of posts which I'm planning in the run-up to next February, when This is Not a Book About Charles Darwin will be published. In each I'll try to shed light not only on the practicalities of what happens when your book is being published, but also the sometimes surprising ways that this stage of the writing life can affect you and your writing. The whole Being Published series is here. Before we start, let's get something sorted out. Marketing and publicity are often talked about as the same thing, and they do have... Read more →

All the posts I mentioned at the Brontë Parsonage Festival of Women's Writing

A couple of weekends ago I had the pleasure of holding two workshops, as part of the Festival of Women's Writing - which doesn't at all exclude men - organised by the Brontë Parsonage Museum, and held at the entirely wonderful Ponden Hall. We covered a lot of ground, and in the nature of things, many topics cropped up which are expanded on in posts here on Itch. So these are links to the ones I particularly remember mentioning. If anyone remembers any others, do drop me a line, and I’ll try to dig it up. These, and a lot... Read more →

"No Word Count Boot Camp or Productivity Push": #100daysofwriting

I've got a novel to revise. At least the York Festival of Writing and the Historical Novel Society Conference have been and gone. But the next Self-Editing Your Novel course is about to start, I'm off to Yorkshire for the Bronte Parsonage Museum's Festival of Contemporary Women's Writing and life is decidedly busy on other fronts. Then there are the writers I'm helping as a tutor and mentor, and occasionally boring old real life has to be dealt with. And did I mention (no, surely not!) that I have a new book coming out in February? So there are press-releases,... Read more →

Being Published Part 4: Covers

This is the fourth in a series of posts inspired by my new book, This is Not a Book About Charles Darwin, which was published in February. In each post I'll try to shed light not only on the practicalities of what happens when your book is being published, but also the sometimes surprising ways that each stage of the writing life can affect you and your writing. The whole Being Published series is here. Your book is (not) your cover The cover of a book is a hugely important - possibly the most important - selling tool the publisher... Read more →