short stories
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This week’s installment in my weekly series, on how to hook your reader’s interest in the first few words of your story, moves from last week’s humour to atmosphere. By building up a strong sense of atmosphere at the beginning of your story, you ensure your reader feels part of the story straight away. Here…
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Originally posted on Words of Margaux: In her collection, The Siege, Esther Newton has proven to be a versatile writer who is able to tell engaging stories, and create strong characters in a terse manner. While each story is an average of 2,000 words long, when reading those tales, the reader feels that he’s…
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As you’ll all know, the week before going away is always fraught with far too many things to do. Add to that the tiredness that seems to come with losing an hour with the clock change and I’m not doing well. Still, it can only get better! My ‘More Markets For Freelancers‘ publication for your…
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It doesn’t seem five minutes ago that it was half-term but next week signals the end of another term and a trip overseas. I’m looking forward to a break but with lots of marking still to do and deadlines to meet before then it still seems a long way off. Though, as always, it’ll all…
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My writing week got off to a flying start with a cheque in the post but that good start didn’t last long and the cheque was swiftly followed by a rejection. As a writer, it’s all too easy to take rejection personally and to focus on the bad rather than the good. Rejection is all…
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Somewhere to Start It can be difficult to know where to send your writing. The ‘Writers and Artists’ Year Book’ is full of agents, publishers and mainstream magazines and newsagents’ shelves are growing to fit the plethora of magazines published weekly, monthly and so on. Yet, it isn’t just a case of sending work off…
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Although I took a week off from my blog, I was still tutoring throughout the week, mixed in with motherly duties such as baking giant cookies and be taken on adventures on the X-box! We also managed a few trips out but now it’s nose to the grindstone with plenty of deadlines lurking on the…


