Happy NaNoWriMo day!
Well, today’s the day. Today’s the day all of us aspiring writers out there begin to feverishly scribble all our thoughts and feelings and half-plotted stories down, in the hopes that by the end of November we’ll have something vaguely assembling a finished draft (or...
Flash Fridays: Smile
It's Friday! And you know what that means - it's time for some flash fiction! This week's fiction piece is proper 'micro' - only 100 words allowed. Not too sure why I wrote what I did - perhaps it's something to do with the days getting shorter, and the nights...
September TBR Pile
Z's note: I originally wrote this post for the book club I’m a part of – Book with a Brew – you can check out the original post on their Instagram here. 🍂🔥📚 It’s finally autumn, which means the nights are drawing in, the days are getting cooler, and it’s time to...
Flash Fridays: Midnight
It's time for another Flash Friday! I was proper shocked when I looked back through my old posts and discovered its been A WHOLE YEAR since I last posted one of these. Surely that can't be right?! I remember writing my last one like it was yesterday - it's actually...
The Premonitions Bureau by Sam Knight
It's time for another book review! I originally wrote this review for the book club I'm a part of - Book with a Brew - you can check out the original post on their Instagram here. This is the first non-fiction book by Sam Knight, a staff writer for The New Yorker. As...
The Rejection List
As promised in my previous post, I've finally set up a blog post specifically so I can record aaalllll my many rejections for you guys. I'm hoping that by being completely honest about this process I can a) show you what the life of a writer is really like and b) use...
On Rejection
We've had a lot of people off work lately, which means I've been asked to step in and help out delivering some workshops in schools. I actually really enjoy doing things like that it – it's something new to try, I get to learn different skills and I also get out of...
British Fantasy Society – Golden Jubilee
Hello folks. What's this? Three posts in a week?? Has the world gone mad?! Well yes, but don't expect this every week. Ever since my anger flamed last week, I've been more determined to make steps, little and often, to get to where I want to go. Although my anger has...
Change in the winds
Today, I am angry. There, I said it. Phew. When I first started this new blog, I told myself that I’d keep all my posts super professional and writing-focused – no treating this like a personal blog and writing my actual thoughts and feelings. After all, this is my...
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
Hello folks, long time, no talk. I wanted to do a 'Happy New Year!' post but then we all caught covid, and then it was back to work and back to the grind and by the time I had the headspace to actually write another blog, well, as you can tell, it's now mid-Feb and I...
British Fantasy Award Winners
I’m a bit late to the party with this, but ‘better late than never’ as my old gaffer used to say. FantasyCon took place on 26th September 2021 in Birmingham, and as part of this, the annual British Fantasy Award winners were announced. I so wish I’d been able to go,...
Confessions of an unpublished author
There's something I'm slowly realising as I get older – time for writing doesn't magically appear, you have to make it yourself. Here's my next confession – all through my twenties I believed that one day I'd be a published author...but I got incredibly frustrated...
A box of…what?
I have a confession to make. I don't like any of my Box of Stories books. There, I said it. I was umming and ahhing over whether to post this so soon after my initial post, where I was so excited to dive right into the books I'd received. But after battling my way...
Flash Fridays: Winter’s Mountain
Lately, I've been so snowed under with my new job, looking after my toddler, organising a christening, setting up a new business (e.g. life in general) that I've barely had time to sit down, let alone find the time to write. I decided this week that it was high time I...
Viva la vivid!
I have a bad habit when I'm writing. Well, several bad habits actually (not plotting out the story far enough! Too many adjectives in speech! Not finishing novels!) - but here's the one that struck me the most while I was rewriting the first draft of my horror short...
A Box of Stories
Like all writers, I'm an avid reader. I consume books (and chocolate...and films...) like most people drink water or wine. Alas, as I'm not a huge fan of alcohol, my vice is a tendency to buy as many books as there are days in the year. As you can imagine, this habit...
British Fantasy Awards 2021
Wow, it's been a while hasn't it! Sorry for the long silence, since - checks last blog post date and chokes slightly –19th May I've been; working on our new business! Organising Little Terror's christening for next weekend! Getting a new job on a dairy farm! Dying my...
Stealing time
It can be hard finding the time to write. If you manage to battle through the procrastination, the existential crisis’s, the anxiety, the crippling self-doubt - you then have to deal with real life as well. Toddlers who demand your attention every waking minute of the...