I’m enjoying writing this blog so much that I’ve decided to get a web designer to help me put it all together so it works really well.  I want to have a section on how to get published, another quickstart set of tips, links to more writers and more thoughts about writing.  Plus, I’d like to do author interviews and photo prompts, alongside all the writer tips for you.

Today, I’m staying in a hotel in the centre of London.  London is my home town, so it’s the first time I’ve ever done this – looked at the city as a tourist might.  It’s been making me think about looking at stories from a new angle.  London is filled with tiny quirky streets, cobbled corners, busy cafes, packed galleries, and loads of pigeons.  As a tourist here, I’m noticing the details – details I often just take for granted as I rush about visiting one friend or the other, or trying to get work done.

How can you look at what you’re writing from a whole new angle?  You don’t have to stay in a fancy hotel in Soho (although, I admit, it’s pretty nice!) but perhaps you can try your story from a different character’s perspective.  Today, I’m looking at London as a tourist, perhaps I could look at London in my imagination through the eyes of one of those gallery goers, or even through the eyes of a pigeon! 

So, take one of you characters and rewrite a scene through their eyes.  What do you learn???

I’ll keep you posted on the new web design.

After a couple of sleepless nights and some very sleepy days, it’s time to get back to work.  A new novel to edit, a story to rethink, some ideas kicking about in my head.  How do we as writers know where to start and how to get back into what we’re doing?  Well, the way I do it is I listen to music.  The same song over and over again.  And again.  Each piece of writing has a piece of music attached.  Some writers write at a particular time of day, others only work on one project at a time.  But for me music helps me focus.  After the first rendition of the tune, I don’t hear it anymore because I’m back where I left off…

At least, that’s the idea.  Try it!

I’m here in Dubai awaiting the start of the Emirates Festival of Literature.  I’m here to teach a couple of workshops with teen writers in Dubai and I’m really looking forward to working with them. 

Whilst I’ve been here, I spent a couple of days in the desert, enjoying lots of empty space and rolling dunes from my window.  It got me thinking about writing and how sometimes you can stereotype place when you write about it.  The desert isn’t always hot and dry.  In the mornings, a heavy mist hangs over the sands, thickening the air.  The sky isn’t blue but hazy.  The sun when it heats up, feels so close that it’s heavy.  I wouldn’t have known any of these things if I hadn’t been in the desert myself.  Now, as writers, we can’t always go to the places we’re writing about – especially if it’s somewhere imaginary.  But we can do research.  We can read about places like the place we’re describing.  We can talk to people who have been there.  If it’s an imaginary place, we can research the realistic parts to make the imaginary parts feel more true.

That helps me not to stereotype descriptions of place when I’m writing. 

Here’s an exercise: take a few minutes every day or so to describe the weather and the sky in the place you’re in.  Really try and capture the essence of what you’re seeing, feeling, smelling… You’d be surprised – the sunset isn’t always orange, the morning isn’t often crisp…

Can you break those stereotypes?