If you're like me, you'll have a little voice in the back of your head that speaks up whenever you think about stepping outside your comfort zone. It's not easy, but if we want to achieve our goals and dreams we have to learn to ignore that voice.

When I first thought about giving a writerly talk, the little voice in my head (which, by the way, ( Read more... )

A long, long time ago, back when I still had hair, and young people listened to good music that wasn't too loud, my old gran gave me this excellent advice:

"When it comes to stupid mistakes, boy, the first thing to remember is 'Don't make 'em.' But since that's really not going to be an option in your case, I'd better teach you what to do when you ( Read more... )

Today's my birthday. If I hadn't long since decided to stay a youthful (if somewhat unfeasible) 'twenty nine' I'd be hitting my half century. Naturally on a day like this, my thoughts turn to the people who influenced my life (many of whom are no longer with us) and what they'd have to say about me reaching the five decade milestone.

Six things my ( Read more... )

As part of my plan for world domination, I've started doing regular columns on other blogs.  Mostly, I'll be writing new articles, but every now and then I'm going to throw in a personal favorite, like 10 Things My Old Gran taught me about writing, which is now up at Every Day Fiction's blog, Flash Fiction Chronicles.


( Read more... )

Sean Hayden, author of the soon-to-be-published debut novel, Demonkin (Echelon Press, 2011), has interviewed me on his blog.

If you'd like to know about things like my choice for who would voice Snowy in a movie version of Fur-Face; who's my personal favorite character from the book; which one is most like me, or even what the priest said about my ( Read more... )

Over the last few years, I’ve come to realize what a huge impact my old gran had on my writing. With that in mind, I thought I’d share some of her quaint little sayings and explain how they've influenced my work.

10 Things My Old Gran Taught Me About Writing.

1. ‘You only get one chance to make a first impression, so don’t bugger it up, you ( Read more... )