There are very few writers who make it in their 20s. The few who do are endangered creatures; to be lauded, protected, and possibly locked up in a laboratory for serious scientific inquiry. Many people believe that nobody should be writing about life until they’ve at least lived some. And indeed, many writers in their…
Tag: Writing
Top 5 Asinine Excuses For Not Writing
Good Friday, gentlepersons. I’m ending this working week with my top 5 excuses for not writing. Perversely, they include, well, work. But that’s not the point. Because I have so many writing projects I intended to have finished by now, and my success rate is only marginally better than that of an Irishman at a speed dating…
On The Perils Of Having More Than One Writer Wandering Around Your Brain
The rules of publishing seem to dictate that you find a writing style, and stick to it. But not everyone wants to do this. And not everyone is capable of it. J.K. Rowling made headlines last year when she published crime fiction under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith, having previously confounded the market with adult literary fiction…
Flash Fiction / Book Title Generator Competition
I’ve been doing a lot of wittering on about competitions and prizes lately. So I thought it was time this blog had one of its own. Remember the Book Title Generators? Well, how about a flash fiction competition where you write a 500 word story, inspired by your very own personalised book title? Choose your genre! If you’re…
Book Prizes? In The Olden Days, We Were Lucky To Get Slapped
Following on from Tuesday’s rant on writerly whinging, I now want to expand on prizes. Writers’ earnings have always been as cyclical as weather. Yet to hear the Literati today, you’d swear that art would die if it weren’t for bursaries and awards and prizes and residencies and general state-level support for the gargantuan brains of…
6 Reasons Why Writers Need To Stop Bloody Whining
There’s a lot of talk at the moment about earnings in the arts – or to be precise, the lack of them. This article from The Guardian is particularly whiny. It literally does depict an author in his garret. If it weren’t for electricity, you might imagine him setting his fingerless gloves on fire whilst trying…
Is the Bestseller Dead?
In this post back in the wilds of 2013, I explored (with the aid of some lovely data. And maybe some pretty shoddy guesswork, it has to be said) how many books an author has to sell in the English-speaking world to achieve bestseller status. In most countries, a bestseller is defined only by what…
Nice Writing Karma
You probably won’t believe me if I say that when I posted 5 reasons why you should be entering Writing Competitions last week, I had no idea that I’d just been shortlisted for the RTE Today Show / New Island Books ‘Get Your Book Published’ competition. Talk about some gorgeous irony, eh? But that’s what happened.…
Are you writing? Then SHHH! I’ll tell you a secret
Writing competitions might save your life. Unless you’re keen on starving for your art, in which case you should probably stop reading now. Writing competitions are the lowest common denominator of literary prizes. And I mean that in the best way possible. Because we may be living in an era when writing competitions have become the new – if…
4 Easy Ways To Write A Smash Bestseller!
Well. 2 of them are easy, from the outside looking in… Method 1: Accidentally encapsulate the cultural zeitgeist which began defining a generation yesterday at 2.43pm Who knew that young adults, for instance, wanted a world of complete fantasy where your undead boyfriend is constantly resisting the urge to kill you, before Twilight came along? Method 2: Be controversial This…
Tara Sparling writes 