In my 3rd year of my English Literature degree, I took a class about Renaissance/Early Modern literature and poetry. Part of the requirements for the latter half of the degree was that we take at least 1 subject that covered pre-1800s literature, so I decided to do mine in the first semester of that year. […]
Tag: Diary of a Young Writer
As writers, we all have projects we decide to leave behind or put on the backburner. Sometimes an idea is just not quite there, or we’ve lost momentum or motivation to keep working on it. This time, last decade, I was in my first year of secondary school. I had moved from a small village […]
For those who don’t know, Camp NaNoWriMo is an offshoot event of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which occurs in April and July. During NaNoWriMo, a writer aims to write a 50,000 word novel in the 30 days of November, the goals in Camp NaNoWriMo are much more flexible. You can write a short story […]
For me, some silver linings of this terrible year have been that I‘ve had quite a few poems published in magazines and anthologies. One of my flash fictions was placed on a long list for the first time and my debut chapbook, Keep On Spinning, was published with small Scottish publisher Dreich Publishing. It came […]
You may have heard of and seen a bullet journal by now, but just in case you haven’t…. ‘A bullet journal is a method of personal organization developed by designer Ryder Carroll. The system organizes scheduling, reminders, to-do lists, brainstorming, and other organizational tasks into a single notebook.’ Bullet journals have grown in popularity over […]
Whether you’re writing a short story or a full novel, the first page of your book is your most important page. It is your first chance, besides your blurb, to hook your reader’s interest. You have got to make it count and you have to make it flow. In a few short lines you have […]
Let’s go back in time, before The Cursed Child was released and before Fantastic Beasts, back to 2007 when the last Harry Potter book came out. Some Harry Potter fans may even wish we could go back to 2007 and stay there forever. Now before I start, I enjoyed reading the Harry Potter series and […]
Back in March I had the opportunity to launch my debut novel Folked Up with the assistance of the Centre for Childhood Cultures at Queen Mary University of London. Part of this involved running a creative writing workshop based around world building for YA audiences, where we discussed some of the things to bear in […]
The Diary Of A Young Writer has officially reached 100 blogs! It feels like a big birthday, and to celebrate, I thought I would share with you what I have learnt so far… I can say with absolute certainty that your first attempt at writing a novel is going to suck. Sorry, but it’s true. […]
I read recently about an author who gave advice to a young student on how to write a story. I can’t remember the link, but this particular author said something along the lines of; ‘forget what they teach you at school about writing a story, and instead ask yourself three questions…’ Who is the main […]