The Literary Sofa
About Me
Word of Mouth – Isabel Costello interviewed by Claire King on Book Blogging
Thanks to Claire King, debut author of The Night Rainbow (Bloomsbury) and a past Literary Sofa Guest for interviewing me about book blogging. I really enjoyed our conversation, especially talking about the links between blogging and writing fiction. Here’s a link to the interview if you’d like to read it. As I mentioned, I really do … Continue reading
A Solitary Writing Week
As you may recall, at the start of 2013 I set myself the challenge of re-writing my oft-rejected-but-apparently-not-that-bad novel after calling in the professionals. I spent weeks messing around with coloured pens, stickers and Post-It notes re-structuring the story and when (I thought) I had it right, I pinned them on a board so they couldn’t … Continue reading
Why am I doing this again?
I only talk about my own writing on this blog when I reach a significant point. A year ago, I wrote about how it felt to finish my first novel. In the summer something unrelated prompted me to reflect on my early experience of rejection. This time the milestone was when I decided to stop … Continue reading
Write What You Know?
There are many sayings about writing and almost as many clichés, the number one surely being ‘There’s a novel in everyone.’ I’m not getting into that. This is about that other old chestnut ‘Write What You Know’ (WWYK), usually attributed to Mark Twain (although I’m happy to hear he didn’t particularly follow it). I’ve always instinctively … Continue reading
A Year Online
It’s a year since my friend Louise Millar persuaded me to start using Twitter. Her debut novel The Playdate, was still nine months away from publication and she was already tweeting; I hadn’t even finished my manuscript. I’m grateful to her now, but at the time I wasn’t that keen. I now know that my reaction is a … Continue reading
Lucky 7 – Seven Lines from New Works
I returned from my lovely trip to the South of France to find I’d been tagged by Jane Rusbridge in the Lucky 7 – Seven Lines from New Works. Here are the rules if you’re not familiar with it: Go to page 7 or 77 in your current manuscript · Go to line 7 · … Continue reading
My new novel SCENT – out in paperback on 19 May 2022
The Literary Sofa 