The Literary Sofa
Writing
Paris Before and After
One morning last week I found myself on the Eurostar to Paris with a strong cup of coffee, reading a book about Baudelaire, one of my literary heroes (‘influences’ sounds a bit pretentious). Rain pelted the windows, the sky low and heavy as he painted it in his poem Spleen but that didn’t matter to me. I … Continue reading
First Draft – Hitting the Target
On 26 May I began the first draft of a new novel, aiming to complete it by Christmas. Coincidentally, exactly six months later, I’ll reach my target of 80,000 words today. I am slightly cheating because it’s not quite finished (another week will do it) but I’m so close that I’m already feeling the relief and … Continue reading
My First Year as an Agented Writer
A year ago, after a radical re-write of my first novel, I found myself in the midst of something I never thought would happen – having previously failed to get anywhere, my book and I had finally succeeded in attracting the interest of several literary agents. I’ve been thinking back to that fevered, exhilarating time … Continue reading
Literary Inspiration
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about inspiration and where it comes from, and going in search of it. Once I decided to write this post I had one of my regular bouts of word blindness and wondered if I even knew what the word means: INSPIRATION 1 The process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to … Continue reading
Endless Distractions
I’m winging it this week. The planned guest post hasn’t materialised – nobody’s fault, just one of those things. And right now life is full of ‘those things’. I’m finding it hard to keep all my plates spinning – maybe that’s why my eye was drawn to author David Mitchell’s piece in The Atlantic. It’s called … Continue reading
First person, first draft – The Story of a Second Novel
I haven’t posted anything about my writing since the new year, but many of you know my current project is to write the first draft of my second novel in six months, finishing by the end of 2014. It’s a self-imposed deadline, because I have something to prove. I’m very grateful to have the support of … Continue reading
Coping with Rejection
I recently wrote this article about rejection for a competition and rather fittingly, it didn’t get anywhere. When I was telling some writer friends about this over lunch a few days ago (I had to see the funny side), they said I should post it on the blog so I’m doing it before I can … Continue reading
Guest Author – Rachael Dunlop: An Unpublished Novelist faces Reality
Firstly I want to say thank you for the phenomenal interest in Summer Reads 2014 which has already had over 2,000 hits and made May the busiest month ever on the blog. Welcome to many new followers here and on Twitter and extra thanks to everyone who’s been sharing the list far and wide. I love putting … Continue reading
Making a Difference – the WoMentoring Project
I’m back on the Literary Sofa after a lovely Easter break in which I got to spend some time with my sons (to my great relief I didn’t have to nag my eldest to revise for GCSEs – apparently a month before is a reasonable time to get your act together). It ended with the … Continue reading
A Novel View of Robert McKee’s STORY – Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting
Robert McKee is a world-renowned lecturer in screenwriting, best known for the four day Story Seminar he developed whilst a professor at the University of Southern California. His former students include 63 Academy Award winners and 164 Emmy winners; the likes of Kirk Douglas, John Cleese and Peter Jackson, director of Lord of the Rings, … Continue reading
My new novel SCENT – out in paperback on 19 May 2022
The Literary Sofa 