Yesterday was my first day back at work. Over the holidays, as usual, I spent a lot of time thinking about how to balance my working day, how to mix my different responsibilities. The aim, as always, is to find more time to write. Because if I had more time to write….ah, well. How much …
Author Archives: neilsbaker
Boxing Day
A Boxing Day walk through the frozen pear orchards.
Fire and smoke
I was just reading an interesting blog post from Alex Keegan and came across this great quote from Arthur Plotnik: “You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what’s burning inside you. You edit to let the fire show through the smoke.” Indeed.
How to come up with short story ideas
Blocked up like a bank holiday motorway? Devoid of any writing ideas? Here’s my Five Step Short Story Idea Generating Process (TM pending). Take a blank sheet of paper and make a random list of characters and their objectives. For example: A man who desperately needs £100,000 within a week; a woman who must get …
How hard is it to write?
Writing can sometimes be very difficult. How’s that for an understatement? But how hard, or easy, is it meant to be? Here are three very different reports from the coal face of the writing industry: 1) In Slate magazine Garrison Keillor tells writers it’s easy, so stop moaning: “The fact of the matter is that …
Christmas view
This is what we could see yesterday from the window of our Devon holiday cottage. Winter Wonderland.