Setting Up

Just spotted this piece on writing desk envy at Poets & Writers and it sparked a trail to John Casey's Writing desk , which put me in mind of Hemingway's desk at home and on location. Hemingway was a master at working his environment to suit his writerly needs at any given time. This got me to thinking whether there truly is a desk for every occasion and, if I pursue this, where I'm going to fit my sofa. To see what I mean though, visuals are needed...



the desk space, competition and instructor standing over me I'll need when I simply must produce something to a deadline. (may need a few spare rooms though to house all the people)





yes, a lap will do for journaling but the chaise longue certainly has the appearance of a key contributory factor.



oh, and anne's desk with its air of a crumpled bed - all coffee & fags & putting your feet up.



and back to hemingway. he looks so grounded here, sketching out his thoughts.



back at camp, he's really hammering out his prose now.

later, at …

For the first-time writer getting published can feel rather like Alice in wonderland after she’s been knocking back the re-sizing potion. You stand in front of a door marked ‘Success and Validation’ and feel too insignificant to reach for the handle. Either that or perhaps you feel that world’s too small, too narrow for you.

Moving past that, say you get a glimpse into the land of publishing – at some writers’ conference or literary festival - and begin encountering these literary types. This can be very much like bumping into the White Rabbit who doesn’t have time for you or, equally frustratingly, the Mad Hatter who has all the time in the world but doesn’t seem to be making much sense. ‘Do you have a social media profile?’ MH demands. ‘Are you on Twitter? You really should be on twitter.’ What’s that got to do with publishing a book? You may well wonder. And as for having ‘a marketing hook’ and ‘a premise’, well you’ve never been fishing and …

It's a horrible moment, the moment when you sit bolt upright at 3am and realise that you've made a critical error.  Regular blog readers will know that we encourage writers to check, and check again when they are submitting, but errors still creep through.  We've all done it.  So here are my top five tips for getting a good night's sleep.

1.  Do not rely on spell check. And if you have relied on spell check, double check it.  The cautionary tale for this tip belongs to a friend of mine, who discovered she was pregnant shortly after signing up to a gym membership.  In pregnancy, she suffered from symphysis pubis disfunction (SPD), a painful condition that relates to the softening of your pubic bones in preparation for birth.

She wrote a letter to the gym, explaining that due to this condition and her pregnancy, she would like to stop her membership.  It was a few days later, after she'd sent it, that she looked at the saved document on her …

You decide what you write. No-one else. You’re certain of that, right?

First off, let me introduce myself. As the newly appointed Writers & Artists editorial manager, over the last decade I’ve come at book publishing from many vantage points – the buying side as Amazon fiction editor, slushpile reader, commissioning ed, writer and writing coach. This has given me a view on many facets of the publishing industry but, at the end of the day, I have always worked for one client: the reader. As a writer, you must make certain demands of yourself: the key one being to actively engage with your reader. Do you deign to amuse your reader/audience? Romance them? Shock them? Change them? Make them think? Make them feel?

All that said, who decided how I began this blog? In a way, you did. Sure, I decided its content but its direction was guided by my take on your needs. Firstly, you’re not going to be bothered with what I have to say unless I can back it up in some way. Secondly, …

Saturday mornings for me begin in a way that may repulse others.

I have always been an early riser, and like getting to my desk to produce the ideas I will work on for the rest of the day. But on Saturdays there is a 5km run in our local park.

It’s a really good community event, with those taking part ranging from just a few months (in buggies, being pushed by superfit parents) to pensioners, as well as several dogs. And the feeling of virtue you get from having had some exercise before 10am on a Saturday morning (you can tell from this that I am not superfast) is indescribably wonderful, made all the more special by the chance to listen to Inheritance Tracks on Radio 4's Saturday Live on the way home.

Last Saturday I wore my Penguin classics T-shirt, and had comments all the way around the course from stewards about its relevance. It promoted Mystery Mile – so one wondered if I was being ironic (this is a 5k run), several told me they had already read it, one in the …