“Opportunity comes dressed in overalls.” That comment, from Craig Martelle, was the first one I wrote in my notebook after sitting down at the 20Books confer...

I am entirely average. I have walked the path that most do; school, college, work, marriage, kids, divorce, re-marriage. Except for one aspect; I have writte...

If by any chance you missed our newsletter, you can find it here. It's full of exciting news from students and friends of The Writers' Company, things to see...

What if one moment changed all your hopes and dreams? It’s what happens to my main character…

About five months ago, I pressed the button on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) to send my first novel to everyone in the world. I sat back, folded my arms and...

We had our first ever book launch on Saturday 8th July. The place was jam-packed with friends, family, students, ex-students, supporters and even a smatterin...

We are very excited to invite you to the launch of our first ever anthology. The authors will be reading from Paths Made by Walking on Sat June 8th at The No...

Just a quick blog post from me to wish you all a fabulous Christmas. I hope, among other things, you get time to write, and love what you are writing. This y...

On my last day with the Creative Lives Writing Group, I asked them what their top tips would be for any writers wanting to start their journey. Here's what t...

Many apologies for not posting about the fabulous Writing Shadows Workshop before now. I was trying to work out how to put videos on my website. Seems that Y...

Petra asked me an age ago to write about winning the Fish Short Fiction prize, and it’s taken an embarrassingly long time. I’m an expert in procrastination, ...

Below is a quick breakdown of Vogler's archplot structure. It only skims the surface, so don't forget to buy his book. ‘The Writer’s Journey: mythic structur...

NLP stands for Nuero-Linguistic programming. According to the website www.nlp-secrets.com: 'NLP is a school of psychological techniques that effectively comm...

Dialogue is extremely important in creative writing. It is one of the writer’s most exciting tools. Why? Because it is the ultimate SHOW not TELL. You are al...

In my last blog post, I talked about this archplot structure put together by Ingred Sandburg. Many writers resist this type of thing as formulaic, afraid tha...

I like a good Plot Graph. I love the way they can make everything seem so simple. As I sit with one in front of me, I think that, although my novel is now a ...

What is a motif? It's a symbolic element within your story which repeats throughout. They can be anything from objects, to colours, to music, to words repeat...

'What if...? questions are the initial idea. They are the premise from which a chain of events can occur. My WEA student, Philip, described them as 'the flin...

For years, we have nurtured and inspired students under the name 'Creative Writing Wivenhoe' but now we've polished our boots, put on our glad rags, and are ...