The joy of being short-listed
Is showing that you’ve resisted
The temptation to jack it all in
When rejections are all that come in
You’ve kept going, you’ve persisted!

The above says it all.  Being short-listed boosts your confidence.  I wish I could bottle that feeling of achievement and how good it makes you feel as a writer, it’d sell by the million!  It’s also good to put on the writing CV! 


Want to write better?  Write more!  Try different forms.

I’ve found writing short stories with a tight word count has led to my writing my Brenebourne series in a tighter fashion, which will reduce the word count there (never a bad thing as I overwrite) and I’ve found my narrative pace has picked up too.

To write well you have to read well
To love others’ books and your own
To do what you can to help books sell
To write, rewrite and eventually hone
Your own skills until your work is out there
In all you read and write, prepare!

And the best thing of all is that reading and writing is fun!  You’re in the wrong line of work if you can’t enjoy these!  I’ve found I have learned a lot about story structure, how things are set out, plot structure and so on as I read.  You kind of lap it all up as you read.  Besides if you ever want others to support your work by buying it, you really ought to return the compliment, yes?

Do all of your characters fascinate you?
Can you see how their lives change for better or worse?
Are they fully rounded, believable too?
How do they affect others - by blessing or curse?

When I say fascinate, this doesn’t have to be in a good way.  I’ve portrayed Brankaresh as a power hungry misogynist - do I have any sympathy with those views?  Definitely not.  I think out of all my characters it is easy to spot the one I really didn’t have any sympathy with at all.  Having said that I tried to get into the head of this wizard to find out how he could justify what he believes and what he does.  And you need to do this for all your “stars”, whether they’re heroes or not.  Readers have got to be able to see where your characters come that in that sense or they won’t be able to empathize.  No empathy with at least one character (and it doesn’t matter if that empathy is limited) and you lose your readers.   If you can't understand why your characters are the way they are, nobody else will.   And can you see how your characters are shaped by upbringing, events that have happened to them/close ones, the world in which they live and its politics? 

When work comes back, fear not
See this as another shot
At getting the work in print at last
Rejections should be kept to the past
They’re simply part of the writer’s lot.

If there were three pieces of advice I could give to new writers it would be to read a lot, write a lot and accept you are in the (very) long game.  I try to make progress in each year whether it’s getting something published, or am achieving my goal of getting more work out there (hopefully increasing my chances of acceptance).  And read writers’ interviews - I’ve picked up a lot of information that way.


Be proud of your success but
Don’t get yourself in a rut.
Always seek to make progress.
Get more work out there, not less.

It pays to cast your net wide.  It gets you writing more (the more you do, the better you become as you’re exercising your imagination more) and you have something always out there, hopefully in the fray for publication or a prize.  By seeking out where you can send your stories, you’re researching the market.  You can then tailor your work to fit specific requirements.  And it all helps you develop.

The way to success is to persist
In writing, work, in life as a whole
It can be hard at times to resist
The thought rejection is the sole role
Your precious work is ever given.

Sums it all up.  You have to be strongly motivated to write at all and then to keep going when all you do get in the post/emails is yet another publisher turning your work down.  Remember it is your work they turn down, not you.  And sometimes successes come right out of the blue.  I was stunned when Bridge House said they wanted A Helping Hand, amazed when Shortbread took some of my work and when the Brit Writers’ Award shortlisted my story, Got You!  Mind you it is a really good feeling to be amazed like that!  There are times I wish I could bottle it so I could bring that feeling out again during those times things are not going so well.


The way to really write well
Is to ignore all the hell
Of edits and rewrites
They help make the work right
Remember to show, not tell!

I think it best to assume you never write anything perfectly first go.  There’s little that can’t be improved with a second or third or fourth read through.  You will pick things up you missed as you wrote the work.  Also as you read through again and again, is the story still gripping you?  If so, good!  It’s got life in it.  If you’re not gripped you may have a problem.  You will come to a point when you genuinely feel you can’t edit it any more.  That’s the point to send the work out and test the market with it, but the story itself you should still care about deeply. 

The joy of writing is in
Setting up your heroes to win
But only after a decent fight
With a villain who’s more than just might.

No cariactures then!  The most interesting villains are those with depth to them, where you can see why they’re acting the way they are without agreeing with them of course (unless you prefer villains to heroes!).  Heroes also need to be realistic - no supermen/women, you want to see their flaws and virtues.  I’ve sometimes found heroes aggravating for being too perfect, which is exactly what you want to avoid.  And what they fight about has got to be worth fighting over.  Something that’s going to hurt someone badly if they lose...


Don’t expect to get a story right
On its first “go” - at least one rewrite
Is what it takes to eventually bring
Your tale to life as anything
That slows it up is cut out of sight.

The real story emerges in the rewriting as you cut out repeats, unnecessary adjectives and so on.  I always spot typos on the first print-out.  They don’t always show up on screen.  I also think a story reads through better when you have it printed on paper.  I guess it seems more like a story.  On the screen it seems like a computer document.  I like to allow enough editing time before a story competition deadline.  Some stories seem to be easier to edit than others!

Do seasons change in your books?
Do we know how your world looks?
Your invented realm must seem
Real to readers, not a dream.
Is your plot full of great hooks?

After all every world must have at least two seasons - hot/cold or dry/wet.  A novel or story will seem more realistic if this is reflected on.  Odd details dropped in here and there will make your world real.  You don’t need a detailed description all in one hit as it is things like that people skip when reading.  By the end of your novel/story your readers should have a good idea of how your world works, what it’s like during the appropriate season, what the advantages and disadvantages are.


A writer needs an inventive mind
And writing exercises to wind
Up the brain all ready to go
To work dreaming up tales of woe
And book treasures for readers to find.

Word association can be a great way to kickstart ideas.  A great I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue game is the opposite idea of word dis-association, which could also work for writers.  Also just writing whatever comes to your mind for a specific time period can help kickstart a piece of writing.  Sitting down and creating a character from scratch can be fun - use pictures and phrases taken from newspapers and magazines to help bring them to life. 

Read other authors’ scripts and tales.
Find out what works or simply fails.
Learn from the best, as they did.
En-route help yourself get rid
Of all sending your work off-rails.

Good advice, no matter what you write! Reading helps you take in sub-consciously layout and how dialogue works. And in reading widely you’re supporting the industry you want to break into.  You can also judge how your work “sounds” when compared with a published piece.  Besides reading is another way of indulging one’s love of words when not writing!


The wonder of being a writer
Is inventing a brilliant fighter
To be your hero
A villain’s main woe
And turns a dark tale that much lighter.

Of course there are those who hate heroes and love dark tales remaining that way!  Some novels defy such classification too - Dracula is hardly a hero yet people are far more fascinated by him than Van Helsing.  So in Dracula who is the hero?  Also your brilliant fighter has to have a decent cause to fight for.  And a great hero has to have a “great” villain to spark off.  

Do your characters lead you where they want to go?
Do your characters tell you stuff you didn’t know
Until you started writing and found
To your idea they won’t be bound?
It’s for them to tell you, now show!

If your characters are strong enough, they will do the above, which makes sense given you’re giving them a fictional life.  Let them live that fictional life to the full.  You may find your story taking a different direction from what you originally thought but hopefully you’ll find it’s a better direction.  I find I get my better ideas when I’ve had some time to think about what I’m working on.


Can you tell your characters apart?
Do you know what lies deep in their heart?
Their virtues and vices?
What they think a crisis
What makes them stop dead or make a start?

Quite proud of line 4 above - I don’t often produce slant rhymes where something sounds the same or similar but isn’t spelt that way. 

The way to writing bliss is sheer hard work.
To get your tale right means you cannot shirk
Your plotting, your characters,  your big scene
Ensuring all you write IS all you mean.

There is no shortcut! The joy of writing is in enjoying the hard work and seeing it as part of the journey to get a good story or script out there.  Assume there’ll be several edits.  You never pick everything up on one read-through.  The challenge is in getting every piece of work as tightly written and well scripted as possible.  Reading author interviews over years confirms the above, which cheers me up no end as it means I know it isn’t just me. 


They say the paperback is dead
Only Kindle “books” will be read.
But I say that’s stuff and nonsense
All that is needed is some sense
Use your heart AND your head -
READ BOTH!!!

I expect this will end up being the case.  Whilst seeing the Kindle’s usefulness (at this stage I don’t have one), can anything really replace the paperback for its flexibility and its cheapness to replace in the event of accidents etc?  Also no paperback has ever needed batteries!

Writing advice in a nutshell:

They tell you write what you know
Don’t tell, get on and just show.
Get your characters right,
Make  your plot nice and tight.
Do that and be on Front Row!

Put like that it sounds so simple! The above sums up most of the advice I’ve heard over the years (bar the Front Row bit, which is a Radio 4 writing fan’s dream appearance slot!).  But I found the following to be true too:-

Want to know more about your characters?  Drop them right in it and see what they’re really made of!  Stress brings out the best and worst of a character.

The trouble with being a writer
Is folk may think you’re a right blighter
You’re too clever by half
Or your tales make them barf
Ignore it, the burden gets lighter.

Wendy Cope and the Poet Laureate have nothing to worry about as far as their jobs are concerned!

To read is sublime
To write is divine
To edit and improve is bliss
To ever get published is an uphill slog.

And that will always be true!

Do you truly enjoy whatever you write?
If not, should you write in another format?
To be published, you need an agent to “bite”.
To get there, can you pitch what you write “off-pat”?

Says it all really.  You’ve got to enjoy what you write to be able to keep going.  Also enjoying your work will help you pitch it more confidently (and convincingly at that).  The first to believe in your work and you is you.  Read author interviews as it’s always useful to see how others work and why.  You may well pick up tips to try out or be comforted in knowing you’re doing similar to Author A and they’ve been published.  Every unpublished writer needs encouragement to keep going every so often.  This is where entering competitions and hopefully getting shortlisted, then wins under your belt can help as well as being brilliant to put on a letter to an agent, publisher etc.


Read the best from all genres to write your best
Find out what can work best for other writers
Visit a conference or a writing “fest”
Avoid vanity presses and all blighters
Persistence and patience are the writer’s test.

If you don’t read outside your own work, how can you know what field you want to work in? Also how can you pitch effectively without knowing what is already out there in the market?  Also how can you love to write if you don’t love to read?  Some other writer’s work must’ve inspired you somewhere!  One of the loveliest things about going to conferences is talking to other writers and finding out what they’re doing.  Given every fiction writer is a nosey parker (why write otherwise?  We’re trying to work out what makes others tick), talking to others like this is bliss.  And often enough you’ll find out things you don’t already know and might be useful.

The drive to write must come from deep within
It keeps you going as rejects come in
The most important thing to do
Is with your tales, always write true
To your characters, your plots, YOU!

And expect rejections. See them as part of the job.  If you can get personalized rejections where someone scribbles a comment or a “positive” rejection, see what you can learn from these.  Near misses are good signs you’re on the right lines but be prepared to look at your work again and again and again.  Be prepared to redraft too.  Only stick to your guns on those points of your plot/characters that are really important and be prepared to say why!


Do you care about your characters?
Do you think plot actually matters?
Is your grammar and spelling correct?
Get it wrong and your chances are wrecked
Everything right is a major factor
In ever getting a publishing deal
The budding author needs to keep it real.

Says it all really.  I’ve found an error in a short story of mine where I forgot to change the name of a character as I’d altered it.  No wonder that tale got nowhere!  Object lesson:  always read through thoroughly!  Always double check spelling against a good dictionary.  Spell checkers can’t help you if you misspell a word but the misspelling is another accurately spelled word!  It has no way of knowing which one you want.  It may pick up an error if your wrong choice causes a grammatical error but it doesn’t always.

The writer’s task is never an easy one.
You want a gripping tale that is also fun
To write and to read
And hope it will feed
A best-selling series that can run and run!

This has to be a kind of holy grail for most writers. I’ve got to the point where I want to enjoy what I write and if I can sell it so much the better.  To have any chance of achieving the latter, I’ve got to make what I send out there as good as I can. 

Be suspicious of anyone in the writing industry not willing to discuss their terms upfront.  See the Jonathan Clifford website for warnings about the vanity press. Any industry has its charlatans and publishing is not the exception to prove the rule.


Write because you simply must.
Read authors that you can trust.
To deliver the characters and plot,
No giveaways, well at least not a lot.
Then go write, sod the housework and dust.

And enjoy what you do as, especially with a novel, you’re going to be living and breathing with your characters for a long time.  Are you convinced by what you’ve written?  Always allow at least one of your edits for a “does the story make sense?” or “plot holes, are there any?!” go through.  You will spot something.  I always do.  Usually something minor which is relatively easy to correct.  Best to spot now before sending the work off.

Some golden rules I’ve found to be true:-

The first draft is always rubbish.

The second draft is significantly better as you take out the repetitions, see the faults in the plot and characters etc.

Reading books on writing by others is really useful in developing your own technique.

Spelling and grammar are important.  Colin Dexter’s Plenary Speech at the Winchester Conference a few years back on the importance of letting a good dictionary into your life was hilarious.


To write is to live another life, to visit places you wouldn’t normally go to and, indeed, to invent your own worlds.  To write is to put yourself in your characters’ heads and to discover many different perspectives (you’ve got to be able to have some sympathy with your characters, even the villains, to be able to write about them sympathetically). 

There was an author called A. Symes
Who wrote of the fairy world’s times
Whose main stars rebelled
And caused merry hell
Whose spells always came with some rhymes.

To write sympathetically means believing in your characters and to show them acting and speaking convincingly. 

It can feel like the end of all things is near
When it’s hard to find any story idea
But write anything down, anything at all.
Test what you come up with, let your mind free fall.
Tell yourself you’re fighting imaginary fear.

Writing can be like driving in that you need enough confidence to do it well but not so much you come across as an arrogant tit.  I don’t believe in writers’ block but do accept there are days when the words simply refuse to flow well.  I think that’s a normal part of being a writer.  We’re not robots - there are bound to be times when life, difficult circumstances or whatever prey on our minds and that’s bound to affect the writing.  What matters is you keep writing - anything at all, seriously, it does work - and remember every writer has had their day when they felt like packing it in.  The world would’ve been poorer had they done so.


The joy of being short-listed
Is showing that you’ve resisted
The temptation to jack it all in
When rejections are all that come in
You’ve kept going, you’ve persisted!

The above says it all.  Being short-listed boosts your confidence.  I wish I could bottle that feeling of achievement and how good it makes you feel as a writer, it’d sell by the million!  It’s also good to put on the writing CV!  Want to write better?  Write more!  Try different forms. I’ve found writing short stories with a tight word count has led to my writing my Brenebourne series in a tighter fashion, which will reduce the word count there (never a bad thing as I overwrite) and I’ve found my narrative pace has picked up too.

Cherish the little successes as you write.
They’ll keep you going when things are not so right.
When rejections keep hitting your mat
Receiving these things is an authorly fact
Of life - never let them be a blight.

The great thing is the little successes will hopefully mount up.  In the meantime, you can put them on the writing CV.  Also for all the hours where you seem to try and try and yet  you feel you get nowhere, these small successes can boost your self esteem and help validate your writing.  Every writer needs to feel that validation sometimes. Certainly it can help you feel like you are a proper writer.  I know I need to have that confirmed sometimes. 


The writing game is frustrating and long.
Everything you send out seems to be wrong.
Rejections - oh so many!  And
Acceptances - oh so few!  And
Keep your chin up, persistence pays, be strong.

Oh so true!  And when successes come, such as being shortlisted, it will mean more.  Writing is one of the few professions I can think of where failure is expected, where you can learn so much from it and then go on, hopefully, to get your work out there.  After all surgeons aren’t “allowed” to fail.  Vary your writing and experiment with what you want to do.  I started off just writing novels but now love writing short stories and scripts too.  It can be useful to have smaller pieces of work to send out whilst you’re working on a longer item - if these shorter pieces can get published and earn you something, then great and it’s something for the CV.  If not, writing short story hones your other writing skills (writing to a deadline, sticking to a theme for themed competitions) and to a word count.  Short stories are the best way I know of to “write tight”.

It can feel like the end of all things is near
When it’s hard to find any story idea
But write anything down, anything at all.
Test what you come up with, let your mind free fall.
Tell yourself you’re fighting imaginary fear.

Writing can be like driving in that you need enough confidence to do it well but not so much you come across as an arrogant tit.  I don’t believe in writers’ block but do accept there are days when the words simply refuse to flow well.  I think that’s a normal part of being a writer.  We’re not robots - there are bound to be times when life, difficult circumstances or whatever prey on our minds and that’s bound to affect the writing.  What matters is you keep writing - anything at all, seriously, it does work - and remember every writer has had their day when they felt like packing it in.  The world would’ve been poorer had they done so.

Enjoy your writing, whatever you do
Novels, short stories, various scripts too
Characters to be strong
Make them act right and wrong
It makes for an interesting point of view.

Why write unless you love doing so?  It’s the only thing to get you through all the rejections.  Try to see rejections as stepping stones to improving what you write. 

Short story deadlines must be met
If your tale is to win a bet
With yourself this one makes it
Giving you a writing credit
The Booker?  Hmm… not just yet.

The above comes under the heading "who does she think she's kidding?"!

The joy of writing is in creating new worlds,
New characters, new tales, all of them glossy pearls
Of wisdom, dialogue, wit and plot.
Gripping stories are not such a lot
To ask, is it?  Let your words pour out and unfurl…

As you can tell from the above, I’ve discovered the joy of the slant rhyme where words are almost a complete rhyme but not quite.  But it is true that the great joy of fiction writing is in creating something new.  I do have a go at some poetry competitions every now and again as I believe it is good for my main writing to try something different now and again. 

And the best reason for writing? WRITE BECAUSE YOU CAN’T IMAGINE NOT DOING SO.

Other good reasons are:-

• Write because you must.
• Write to show your unique take on the world and what matters to you.
• Just as you’ve read stories and skipped the “boring” bits, make sure there aren’t any “boring” bits in your own work.  Use your experience of what you like to improve your own writing.
• Write to grip others (in a good way!).
• Write true to (a) yourself and (b) your characters.

Read widely outside your genre, they say.
It helps fuel ideas, keeping block at bay.
Have a dictionary, spelling to be fine.
If your writing is faulty, you can’t whine
When only form rejections head your way.


I read history (British), humorous novels (Wodehouse - there’s no way I’ll write like him so I indulge happily and adore his use of language), “entertainment” books (usually with links to radio shows like I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue).  I read some crime and thrillers.  Would like to read more fantasy short stories and more science fiction.  Like the Doctor Who hardback novels the BBC issue every so often.


There’s no such thing as a wasted idea.
If it fails somewhere, press on, have no fear.
Almost anything can be reworked and then
Sent out to an appropriate market when
Hopefully an acceptance is all you’ll hear


I often send out stories that didn’t get anywhere with the Writing Magazine and/or Writers’ News monthly competitions out to other outlets, including various writing festivals.  So far no joy there but it’s good to feel you’ve got work out there.  I look forward to the day when, hopefully, I might get one or two honourable mentions here, all stuff to add to the CV.  But the general sentiment expressed above is correct.  Your story may fail for “good” reasons (like grammar, spelling, didn’t follow rules and so on) or for “arbitrary” ones (story fine but didn’t meet that judge’s taste.  So therefore it is worth checking a tale to see it is okay and if so to get it out there again.  You might then find a judge who likes it).