I know how bad it feels when you get negatives. It only takes one to drown out hundreds of positives if you let it.

I felt like giving up, and I haven’t written a thing since then. How do you all deal?

When do you stop being “just a writer” and become an author?

How many words should a novel have?

My advice would be not to worry about it. Just write the best story you can. Getting it to the right size can come…Read more

Get it down on paper, make it pretty later!

Does that help?

Here’s a post where I talk about what I have learned so far:

Word gangs, clones, and pacing

If your character’s conversations are too much like a radio script, give your character something to fiddle with.

If youir chapter is too shart or you desperately need to pad word count, make two characters argue about something. It is good if you need them to miss something obvious for “plot reasons”.

Give every…Read more

1. Get it down on paper; make it pretty later
2. After an event, there are four stages -> immotion, reasoning, anticipation, and action
3. If you gave 100 authors the same ideas, you would get (at least) 100 unique stories. Only you can tell yours.

1. Never edit until the first draft is done
2. It isn’t a character if they don’t want something
3. Imagination is your best frined – if in doubt make stuff up

Any one?

Anyway, Matt (who runs Authorbuzz) runs his own writing group on Thursdays at the Wheatsheaf pub in Margate from 7:30pm. We’re a small, friendly group and we’d love to have you along