My troublesome YA novel has been put firmly to one side whilst I've been concentrating on my middle grade books. However, it's always on my mind and now and again, I go back to it to continue formulating a plan of how I'm going to tackle it. Things got even...
I think it's so useful to get advice from other authors and I will absorb all the information I can get my hands on to help navigate through this complex business. Back in July, author Karen Inglis shared her writing process in an interview I did with her. Today it's...
I'm celebrating a work anniversary - five years at Nicola Young Copywriter. That's according to LinkedIn anyway and the lovely followers who sent me a message of congratulations on the day. This milestone passed me by because I've been copywriting for much longer than...
Writing a story is the fun part. If I have a story idea, it burns a hole in my head until I can get it out. Fingers connect to keyboard and the circuit is complete to let those words flow through. Then I get to the end and congratulate myself on a job well done....
I have exciting news from Nikki Young Writes and I've been bursting to share it. My first book is going to be published soon! Many of you who follow this blog will know I spent a lot of last year working on my young adult manuscript. I finished a second draft and...
As a blogger, I share a lot about the things going on in my life, both the good and bad, but you don't always get to hear the background stuff; the bits that most probably shaped my life and made me the person I am today. In response to a challenge from Renee at Mummy...
I love meeting other authors. For me, it's very inspiring and gives me hope that I will one day be in a similar position. It's incredibly hard work though and takes a lot of dedication, as my guest today will tell you. Karen Inglis is a children’s author living in...
This is my work station at the moment. When I get time to work on my fiction writing, that is. It's been too lovely to sit at a desk staring at the wall. I'd much rather be in the kitchen, looking out over the garden, lush and green as it is at the moment. I'm...
Welcome to week seventy-six of What I’m Writing. If you’re wondering what the heck I’m going on about and where are the other seventy-five weeks, let me explain. You can find all the details about #WhatImWriting here but the short(er) version is, this linky is for all...
Wow, what a day yesterday turned out to be. The Kids Strike against the new SATS testing saw parents up and down the country taking their kids out of school for the day. I was one of those parents and although one person was out to target us with comments about having...
I’ve been quiet on the blogging front recently. Sometimes, I feel as though I could quite easily spend all my time blogging and never get anything else done. I have to pull myself away from it every now in then so I can concentrate on other projects. That means I’ve...
Continuing with the positivity that has seen me through February, I decided to do a bit of Spring cleaning. No, not my house, although it could do with it. I'm talking about this little 'ol blog here. I like to give it a spruce up every couple of years or so and it...
I'm glad I didn't make any new year's resolutions, because I would have been bitterly disappointed by now and it's not even the end of January. Work on my novel has come to a standstill whilst I work out where it's going and it seems this has triggered a fiction...
After the whirlwind that was November, I haven't done any writing since. It didn't feel right to jump straight in to editing and I decided to take a step back and take stock of what I have been doing and where I want to go with the novels. I'm reading a book called...
I'm in the thick of it at the moment, writing wise. In the middle of a 50,000 word challenge for National Novel Writing Month and typically, I get a report back on the first three chapters of my novel. I wasn't happy about the amount of work I still need to do on it...
So I did it. I signed up to do this year's NaNoWriMo. That doesn't mean that I have signed my life away and committed myself to something I can't get out of, but it does mean a step that makes it seem real. I've spent most of this year re-writing my novel. Having done...
Regular followers of my blog will know that I publish a Friday Fiction post every week. Except that is, on the odd occasion when I'm not feeling inspired enough or I've been taking a break. This is one of those weeks, but I'm here anyway to remind you that NEXT WEEK...
What does it take to be a writer? You might think that all you need is an idea and the ability to put that idea into words. Well let me tell you, bloggers, writers and authors of today can't survive if all they can do is write. We have to be so much more than that....
I haven't made up my mind whether or not to take a break from blogging over the summer. I think I would rather just see how it goes and not put any pressure on myself. I've edited the first three chapters of my manuscript and it's gone out to readers, so I hope to...
I have one more session left of a writing group I've been taking part in at my local bookshop. It's the first time I've ever done anything like this and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. What attracted me to the course was that it offered the opportunity to tackle your...