I’ve been in London for the past two weeks. In this newsletter I’m reporting back from the rather grand-sounding Youpreneur Summit where I spent two intense days with 347 entrepreneurs from all industries. I heard about the conference when listening to The Creative Penn podcast with...
First off, no-one likes a bad review. It makes us feel sensitive and vulnerable about our writing. Just remember all writers have had their fair share of bad reviews but what you do next separates the successful from the unsuccessful. Consider the following: It’s very...
I promised I’d write about all aspects of the creative process and these past weeks I’ve been dealing with a rush of insecurities about my writing. I think we’ve all been there. Those days when self-doubt and overwhelm take over. When you’re afraid about rejection or negative...
I'll be having a live Twitter Q&A on 01 November at 7 pm UK time (02 November 6am AEST) with The Reading Agency @readingagency & Unbound @unbounders. You can ask me @clairescobie anything about the book and I'll live tweet back! Go on… would love to hear from you....
Last week my mum gave her first talk at the Thame Arts and Literature Festival in the UK. People laughed at her jokes, asked interesting questions and she sold 10 copies of her memoir A Baboon in the Bedroom. At 79 years old she’s finding...
Often your story idea may dictate your choice of genre. This is why whenever I teach creative writing, I cover the different genres in the first class so students get a sense of where their idea will fit into the literary landscape. As part of this,...
Last weekend I went to a puzzle room in Sydney with my family. These are the latest craze to come over from the US and UK. Basically, you are given clues and your team has to escape the themed room (s). We didn’t finish in...
The central idea in a story has different names: through line, spine, narrative thread among others. Essentially, a story is about a series of events that happen. Usually, you have one protagonist or hero and the story is the journey we go on with him...
Sometimes it’s hard to prioritise. Out of all the things you could be doing right now, is sitting down to do your writing or your creative project the best thing you could do? I’ve certainly been grappling with this issue. At the beginning of the year,...
There isn’t any right way to write. Often the tense we choose to write in is personal I find writing in present tense really hard; yet an author friend always writes in the present. Some stories lend themselves to the present tense: say for example, if you are writing from the point of view of...