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caro55's Blog on WriteWords

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SW - Guest post by Andrew Sharp - The Ideal Reader
Posted on 23/10/2009 by  caro55


I have a notion that Wordsworth’s line, I wandered lonely as a cloud, has nothing to do with walking the Cumbrian hills but is a metaphor for the poet’s mental state when he wrote. Writers mooch lonely in their thoughts whilst under the tips of their fingers the novel forms and grows as they tap at the keys. Sometimes they think they have created fields of daffodils but even the prettiest words that appear on the screen have no guarantee of making it into the finished piece; at any moment they could be dragged and dropped, substituted or deleted, leaving not a trace.

But there comes a day when the writer has to say (like Pontius Pilate when asked to change what he’d written on Christ’s cross): ‘What I have written, I have written.’ No more revisions. The last pre-submission draft is printed out, is packaged up as if it's the stone on which is scoured the Ten Commandments, and sent to the publisher or agent.

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SW - Tipping off Balance
Posted on 19/10/2009 by  caro55


Don't use passive voice
Don't use adverbs and adjectives
Avoid the verb 'to be'
Delete anything that you actually like
Shoot yourself immediately if you ever feel tempted to use a dialogue tag other than 'said.'


All right, so I exaggerate just to be stupid, but sometimes it feels as though the advice given to 'aspiring' writers is designed to stop you ever actually writing anything. How come you can pick up any published book and find adverbs, characters whispering or shouting things rather than saying them, and the verb 'to be' used perfectly sensibly without ruining the entire story?

I don’t think there’s one rule for published writers and another for first-timers. I think what’s really going on with advice like this is that the same problems crop up over and over, and helpful people want to warn against them. The trouble is that there’s nothing to catch the writer before he or she tips too far in the other direction, and one analogy that springs to mind here is with learning to ride.

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SW - Why bother with Twitter?
Posted on 05/10/2009 by  caro55


Some say Twitter is essential for writers; others sneer at it as a time-wasting exercise in vanity. I wouldn't say it's essential (which for me means stuff like oxygen and water), but I do find Twitter useful and, what's more, fun.

I've only been on Twitter a couple of months, having resisted joining for ages because it seemed pointless. Like many people who have never looked at it, I thought it would consist of morons informing the world that they're about to eat a doughnut, or that their baby is a genius because it just did a poo.

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SW - Strictly Determined
Posted on 18/09/2009 by  caro55


Tonight's the night! Strictly Come Dancing, the show to which our blog pays homage, is bringing its warm, friendly glitter and glamour back to the screens.

Brucie will crack the same old cringe-worthy jokes and then say 'think about it' in case we're too thick to understand. Viewers at home will lament the ditching of Arlene. The dancers will nervously await their first moment of glory, and across the land grumpy dads on sofas will comment “never 'eard of 'im,” and “who's she when she's at home?”

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Is your writing ready to party?
Posted on 03/09/2009 by  caro55


Do people still throw ’come as you are’ parties? I rarely get invited to parties… for some reason… so I wouldn’t know, but I remember them being the cause of much contrived hilarity in vintage sitcoms.

An editing tip that occurred to me recently is to think of each sentence as a potential party guest. When the telephone call arrives from the hip ‘n’ happening hosts, is the sentence ready to step out of the door looking effortlessly glam, or is it sitting in its threadbare pyjamas in front of a Dallas re-run, eating Krispy Kreme doughnuts and examining its split ends?

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Why haven't I read this yet?
Posted on 24/08/2009 by  caro55


This week’s Weekly Geeks challenge asks: tell us about a book (or books) you have been meaning to read. What is it? How long have you wanted to read it? And, why haven’t you read it yet?

Top of the list is….

Redemption Falls by Joseph O’ Connor


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Creating Mystery
Posted on 21/08/2009 by  caro55


One or two people have described my book as ‘gripping’ or mysterious. I’m not relating this in order to show off but because it’s about time I did a proper blog post about writing, so I thought I’d describe my process of building up tension and mystery.

Plot events, however exciting, don’t create much mystery on their own...

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SW - The Beautiful Game - Helen Black
Posted on 18/08/2009 by  caro55


Over the course of the last few weeks the tension has been building in the Black household.
A hungry anticipation coupled with uncharacteristic optimism has taken over.
Yes, my friends, the start of the football season has arrived. Those barren weeks of outlandish rumour are over.
Last season's disappointments are consigned to history. This year will be the one. There is everything to play for.

Those of us who follow a football team will recognise the wonderful feeling of the clean sheet. And those of us who write must surely understand that they are brothers in arms. It seems to me that writing and following the footie are so similar I'm suprised Stevie G hasn't won the Booker.

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More books go out into the world
Posted on 17/08/2009 by  caro55


My philosophy for signings is to expect nothing whatsoever from the bookshop. I take my own refreshments and promotional material – even down to the Blu-Tack to put up posters. I am always completely prepared to walk in and find that no one remembered I was going to be there that day...

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Forgotten Victorian books
Posted on 11/08/2009 by  caro55


Via Twitter I encountered this new publishing company, Victorian Secrets, which is to print critical editions of the forgotten gems of the 19th century.

Due out in September is The Dead Man’s Message by Florence Marryat. Catherine Pope of Victorian Secrets and Victorian Geek has recently set up a new website devoted to this very interesting but neglected writer. Marryat wrote around 90 novels, split up with two husbands, became an actress and a journalist and developed an interest in spiritualism that influenced her later work. Two years before her death, she published The Blood of the Vampire, which came out around the same time as Dracula and was largely overshadowed.

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