Have you ever been on the end of a cringeworthy chat up line? You know the type: "Get your coat love, you've pulled" or the one that I married, "Dance with me. I'm avoiding the girl behind you." Well, they say first impressions count...


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I've decided to call the last twenty one days my Ëœweird weeks". Picasso had a blue phase so I think I'm allowed a weird one. Three weeks ago, I was happily sitting in the family home we've been in for sixteen years and now we're selling it. All because I drove up a road and saw a ËœFor Sale" sign. All because my husband, whom I regularly show ËœFor Sale" signs to, didn't give me a derisory grunt this time, but instead said "Let's do it. Let's move!"

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So, I decided before going on holiday that on my return, it would be head down for the rest of August to finish the first draft of the current WIP.

The trouble is twenty five thousand words in and recently I've had these other characters, from another book idea totally, demanding to be heard. I put them on the back burner months ago because the voices from the WIP were coming through louder. Now it seems they're being bullied into submission. And I hate it.


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I’ve not had the best week. My diet failed miserably. I succumbed to overwhelming chocolate desires. I haven’t exercised. I haven’t blogged regularly. I haven’t tweeted. And my daily word count target seemed determined to go backwards. I attempted to write a short story and couldn’t – it was like my mojo had left the building. Dissipated in the heat, disappeared through the pores of my skin – Mojo Osmosis...


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Recently, I was trying to find a pressie for a writer friend of mine which prompted the idea for this post. There are SO many fabulous things out there; some practical, some shiny, some useful, some useless but funny (UBF) but all are worth having! Prices range from cheap as chips to pricey - there's something for every pocket. Alas, I haven't been able to post pictures of them but please do follow the links...So, here are a few of my favourite writerly things:


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I’ve successfully avoided writing now for about...well, lots of days. How many, I’m not sure but I’d stab a guess at about twenty four. Twenty Four! I hear you all exclaim. That’s not days, that’s almost four weeks! But up until this moment in time, I haven’t wanted to face that. I’ve been happily ignoring the passage of time on that river in Egypt. ‘De Nile’ as they called it in the Dublin I grew up in.

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These are my new boots. They are also my sale bargain of the year and they are a thing of beauty...Don’t you agree? I stalked them until they came down to half price in the sale, then I marched in with my credit card and like a certain Disney princess’s ugly sister, was determined to make them fit. The thing is, they don’t really. Fit, that is. Well, they sort of do but I have to zip them all up at ankle level, then haul them up over my lardy calves.

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We are thrilled to welcome best selling romantic novelist Katie Fforde to Strictly Writing. Thanks so much Katie, for taking the time out of your busy schedule to join us.


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"A perfect character is not engaging. Character transformation can be one of the most powerful effects in any story." Donald Maass


I’ve never written about perfect characters. I'm not sure anyone would want to read about them. But I have written about one who thought she was perfect, for her to discover en route she definitely wasn't. For me as a reader, the draw of the genre I write in (Commercial Women’s Fiction) is the character transformation that unfolds in the telling of an engaging story. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yet, I’ve tried it twice and though novel two has not bitten the dust – far from it – I’m about to start writing novel three and felt it was time for a change in ‘how’ I approached it.


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Friday 9th April

Today I drove for five hours to reach York University by one thirty, the designated time for registration at the 2010 Festival of Writing run by the Writer's Workshop. As I write these words, it’s late at night. I’ve already met some really interesting new people at a Literary Speed Networking session; caught up with some writer buddies; attended a workshop with Harry Bingham and the lovely Helen Corner; watched a live Authonomy session that rivalled the best of the X Factor, and drank one too many glasses of cheap Chardonnay. Actually looking at the single mattress (pvc lined?!) in my student room, the alcohol may indeed aid my night’s sleep. That is if I can ignore the geese clacking (do geese ‘clack’?? Is there even a verb to clack??) I’m rambling. But it’s allegedly mating season and they make loud lovers those geese...


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