WRITING TIPS

1) Write about what excites you, sets you on fire, floats your boat. Don’t write from obligation. Develop a premise around a favourite topic and build on that. Mine concerns a small group of elite mountaineers patrolling their territory.
2) You don’t have to do an advanced writing course. I’m self-employed in tourism so that option was out. I did a great introductory course off-season, watched movies, read plenty, took advice online and persevered.
3) Remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day, by a long shot. It's the same with writing so accept and expect that. I took ten years. Ultimately, I liked what I was writing and my characters and I wanted to see what happened.
4) Always read. Keep developing your own ideas. Me, I’m mostly into Lee Child, Hugh Howey and the late Clive Cussler. Great authors with intriguing stories.
5) Expect multiple re-writes. For me, at least half of any new page will likely be crap. One chapter took thirty attempts. Some ideas happened late. That’s how it goes. Don’t panic. As per my previous blog and my reference to Outward Bound, keep trekking and improving.
6) Avoid waffle. If you can reduce ten words to five or four, do so. Go for quality.
7) Keep your brain fresh and workable. Whenever I quit for half an hour I start thinking differently.
8) Write as regularly as possible. Sometimes I walked away for days due to work or I needed a break. Perhaps make it a weekly rather than daily goal if that’s more practical.
9) A professional assessment of your work, an objective eye, is well worth it. My assessor told me I was half way there, which was less than I thought. I knuckled down, went a little harder.
10) Publishing is a tough industry. Do as much as you can at your end. Become the best editor/polisher of your work and make sure of grammar and spelling before submission. Do this very well and you may improve your chances of acceptance.

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