ASK MRS AINSLEY — the 1830s housekeeper and agony aunt with attitude
DEAR MRS AINSLEYI am in love with two men and I know not what to do.The first lives in the village where I was born. We played together as children … Continue reading
Being Creative in the time of Corona
I haven’t yet spent a whole 24 hours without seeing someone I care about, but I will if not today, (I’m expecting a supply of Earl Grey tea via my … Continue reading
Follow your obsessions – Franz Kafka QUOTES FOR WRITERS
“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” Franz Kafka … Continue reading
Our stories are as unique as snowflakes – Donald Maass QUOTES FOR WRITERS
…We may have dens with trophies on the mantles, but when we tell the stories of our lives, we relate the meaning of things that happened and describe how we … Continue reading
What makes a good plot? It’s all to do with the implicit promise that lies behind it – John Mullan QUOTES FOR WRITERS
Plot is not just a sequence of connected events (in this sense, every TV drama or novel equally has a plot). It is something rarer: the unfolding of a hidden … Continue reading
“…I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you…” Ray Bradbury’s advice to writers QUOTES FOR WRITERS
You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries … Continue reading
“…Writing is not figure skating or skiing…”warns Paul Theroux QUOTES FOR WRITERS
Notice how many of the Olympic athletes effusively thanked their mothers for their success? “She drove me to my practice at four in the morning,” etc. Writing is not figure … Continue reading
Probably the best definition of a short story – Neil Gaiman QUOTES FOR WRITERS
Short stories are tiny windows into other worlds and other minds and other dreams. They are journeys you can make to the far side of the universe and still be … Continue reading
“When I start writing the first sentence…” Anna Mocikat QUOTES FOR WRITERS
Since I used to be a screenwriter before I started publishing novels, I’m an enthusiastic plotter. When I start writing the first sentence of a novel, I know exactly how … Continue reading
What happens when we allow ourselves to write freely…Sharon Olds QUOTES FOR WRITERS
Whenever we give our pen some free will, we may surprise ourselves. All that wanting to seem normal in regular life, all that fitting in falls away in the face … Continue reading
Clive James on originality QUOTES FOR WRITERS
Scarcely anything is original. It’s very hard to be totally inventive, so I’m not terribly interested in originality. Vitality is all I care about. CLIVE JAMES Photo by Sharon Pittaway on Unsplash
“…It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible.” Ray Bradbury QUOTES FOR WRITERS
Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn’t exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be the same … Continue reading
Read Iris Murdoch on words: “the ultimate…stuff of our moral being” QUOTES FOR WRITERS
THERE IS NO DOUBT which art is the most practically important for our survival and our salvation, and that is literature. Words constitute the ultimate texture and stuff of our … Continue reading
My New Year present… a link to a short story that might just change the way you write or what you want to write about.
Ok, the statements in the heading of this post are so sweeping they could clean your whole house. And you’ve probably instinctively flinched because who likes to be told how … Continue reading
BRIDGET WHELAN writer 