Warriors of The Word – New Beginnings As we begin the new year of 2016, our focus turns to new beginnings where we endeavour to channel our energies into the likes of health and personal development that will see us grasping the thorny vine of projects that may have slipped from our control over the [...]

Easing the Burden with a little Self-Editing A lesson in Awareness How much do you know about the technical aspects of your writing? As a writer with serious intentions, you need to make time to learn the fundamental rules. We learn as we go, but we evolve so much more if we make a point [...]

I'm very happy to announce the release of two novels that I've had the pleasure of editing in the recent past. Though these works are as different as you can get, one an in-depth analysis of disparate characters surrounding a life-changing event, the other a rollicking Irish modern romance, both share similar strengths: strong characterisation [...]

Kieran Fanning’s book launch in Dublin’s Gutter Bookshop on August 24th was an exciting affair, with children and adults alike clambering for seats, photo angles, and a prize spot in the long queue to have his book, The Black Lotus, signed, followed, of course, by the obligatory photo with the smiling author himself. And he [...]

A Rose-Tinted Rant As an editor, several things annoy me about the broad process of preparing a novel for release into what is now a massive self-publishing market. Over the last few years the market has expanded into something that caught the Traditional world by the pants, and has, to a large extent, left it [...]

Preparation Is The Name Of The Game If you submit to an agent or publishing house, your work won’t last five minutes off the slush pile if it’s not ready-to-go, and by that I mean professionally edited – not simply proofread. Your manuscript requires more than its punctuation and spelling errors corrected. The same goes [...]

You’re a writer. You’ve probably spent the last year or so chipping away at your novel - the love/hate of your life, bringing clarity and shape to the mangle of ideas and shadows that filled your head for so long. You’ve worked and reworked elements of story, developed character, polished and burnished grammar and structure [...]

When characters speak, the reader should be trapped in the moment, hooked, not pulled out of the story by unwieldy phrasing, words that simply don’t fit, or punctuation that distracts. When reading your dialogue aloud, which you should always do, if it sticks out or trips you, rework it so that it does what it’s [...]

Are you a writer? What defines you as such? Is it that you have a qualification from a college, online or real-life? Are you well published, traditionally or Indie? Do you just dabble, popping out the odd poem or short story as the mood takes you, or are you a fully-committed career scribe, chipping away [...]

When I first heard the phrase – ‘Writing is about rewriting’ - I went, ‘Huh?’ The way I saw it, the main thing was to get that story down, finished, complete, at last! I mean, there’s no doubting the satisfaction and sense of exhilaration felt when ‘The End’ is written or typed after that closing [...]