The only advice you need to write your first novel

Here’s the best advice out there on how to write your first novel. I know because I wrote it. You should still ignore it.

Eighty-three percent of people want to write a novel.*

* Like 97 percent of statistics, this number is made up.

But perhaps you do want to write a novel. You’ve always loved to tell stories, and fantastic lands and tortured characters clamour in your head. You must set them free in the world for the good of all mankind.

Being the intelligent person you are, you do some research on how to write a novel and are promptly overwhelmed.

Amazon gives over 2000 results for “how to write a novel”, Google gives nearly 800 million. It’s probably not feasible to read all those before dinnertime.

But fear not, because I have the only advice you need to write the masterpiece that’s fermenting in your head and bubbling out your ears.

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Good advice for life (and Sharknado)

In which I reflect on my morning’s activities and decide strategy is not my strong suit. Plus, sharks in tornados.

#1: If you’re going to watch Sharknado with your twitter friends while live-tweeting, don’t do it during your usual blog-writing time.

#2: If you’ve just watched Sharknado and have to blog, don’t promise yourself you’re not going to blog about sharks. Because you are going to blog about sharks, even if you’ve done it before.

#3: If you’re sleepy when you’re blogging, don’t trust your spellchecker when it tells you that “haev” is a perfectly acceptable word.

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