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Ah, September. What a dream you were. I spent the whole month in a Scottish castle. There was a library and an orchard and wild deer. I wrote 45,000 words of a new novel and went for 6-mile walks every day. I’m going to be dreaming about it for a long time. October was a little more prosaic, as I had to catch up on all the emails and chores I missed in September. But I still had time to…

July and August were very different months, reading-wise. July was mostly holiday, where I spent the whole time in the pool on a mermaid float, drifting under the sun with my biggest sunglasses and a series of paperbacks. August was the Edinburgh International Book Festival, where I did this sold-out event with Imogen Hermes Gowar, as well as chairing five other events; that involved a lot of preparatory reading, chatting, and getting trains between Glasgow and Edinburgh (bonus reading time)….

I’ve absolutely devoured books over the past two months – 47 of them, to be exact! Quite a few were non-fiction books as research for my next book, and a few more were Point Horror re-reads for my new podcast, Teenage Scream. Luckily I did have time to read some quality fiction and non-fiction among all that. And, just like last month, it’s an almost entirely female list! Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, Reni Eddo-Lodge…

When you’re struggling with internal forces like depression or grief, or external forces like caring for a child or dependent adult, it can seem impossible to focus on creative work. So sit down, take a deep breath, and let four creative people share their experiences on working through the difficult times. It’s okay to take a break. “My sister was seriously ill, and my concentration was just shot,” says author Valerie O’Riordan. Rather than getting stressed, Valerie advises taking some…

We all know that networking is vital to furthering your writing career: making contacts, giving a good impression, getting your business card into the right hands. We also know that networking can be scary – how can we come across as confident but not conceited, ambitious but not cut-throat? Well, I’ll tell you! When I was a little girl my mother had very particular rules for birthday parties, and these exact same rules can be applied to networking as a…

Your novel is brilliant – but how can you convince an agent when they already have hundreds of unpublished manuscripts avalanching on their desk? You have to entice them into reading your novel, but it’s tricky to walk the line between interesting and insane. Luckily, there is a standard format for agent queries – and it’s a little like a covering letter for a job application. A query is a one-page letter introducing you and your book, and all agents…