Are you a pantser or a plotter?

Picture shows woman writing on laptop

Photo courtesy of Jessica Bell

Do you sit down at the keyboard and just write, a vague idea of the characters and their story swirling around in your head? Do you just throw stuff at the characters and see what happens? Then you’re a pantser* who writes by the seat of […]

Defeating copyright scams

The other week, I received a very legal seeming email for a German based company called Copytrack alleging that I had breached copy right of a photographer they represented and demanding the following:

Image license (valid for 1 year from date of purchase) 389€ Compensation costs (past usage) 350€ Payment due June 5 2025

(Can’t […]

Rory Marsden – Heraldry explained

Today I’m welcoming Rory Marsden to the writing blog. Writing as R Marsden, he’s a fellow contributor to Fate, a collection of short stories to be published by Taw River Press next month. Rory is an author and musician and passionate about the Middle Ages. He plays the gittern, a beautiful medieval stringed instrument, ancestor […]

Boycotting Amazon?

Woman reading ebook

Photo: AllaSerebrina

Love it or hate it, Amazon, is now part of our lives. Even if we prioritise buying local, we slip into the seductive single click of buying online from the world’s biggest universal supplier.

As part of the popular antipathy to large corporates prevalent in the digiverse at present (for a […]

How to enjoy your writing life

Photo of Alison Morton writing at her desk

Writing as a life choice isn’t easy. It’s actually a bit mad. But those who have the urge just can’t stop.

However, everybody will give you advice and I suppose I’m doing the same here. 🙂

Not advice about punctuation, dialogue or how to set the scene or bring characters to life – that’s craft […]