Insights | Alison Morton Author

Taking it on the chin

Who’d be a critic? I’m not talking about the flesh-tearing but insecure ego-tripper as in Sebastian Faulks’ A Week in December, but more somebody who assesses manuscripts and/or mentors writers.

Sending your baby out for review produces numbing fear in a writer; desperate for feedback, but scared the reviewer/assessor/critic will deem it a heap of […]

Conflicting advice and making your own decision

Conflicting advice is the very devil, especially if it’s given by different well-respected and hugely experienced writers. Especially when you’ve paid for it from a well-researched and carefully selected specialist or it comes via a highly professional writing organisation.

Like most newbie writers, I am passionate, energetic and in love with my story and characters. […]

Obsession or addiction?

You start your novel, get the scenes down, complete the first draft. Fine so far. Any writer knows the first draft is not a work of art, or even saleable. So the real work begins; enhanching, slashing and burning, sweating over that love scene, ramping up the fight scenes, checking pacing, inserting tension, moulding and […]

Bridging sensibilities…

Simon Scarrow always succeeds in letting me into his tough, male Roman world without alienating me from an environment so different from my own. His heroes, Macro, the blunt-speaking grizzled veteran, and Cato, the educated and younger soldier, bash their way through numerous adventures (including Eagle in the Sand) in the time of Emperor Claudius.

[…]

Diversion, FTI or accidie?

What is that strange feeling when you schedule work in that day, but at 6 pm and the nth cup of tea, you wonder what happened. Many people suffer from this. Especially writers, it seems.

Diversion is a word that comes up a lot. Doesn’t sound too bad: something that distracts the mind and relaxes […]