Writing life | Alison Morton Author

Backing up your writing!

Frustrated businesswoman looking at her computer screen In dismay

Having slogged away for months and months researching and sweating creatively over my keyboard, I have finished a first draft of 107,000 words of a new novel and it’s gone for its first editorial pass. Hooray! But imagine the horror of losing all that work due to a digital disaster!

To prevent […]

Plagues ancient and modern

Recently, I caught Covid-19. Not a unique story these days, but I’d dodged it until last month. Vaccinated five times and an avid mask wearer, I’d been hyper-careful. I was nervous last year when I started to go to author events, either to speak or take part. I was a rare person at the London […]

What does 'success' look like?

A ‘successful author’ – what does that mean?

Selling gazillions of books and getting an orange Bestseller label on Amazon? Selling gazillions of books with only 8% of the proceeds but with the backing of a big publisher? Running your own writing and publishing business – the mistress (or master) of your own universe? […]

How book bloggers help authors – 10 Dos and Don'ts

Bookbloggers read, review and promote books in their spare time. They don’t get paid. They love reading and want to share that joy with others.

Delving into a new world, meeting enthralling characters, being chilled or thrilled, rooting for the protagonist, biting their fingers off, never mind the fingernails, or sighing with pleasure or […]

Mind your language!

As a language nerd, certified translator and writer of fiction (and in a previous existence of proposals, reports, corporate documentation, advertising and PR copy), I’ve always been interested in the power of words. Tone, style and formality as important as context.

Although multi-lingual, I write in my mother-tongue English, but when writing a story in […]