Hard graft | Alison Morton Author

The heroines behind the heroines...

Authors often talk about the heroines in their books. You may have caught me mentioning Carina and Aurelia from time to time. (Whistles in the air) But a conversation about heroines and their heroes led to something else…

This post was inspired by author Helen Hollick. It’s mainly in her voice with bits and pieces […]

Writing is bad for you

There, I’ve said it. I’m deep in the last third of my sixth book and I should know better. The crisis is coming, the characters’ nerves are shot and all I see is failure and death. I can’t sleep more than five hours nor stop thinking about those poor souls living under oppression or the […]

Social media vs. work/life balance

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an author in possession of a book must be in want of social media. Okay. that’s corny, but it’s true. But how hard should we pursue out courtship of social media and should we toss our head, be defiant and stick up for our principles, yet concede that […]

What the OU did for me and history

David Puttnam congratulating me at the degree ceremony

Study can broaden, widen and enrich your mind – that was a good enough reason for me when I signed up to do an MA in history with the Open University. I’d had to leave studying history at school because it clashed with Latin. (Who […]

Indie writer? Please don’t do these things

I’ve published 12 books – seven novels, two novellas, a short story collection and two non-fiction (as at 2021) – via the indie route since 2012, but in the preceding three years I learnt how to write for publication. More importantly, I learnt writing techniques: structure, plot, dialogue; how to delete adverbs, adjectives and over-writing; […]