Oops – My Bad!
The First Three Days of my Twelve Days of Christmas Writing Advice
So I must have just been so busy having fun on Christmas Day (read here: too full of Turkey and Prosecco) that I forgot to send you out my newsletter which kicked off my Twelve Days of Christmas Writing Advice.
Those who have been subscribing to my newsletter for a while may remember my Twelve Days of Christmas Writing Advice from last year, but for those who are new, you are in for a real treat.
BUT, I forgot to send out days one and two, so this newsletter is going to be a bit jam-packed with them. Like I said, my bad.
To celebrate the twelve days of advent, I asked well-known writers to share with you the best writing advice they have ever received, or indeed, could give. And over the next ten days (condensed now, thanks to my oversight) you will receive them direct to your inbox.
To kick us off, and catch us up, we have three amazing writers: Jan Carson, Kit de Waal and Laura Marshall.
On the first day of Christmas, Jan Carson talked to us about how she coped as a writer in lockdown and how she found comfort in the work and lives of other writers who have come before her:
“I loathe the idea that a writer can be taught the so-called ‘rules of writing,’ or that following such rules will lead to anything approximating a story you’d actually want to read,” she says. “Mostly writing feels like trying to bake a cake sans recipe or correct ingredients with nothing to follow but a kind of vision, you saw once, fleetingly, in a dream.”
I love that, I think that is the thing we most love and hate about the exercise of writing – trying to hold onto that dream. And yet we keep trying.
You can read Jan’s post in its entirety here, and just like Jan herself, it is bloody brilliant. If you like the sound of Jan, you can also buy her books from The Book Room, her latest novel, The Raptures is published in paperback on January 5th and I can’t think of a better way to kick off your 2023 reading.
From one brilliant woman to another now, and on the second day of Christmas, Kit de Waal shared her best writing advice. Kit is of course bestselling author of My Name is Leon, The Trick to Time, and her memoir, Without Warning & Only Sometimes: Scenes from an Unpredictable Childhood.
In her writing advice, Kit discusses the importance of not losing the essence of your work – and that is you. So many people can be afraid to share the idea of what they are writing, but they forget, no-one can write it like them, what they bring to the page is their unique style, and this is what Kit focuses on:
“…you work hard, you learn what a good sentence is and then a good paragraph and then a good story and you work at it some more and then you edit until you can edit no more but you never, ever lose sight of — or perhaps rather lose the sound of — your voice and your uniqueness.”
You can read Kit’s post in its entirety here, and if you have never read Kit’s books before, I recommend you put them to the top of your TBR pile.
Finally, on the third day of Christmas, we have writing advice from friend of The Book Room, Laura Marshall. You may remember that Laura put together a thriller curation for the Writers Recommend section which has been on display in the physical store and you can still buy online here.
But on the third day of Christmas, Laura’s writing advice focuses on how not to be afraid of the blank page – something we all need to remember!
“If you allow yourself to be frightened of it, you’ll never write anything,” says Laura. “And don’t wait for inspiration. If I did that, I’d never have written anything at all. Just sit down and write. If it’s terrible, what does it matter? At least you’ll have something to work with.”
You can read all of Laura’s writing advice here and of course, as with all our other writers you will find their books on sale in The Book Room.
Right, I think that’s us all caught up. Tomorrow, it will of course be the fourth day of Christmas, and which famous writer will be sharing his advice with you? Here’s a clue, his debut novel was adapted into a Hollywood movie – I only bring you the top authors, you know!
Right, After Eights are calling…
More tomorrow!
• Don’t forget I might not have a physical store at the moment, but you can still support The Book Room by buying books from my online store here.