This episode is a round up of everything we've been talking about concerning the sound of writing over the last few episodes. We look at tone, style, and voice, the importance of clarity, brevity, and precision and then go on to think about the problems and solutions related to sentence structure. ...
The American writers Joyce Carol Oates famously said: “The biggest obstacle for writers is distraction from other people." And it’s substantially true. But those who say we should exclude these distracting people are offering a solution that is both naïve and selfish, and doesn’t really allow for the reality of our lives. In truth, it’s usually the people that we love who are the most distracting, and we choose to continue to love them and engage with them rather than cut ourselves off from them; our partner, our children, family members, close friends, maybe even vulnerable people to whom we have made some kind of commitment. We have to find a way of acknowledging our responsibilities to those who we have a commitment to, whilst still finding the time and energy to write, and to achieve this balance is an essential skill for the writers life. To help us explore this issue, and to offer practical steps to help us all with this tight rope act, I am joined by two writers, Sam Mills and Michael J Harvey. Sam Mills studied English Language and Literature at Oxford University, and worked as a journalist and publicist before giving it all up to write full time. She has published seven books, the latest of which is “The Fragments of My Father” which explores her personal story of becoming a carer to her father, who has schizophrenia. Michael J. Harvey is a fantasy novelist with degrees in History from the Universities of Leicester and Cambridge. He is a blogger, writer and traveller, and also a husband and father to two young children. Both of my guests have had to learn to create and manage time for their writing, ...
In this episode we explore the unavoidable truth that writing is really hard work. We look at why that is the case and think about ways to acknowledge this truth, and keep writing anyway. We learn the one fundamental truth about writing that everyone from the most obscure writer to the likes of Stephen King will tell you, and we identify three 'tools' for the toolbelt to help us keep going with our writing even when it's tough going. ...
