milfordsfwriters

1/ Give us your biography in four sentences or fewer.

I grew up in the North East in the 60’s and 70’s, studied Maths in Manchester in the 80’s, taught Maths in London in the 90’s and then Computer Science in Oldham from the 2000’s onwards.  I’m now retired from teaching, but as Celine Dion almost said, my heart still goes on.

Y...

The small print.

Hi. If part one The Big Picture, [last week] worked out for you, your story is now a leaner, meaner fiction creature. Can there possibly be any need for more?

Well, the points below might offer you some places to go next [cos there could still be some].

As coord...

Part One, The Big Picture

So you’ve finished your story; congratulations, seriously. Many people never even get that far so you deserve to feel good. For a moment.

Now comes the hard part…

Because the draft was for you, and in a perfect world no one else would ever see it. What now? The dreaded ...

There are a few posts coming up on the gentle art of editing, so I thought I’d preface them by explaining the basic steps your book might go through once you’ve finished your first draft. Please note – this is from the point of view of a writer who has gone through the process. I am not an editor, but I have been self-edited and professionally edited.

First of a...