The Creative Writing Blog

Writing a book is like having a baby.

This is a comparison that’s often made – and having written over thirty books and had five babies, I concur. There’s the same giddy journey...

The writer Thomas Mann said, ‘A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.’ We love the recognition of process and perfectionism in...

The term “imposter syndrome” was first coined by Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in their landmark 1978 study of 150 highly successful professional women in various fields. Susan...

Jessie Burton is the million-selling, award-winning author of The Miniaturist, The Muse and The Confession, as well as her children's book The Restless Girls. The Miniaturist and The Muse...

Writer's block? Go back to your novel gingerly and potter about in its grounds if you've been away. Read a little of it - possibly from the beginning if you're not too far in or the last three...

Surely it was time to give up on the writing? But no, Harriet Tyce gave it one more throw... She's now a Sunday Times bestselling author. Here she tells us how close she came to giving up. Read on!...

Don't we all love Back to School September? August is the cruellest month for writers. As it draws to a close, we salute all of you who have made it through the month with your manuscript a...

 “ I'm afraid, I just didn't warm to Cheryl.”

I get to see a lot of novels-in-waiting as you might imagine. Sometimes my writers will share with me the editorial reports or...

Every novel presents such new challenges, it seems one has never written a novel before. An irksome and bewildering amnesia. Yet again,  your judgement and taste exceed your...