Hello Dreamers, I have some exciting news... I've opened a new Etsy shop. I know, I know, I already have an Etsy shop. Well yes, Hearsay Designs is still open and serving all your statement jewellery needs. But I wanted to start offering writing services to people like you (creative writers) and small business (like …
Writing Exercise: The Buffy Effect
I was watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer recently and it occurred to me that it would make an excellent writing exercise. Writing exercises are great to have in your back pocket for when you need an extra boost of inspiration. Exercises, whether you follow them exactly or not, get you thinking critically and …
You Reap What You Sow
I was listening to the Being Boss podcast yesterday and they were talking about magic. Specifically, they were talking about how saying what you want to do and achieve out loud can make the thing manifest. Or at least it may feel that way, since saying it out loud may subconsciously make you work harder …
Arranging Short Story Collections
Hello Dreamers, I've been knocked out with the flu for the last week so forgive me if this post is a little incoherent. Last month I wrote and submitted my first short story collection and I wanted to tell you how I went about ordering my stories for submission. I'd expected it to be a …
How I wrote a crime story when I’m a fantasy writer
When I won the Thuderbolt Prize for Crime Writing last year a lot of people started to think of me as a crime writer. If any of you have read my other published short stories you’ll know I’m much more of a speculative fiction writer. So, how did I come to write a crime story? …
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Inspiration for Writers and Illustrators: Intro
Inspiration. It’s sacred. Sometimes we have too much. Sometimes we can’t even find a crumb of it between the couch cushions. But inspiration isn’t a mystical, magical force of nature. It is something we can cultivate, build up and harvest. Some people call it filling the well. You can fill the well by reading a …
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Stop Being a Suffering Artist
I want to talk about this idea of the suffering artist. I’ve been thinking, and this might sound harsh but, we bring it on ourselves. I think that part of us love the suffering, we love the idea of being a martyr for our art, we love being able to tell people how much we’ve …
I’m Writing a Short Story Collection!
Hey Dreamers, I’ve been working on a short story collection lately and I really wanted to share with you a little of my process so far. It has been a major goal for me this year to gather all my short stories together into a cohesive collection for publication. I spent the first few months …
Why I Wish I liked Annihilation
I watched Annihilation the other night. Horror/thrillers where the cast gets picked off one by one until only the protagonist is left standing is not usually my jam but I really wanted to like this one. I wanted to like it because the core cast was entirely female in a genre and narrative structure that …
Making Money From Writing
2015 was the first year I made any money from writing. I made $15. It was for my short story 'A Girl and her Dog' in SQ Magazine and I was stoked. In 2016 I made $151.06. That's more than 100 times growth. I also won a short story competition and an iPad mini. In …
