Last month I went to the PowWow Festival of Writing (2025 Update: the festival no longer runs). Again, I went with my writing group, and we had a brilliant time. However, the weather wasn’t great, but thankfully we were under the heated marquee to keep off the chill…
Last Saturday my writing group held a Mad Hatter’s tea party book festival to celebrate World Book Night. As always, we had a brilliant time, and we had a decent turnout for the event. The event started with a poetry reading by Ian Henery. We also had the…
I have 53 short stories, one novel, one novella, and my WW2 story contributions (10 in total) to edit and get submission ready, but yet I’m struggling to resist new story submission calls. It’s like a drug. I’ve just seen one on the cult of me website, and…
I started writing my current novel in November 2014 as part of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and completed the first draft in February 2015. Wow, just writing down that date makes me realise that I have been working on this novel for a very long time. At…
Well, it’s not really a new adventure. A long time ago, little Nicole used to like writing plays. I still have the plays hidden away. Like my dream of becoming an author, I also wanted to be a playwright, but I buried it and set out on a…
Last week Friday, my writing group and I went on our first trip of the year. We went to meet local (local to us) author Angela Marsons at Cradley Heath library. Angela Marsons is the author behind the successful D.I. Kim Stone crime thriller series, and has since…
Recently, I’ve noticed that there’s something I do a lot when I talk about my writing successes, even saying the word ‘successes’ makes me wonder if I’m exaggerating. And that’s the problem. I always downplay my achievements. Even after all these years of writing, and finally feeling brave…
The one thing I have noticed a lot about being a writer is that you never know what’s around the corner. And last week proved this to me. So what happened last week? Well, I had a big surprise. (If you follow me on Twitter or see my…
I have been a writer since 2012, and over the years, I have learned a lot about myself, and the writing process. This writing journey really has been a roller coaster ride. So today, I will be sharing ten writing lessons I have learned over the years. You…
Being a writer is something that still surprises me. It’s not because I never thought about writing before, it’s because I never thought I would be able to do it, to actually write pieces and get them published. I see my name in a booklet, anthology, or magazine,…