December 2025 - Jill Stanton-Huxton"I would recommend doing a creative writing course. It really improved my writing skills and made me more confident in my own ability. "
"Novels happen when characters are bigger than one set of images, when I can’t bear to be parted from them yet."
"The style and form I use depend on the needs of the story and very often stories present themselves as a diary entry, a newspaper report, letters or interviews, or sometimes even a conventional short story layout. My writing style is fairly minimal. I'm not one who writes 5,000 words and has to cut it down to a 3,000-word limit. I tend to allocate a certain number of words for each section in my story and write to that."
" Nothing puts me off more quickly than people who say you must do such and such to be a great writer. My rebel brain immediately yearns to do just the opposite of what they advise."
"Being weird and bookish was not seen as a bad thing at home and school so I was left alone to get on with it".
"I don’t focus too much on the outside if I’m really into what I’m writing, I just need some music in the background....However, I feel having a beautiful view is good for the thinking process. A place to dream and just be, is an inspiration in itself."
"Writing, to me, is a deeply rewarding process of creating and I have endeavored to do it in a manner that is respectful whilst staying authentic. It has helped me grow in awareness and knowledge and made me more empathetic."
"READ. It isn’t new, and it isn’t sexy, but it’s true. To be a good writer takes good reading."
"I think we are all aware what the so-called ‘war against Wokery’ is all about. Personally, I intend to remain compassionate, understanding, kind and proudly Woke."
"My everyday life intrudes into my creative life continually to the point where I take days, weeks, months, years and even decades away from my practice. Before I did the Inktober challenge I hadn’t picked up a pencil to draw in over a decade. In defence of my family, I am very easily distracted."
" I write about anything at any time. I write a lot about family and memories, but, to really get me going, give me something I feel strongly about (There’s a lot of this as I’m very opinionated.) Human Rights, injustice, the environment - these will all set me writing."
January 2025 - Karen Honnor
"The main places that I like to write my initial ideas down are spaces where I can feel calm enough to let the creative process spark. Sometimes that is in a coffee shop, sometimes it’s whilst I’m walking in a local park or when I’m at home on a grey day, reminiscing about a beach day, a family party or childhood memory. Nature and nostalgia are strong threads that weave through my writing."
December 2024 - Elisabeth Basford
"I believe that feedback is an essential part of the writing process. It's vital to separate your work from your personal identity and remember that feedback is about the writing itself, not about you as a person. Receiving feedback from both writers and non-writers can be invaluable."
November 2024 - Wendy Heydorn
"So, my advice to other writers would be to take your time; just like one of Kevin McCloud’s ‘Grand Designs’ TV programmes, you should expect your writing project to take longer than you’d ever imagine. Writing is my hobby, so I treat it like one; I enjoy it and I take breaks. Fortunately, my life and income doesn’t depend on my writing being a success."
October 2024 - Lin De Laszlo
"There have been times when feedback has given the impression that the piece is not liked at all. This is never rudely done but occasionally I’ve had barely lukewarm feedback and I do get a bit pouty then. I guess that is my writer’s ego raising its head. I have come across the statement ‘I don’t usually like this genre’ [but] it can be healthy to get out of a comfort zone when giving feedback on a style that you wouldn’t usually read...To validate my point, I remember that I didn’t really like Edgar Allan Poe until I bought the complete works, because I thought it would look good on my coffee table!"
"I used to be a Pantser but I never achieved anything. Now I’m a planner and it’s the scenic route to not achieving anything. I do feel more confident now that I might actually finish something I care about. I cared about Stoker because it was for my son but it was very much an experiment to see if I could finish something longer than an essay and I couldn’t believe it when it was actually done. "
August 2024 - Chrissie Poulter
"I am enjoying creative writing as opposed to the academic world, because I don’t feel that same sense of dread at the notion of putting something out into the world that I disagree with the very next day. I learn all the time and fiction is a kinder, more flexible, place from which to speak."
July 2024 - Judy Worham
"I thought I would make great progress during lockdown. I was wrong. I spent time cooking, the garden looked great, and I walked every day. I helped two grandsons with English, and also tutored an A level student. I probably wrote but don’t remember what or how much...This all seems to have happened a long time ago, but it didn’t. It’s strange, but those times have managed to melt away."
June 2024 - Mike Poyzer
"I always appreciate any comments on my work whether from ordinary readers or from experienced readers and writers. People have, often, very different perceptions and you may get a completely different point of view from a different reader."
"As children, we often entertained ourselves. One day, I was bored and decided to write a book. I made a tiny book, and filled it with a fairy story (I think it was a version of Cinderella). Then I kept going and by the end of the day, I had made a pile of little books. I recall my Nana saying ‘you could be a writer one day, love’ and I thought that sounded like a good job to have, but had no idea how a person might go about [it]..."
April 2024 - D.H.L.Hewa
"My husband, ...without letting me know, searched the internet, and, finding some free courses, encouraged me to do these with him. He then got me the details of the Open University Creative Writing Masters saying: ‘You keep leaving bits of paper everywhere with bits of stories, why don’t you do this?‘ If not for him, I’d still be thinking about it."
"Are successful writers selfish? I suppose if I was the old woman who lived in a shoe and had too many children, I would either write and neglect them, or vice-versa. As it is, being retired, I have a husband who spends hours in his shed, rebuilding motorbikes, so all I can neglect is the dusting. Which I do."
February 2024 - Phil Badger
"I knew I wanted to write something from a very early age but this was a bit paradoxical considering that I was a dyslexic kid who couldn’t read until I was ten! "
"One of my secondary school English teachers helped me see that song lyrics are poetry by getting us to write new words about scrambled eggs to the tune of Yesterday by The Beatles and therefore I was a fan of living poets. I love music. I know a lot of song lyrics by heart, and it can be inspiring."
"I think it is easier to write fiction as you are not constrained by the need to be factual. Several of my critical readers who have seen sections of the planned biography of my parents have suggested that I should convert it into fiction as the tools of creative nonfiction that I used got in the way. I am resisting as the book is a bit of a labour of love for my departed parents. I want those potential readers who knew them, or are related to them, to know that what I am describing are real snapshots of their lives."
November 2023 - Sue Davnall
"The computer is better for that. But there’s great satisfaction to be had in a good pen and fine quality paper. There’s a lot to be said for trying to write something every day, even if it’s just a few sentences – but that doesn’t work for me, I tend to get stuck in for a few hours at a time with some favourite music in the background (and lots of coffee!). The main rule is that there are no rules."
"I like to identify a conflict or challenge, and see how the character(s) respond, so I need to know a lot about the characters before I start. I don’t plan a whole story. Often it will develop from a single scene. For me, an important part of the process is thinking about what is happening in the scene, consciously and unconsciously, before starting to write. So I might jot down 300-500 words, then leave it for a week or two. Something happens in my brain while I’m not focused on the story, and one day I sit down and write a longer chunk…"
"As an English teacher, my life has been filled with the process of reading, pondering and communicating the joy of literature. My brain is stuffed full of poems, and I sometimes annoy my friends by quoting odd lines in the midst of conversations, their relevance often apparent only to me."
"Covid didn’t hugely impact on me, other than opening up doors for more cross-border communication – for example, during lockdown I was part of a California based screenwriting group meeting online, which would never have been possible beforehand."
July 2023 - L.N.Hunter
"In software development, there’s the notion of ‘top-down programming’ (i.e., planning) and ‘bottom-up programming’ (pantsing), but the reality is a mix of both, and undoubtedly based on years of programming, I approach writing in the same way...I find that too much planning sucks the pleasure out of actually doing the writing, but too little leads to a meandering story—I’m not sure I’ve got the balance right yet."
"I’m cultured in the sense that I never joined Hell’s Angels or the British National Party, or had my ears pierced for golden studs, but I’m not an opera buff, a theatre-lover, or a cinema fanatic. The last film I saw at the cinema was ‘The Fugitive’ in 1992 and I thought it was rather too loud.... "
"...most of the things I’ve written are inspired by things that have happened to me, or been observed or overheard by me. There are several characters inspired by one throwaway comment my gran made when I was thirteen, that was both so horrific and matter-of-factly said that it is the gift that keeps on giving. "
"Sometimes I am in a situation and I think, what if? For example, if I was at a party – what if someone started choking on poison? Or one of our friends was a spy? Or the cat started talking? Similarly, I have a lot of old diaries I pull incidents from. Or I use things I have been told that I extrapolate and extend into fiction. Sometimes I stare at the dreaded blank page and can’t think of a thing to write, but then I usually just start writing something and hope that a nugget of an idea will appear."
"The Reign of the Winter King started life as a book for my eldest son (The Forest Children) and featured him and his friends. When I decided to rewrite it and turn it into a proper book that other people might enjoy, I added my youngest son as a character and included King Arthur as well. Elements of the original story are there, but large parts of the plot have changed beyond recognition and it’s become the first book in a planned trilogy (The Courts Series). Whilst I’ve made it clear to them that the characters are inspired by my boys, but are not meant to be them, much of their personality did seep into the characters. In fact, when I had it edited by someone who knows my boys, she told me I had to make changes to them, particularly the eldest, because he wasn’t demonstrating typical teenage behaviour. Her comment read something along the lines of ‘I know they’re based on your boys, but your boys aren’t normal!’. Of course, she was absolutely right and they found it hilarious, but I did make the changes she suggested."
Wonderful refresher of the talent. Thank you. xxxx
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