Sarah Webb's Blog, page 6

Irish Book Awards on Thursday

The Irish Book Awards are on Thursday in the Mansion House and I promise to post some pics the following week. I have to fly out to the UK on Friday morning so I'm afraid it won't be any sooner – but I'll post some on Facebook from my iphone. I'm shortlisted for the senior [...]

Trends in Teen/YA Fiction, Matched, Angels and Angles . . .

Here's the thing with trends – one minute it's all wizards and boarding schools, the next thing it's all change and boys that bite are soup de jour. Currently riding high in the YA charts are fallen angel books – Fallen, Torment (both Lauren Kate), Crescendo (Becca Fitzpatrick). Angels are HUGE. I've tried angels, but [...]

Rejection – Part of Every Writer's Life – Get Used to It!

This week a very polite Transition Year student emailed me. He's writing a piece for the Irish Indo on rejection and asked had my work ever been rejected. Well the answer is yes, of course! Most writers if not all have had to deal with some sort of rejection. It's part of the writing game. [...]

November – a good time to write for lots of reasons – read on . . .

Hi All, Sorry I haven't been blogging much – Oct was manic! I did over 17 different school and library visits and spoke to over 1,000 children about writing – phew! It was fun but I'm glad to be back at my desk now, working on the new adult novel and re-writes for Amy Green [...]

Back at my desk – and approaching the page with joy

I'm reposting this from 2009 as I'm just back from tour and wiped out to be honest. But I have lots to tell you on the writing front, lots to share – so back soon, I promise! But until then . . . Approaching the page with joy I've been having some slow writing starts [...]

How Important is Your Book's Title? Vital! Tips on attracting the right kind of attention for your book . . .

How Important is Your Book's Title? Tips on attracting the right kind attention for your book . . . How important is a book's title? In a word, vital. Good titles should reflect the content of the book. They should be short (or shortish) and snappy, they should suit the type of book you are [...]

Writing Advice from Kate DiCamillo

Had the good fortune to meet the lovely and ultra smart Kate DiCamillo on Saturday. She gave a rousing reading and q and a session at the Mountains to Sea Festival. She gave 3 writing tips during her talk: 1/ Read 2/ Show up on the page – write every day – doesn't matter if [...:]

What's in a name? Picking names for your characters . . .

A quick post today on picking names. I was giving a writing workshop over the weekend and one of the things we talked about was choosing the right names for your characters. Sometimes I read books and some of the names just doesn't suit the characters. Other times they are just perfect. For eg last [...:]

Be Careful Not to Show Your Age – a note on dating your work (no, not taking your notebook to the cinema, please, people!)

Remember the days of gr8 and l8r? Thinking of using them in your YA novel to make your teens 'cool' and 'hip'. Think again! These days a lot of teens have iphones, along with predictive text, and they've gone back to using complete sentences. Using l8r will date your writing. Other things date writing too [...:]

If You Want To Write for Teens, Check This Dublin Event Out

At 4pm on Sunday 12th September, Dermot Bolger and Kevin Stevens will be discussing their new teenage novels in the County Hall in Dun Laoghaire as part of the Mountains to Sea Festival – it's free and you don't have to book. So no excuses. Dermot's new book is bloody good too – a chilling [...:]