Roz Morris's Blog, page 62
January 20, 2015
‘A sense of collective trauma across a century’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Suzie Grogan
My guest this week is a writer of non-fiction. Her book is an exploration of the legacy of the World Wars on mental health ��� the soldiers who developed shell shock, broke down afterwards or endured their nightmares in silence. And those on the home front too, the families torn apart by grief or traumatised […]
January 19, 2015
Quirky tales and the difficulty of leaving a book behind: My Memories of a Future Life featured at Triskele Books
JW Hicks collects writers of quirky books, and I’m honoured she’s chosen me for her collection on the fab blog of the Triskele Books collective. (You might recognise Jane as a recent guest on The Undercover Soundtrack with her novel Rats.) She’s prised me out of my writing cage to answer questions on whether I […]
January 18, 2015
The inner horse – and your fictional character’s true nature
I was teaching a masterclass at The Guardian yesterday and we were discussing characters. One of my students said this: ���I think of my characters as horses.��� To be honest, I couldn���t believe my ears. If you know me on Facebook and Twitter, you���ll know I���m rather fond of the equine breed, so when one […]
January 14, 2015
Bereavement, a bid to exist, a way to control an antisocial persona: why we write
Fear not, I won’t inflict every post on you that we release��for the Women Writing Women campaign, but this is one that celebrates and explores creativity. Pauline Baird Jones invited us to answer the question: why do we write? Inevitably, this led us all to search for where we started. And here you see something […]
January 13, 2015
‘Music was solace, understanding and escape’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Jake Kerr
My guest this week describes a journey ��� of looking for a life path, of circling around it many times until he found where he was meant to fit. He says he thought he wanted to be a DJ because he loved music, and indeed became a music industry journalist. Then one day he started […]
January 12, 2015
Seven genre-busting novels – introducing Women Writing Women
You remember I posted recently about authors collaborating? Well, I wouldn���t advise you to do anything I wouldn���t try myself. If you know me – and some of my friends – on Facebook, you might have seen some coy posts about how we���ll be revealing a big secret project. Well here it is. Seven writers […]
January 11, 2015
How to turn a short story into a novel
I���ve had this question from Kristy Lyseng: I have trouble when it comes to depth and expanding my writing. I always end up with short pieces. Are there any tips or tricks I could learn for writing longer pieces instead of short ones, both fiction and non-fiction? Oh what a good question. Here are some […]
January 6, 2015
‘Music: a space to make sense of life’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Sarah Yaw
My first guest this year says that when she was very young, she spent a lot of time in theatres, watching her dad rehearse with bands. She would fall asleep to the sound as he played bass for the likes of Don Cherry, Lou Reed and his own band, The Everyman Band. Later she became […]
January 4, 2015
Publish traditionally, solo self-publish or something else? Advice for the 2015 writer
Last year I wrote a post about whether I’d advise an author to publish or selfpublish. A year on, the landscape for authors is remarkably different – or perhaps not remarkable if you’ve been waiting for a bubble to burst. Indie authors have seen sales plummet because of the sheer numbers of books available, and […]
December 30, 2014
ISBNs: CreateSpace freebie or own ISBN? Pros and cons
I’ve had this question from Daniel Vertrees, who is making his first print edition, and it turned into a pros and cons discussion so I thought it would make a useful post. Did you use one of the Createspace ISBN? I want to be able to sell directly (like book signings) and wonder if it […]
