The Amateur Runner’s Guide To Coronavirus

You need to exercise but your gym is closed. Walking only does so much and working from home means you can’t explore far in your lunch break. You can’t stop thinking about the chocolate in the cupboard. You might eat the world soon because eating is joy incomparable. Whatever the reason, you want to start …

Building a Novel – How To Plot

Lately, I've been thinking about reviving an old trilogy of mine, the Time, Stopped Trilogy, since I need some space away from messy edits of H. The first novel follows young woman Aidelle, who manages to trap herself in a bubble or 'pocket' of time, chronologically-suspended animation, if yo will. Whilst her socialite fiance is …

7 Quick Takes: Exam Confidence

7 Quick Takes Friday is hosted by This Ain't the Lyceum. ~1~ Work at things until they’re rote. If revising a certain topic bores you, you're probably at the stage where you understand it. ~2~ Use acronyms, aphorisms, ascriptions. Start associating the names you probably won't remember by themselves with phrases that you'll be able …

On Originality

(Or, its existence, which if is, is scarce) What makes your novel unique? They say it a lot, as if originality is a rite of passage a novel must go through. Chances are, though, not much. We all know the problem the modern writer faces: of writing the novel of our heart only to find …

Wednesday Wisdom, Week 1

TRISH MARIE DAWSON

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How Do I Become A Writer?

Great advice for those thinking of writing as an income by Katie Teller.

Aussie Writers

I get asked this question a lot, especially by my “non” writer friends. I think it’s interesting because I know it secretly means How do they become a writer? I’m also fairly certain most of the people who ask me haven’t read my books, but that’s another issue at this point.

So I’ll begin with one thing: a burning need to write a story. Then another, then another. This need needs to be more than just an idea. You need to write it down, hash out the plot, the twists and turns, develop the characters.

No time? Congrats, I don’t have time either. I’m a mother and wife, which in themselves are crazy busy gigs, I have a baby and almost five year old, have church and family commitments, and work. Yes, my work is mostly edits, but that leaves very little time for actually writing, and before I received…

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Diction: Latinate versus Anglo-Saxon

Reblog Thursday is back! (Ish) This reblog post is from all the way back in 2012, but I only stumbled across it a couple of days ago, as I only started following Lara’s blog last year.

Ever wondered why synonyms are sometimes so very different to each other? Or why some words, especially in writing, are sesquipedalian and polysyllablic ( 😉 ) whilst others are short and simple? In this post, Lara explains how the roots of words can effect how they are read and which genres they better suit.

Kind of explains how my Latin studies effected my propensity for lengthy sentences and florid oratories! 😛

Lara Willard

Diction = word choice

Synonym = a word’s twin in meaning, e.g. “big” and “large” are synonyms.

Ever wonder why English has so many freaking synonyms? Because it’s the lovechild of Germanic and French languages. (French isn’t called a romance language for no reason. ) While having so many choices can be a wonderful thing, it can also be disastrous. With great vocabulary comes great responsibility. I’m talking to you, Christopher Paolini. Step away from the thesaurus.

You’ll notice the language split when two political candidates start campaigning and one plays the “smarter than thou” card and the other plays the “average joe” card. Smarter-than-thou is going to try to dazzle you with a academic, million-dollar vocabulary. Average Joe is going to give you a pat on the back with neighbor-speak. John Kerry vs. W. Bush. I’d watch their debates for examples if I didn’t hate politics so much.

Latinate

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Is There A Knack To Writing (Steampunk)?

Well, actually I'm writing a novella*. Academic work has been tough lately - getting on top of things. I was chatting to my boyfriend, whose weeks consist of 9-5s or similar days in work; whilst mine are few in contact, as I listed the things I have to do today (writing a blog post notwithstanding), …

Q&A: Starting Is the Hard Part (Or, How to Get Creatively Re-Inspired)

Over at the Teens Can Write, Too blog (which has great writing tips for those of us who aren’t teens as well!), they’re talking about rebooting one’s writing creativity after a hiatus, be that from editing or simply not-writing. Useful and pragmatic. 🙂

Teens Can Write, Too!

Quick side note before the post: today, TCWT is participating in action/2015, a global campaign (in conjunction with the organization Save The Children and supported by the UN) that encourages young people to speak out with a unified voice against issues of extreme poverty, gender inequality, and climate change. If you have some time, I encourage you to check out this page I made with more details about the campaign and how to help out. See that here.

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Hi everyone! Today I’m doing something a little different–a mini Q&A. As I’ve mentioned before, you can always email questions to the TCWT team, and, considering this blog is dedicated to helping out awesome writers in any way we can, we love being able to offer some advice. We’ve gotten some great questions, but, with the author’s permission, I’ve decided to answer this one in particular on the blog because I know it’s something that…

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Six ways to have a greener Christmas

Six great tips from the CAFOD agency blog about how to waste less at Christmas – useful regardless of faith. To make the planet a more efficient and healthy home, we must do as much as we can to look after it, especially at Christmas, when it seems that excessiveness is praised, sometimes even explicitly. Besides, being resourceful and creative can also be great fun!

CAFOD blog

Our Web Editor, Ffion Dean, has been thinking of ways to have a more eco friendly Christmas.

Ffion celebrating Christmas 2012

Christmas time is full of great joy and happiness, a time to relax and to spend time with our loved ones. But it’s also a time when we create a huge amount of waste – an estimated  736,571 tonnes each year in Britain alone! This year, CAFOD’s Advent calendar follows the story of Sinteyo, a woman living with the effects of a changing climate in rural Kenya, and offers some ideas about how we can all make changes in our lives to help our planet.

But what can we do to try and have a greener Christmas?

1. Wrapping paper

One year I challenged my family to cover their presents without using any newly purchased paper.

My mum bought a roll of fabric, cut it into different sizes and…

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