Welcome to this series of writing tips.  If you would like to pen a guest post for this series, email me at ACBwrites@aol.com . I am often asked where I get my ideas for stories from.  This is a slightly puzzling question, to me, as I've more ideas for stories than I have time to write.  I get my ideas from all over the place, but while this answer covers it from my perspective it's probably not so helpful to anyone else. The standard advice to all writers and poets is to carry a notebook around with you so whenever you see or hear something of particular interest you can note it down.  I used to do this.  Now I've a cupboard jammed with notebooks which I never even glance at as there is a long queue of ideas in my mind already, and so I no longer use this method.  You're totally free to try it and see if it works for you, of course.  Perhaps the real benefit of note-keeping is that it primes the mind to be aware of ideas for stories...

        Here are the previews of the new paperback covers for the Artisan-Sorcerer series.  Intimations is only available as an ebook at this time, if you were wondering why it's absent.  The covers are currently undergoing the production process, and until that's complete the paperbacks won't be available, but that will only be for a day or so.

I have long been fascinated by other creative people's workspaces.  Photos of them offer glimpses into how that person works.  Whether it's a chaotic tangle of prompts and tools of the trade or a minimalist super-tidy area, I enjoy peeping into their world.  Here's mine, tucked away in the corner of our dining room:- Click on the image to view it larger.     There is a collection of forty photos of the workspaces used by well-known writers, poets and artists here  which I enjoyed looking at.  I'm tempted to start a series on this blog, posting photos of other people's workspaces.  If you would like to take part, email me on ACBwrites@aol.com .  

Welcome to this series of writing tips, to be posted each Wednesday. If you would like to pen a guest post for this series, email me at ACBwrites@aol.com.  If you want to be a writer, or to improve your writing and your chances of being published, you need to read.  Read all kinds of books, including those which you might not usually choose for yourself.  You can learn as much from authors whose work leaves you cold as you can from those you instinctively love.  You will discover ideas, methods of plot construction and literary styles which you many not have thought otherwise thought of.  Some of these you might choose to adapt for your own work; others you might make a point of never using on pain of  death.  But you will have given yourself the opportunity to analyse which aspects of any particular book worked and which didn't, in your opinion, and to make your own creative choices based on this. T...

Welcome to this series of writing tips, to be posted each Wednesday. If you would like to pen a guest post for this series, email me at ACBwrites@aol.com .   Today I'm happy to present a guest post by Sandra Miller.    Sandra Miller is a writer living in New York. Two times a year she watches the sitcom Friends. Her passion is Latin American culture, and she loves salsa. Sandra uses professional editing services help to write great material.     Simple Tips in Editing your Own Work Writing doesn’t stop at finishing your first draft. You have to go through another process and that is editing your own work. Editing is the process whereby the writer checks on whether the paper is well-written and organized in terms of content, clarity, overall structure, style and transition of paragraphs. Here are a few tips which can help you through the process. Tip No. 1. Finish the draft first. As much as possible, avoid editing while you’re wri...

Welcome to the start of a new series of writing tips, to be posted each Wednesday.   If you would like to pen a guest post for this series, email me at ACBwrites@aol.com. If you want to be a writer, then write.   No matter how fabulous your ideas may be, or how talented you hope you are, writers need to produce written words.   There is a popular belief that it takes around five years or a million written words before a writer really begins to come into their own.   There is probably a lot of truth in this. Y ou may have attended umpteen creative writing courses and countless book conventions, read stacks of 'How To' books and bought state-of-the-art formatting software, but this won't make you a writer if you don't get on with the task of writing. It doesn't matter if your early efforts are awful - everyone's are.   Is there a successful writer who hasn't got at least one novel and a wad of short stories lurking in the back of a cupboard, whic...