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 . How many times have you read advice which encourages you to write 1,000 words a day, every day?  The purpose of this seems logical enough - if you produce a steady flow of words bit by bit your novel or short story collection will be finished. This standard gem of advice works fine if you have the time to write 1,000 words a day.  Perhaps you sprint past this word-count regularly.  If so, good for you.  However, if you aim for the golden number of 1,000 words but find yourself regularly falling short, this post is for you. Writing 1,000 words a day might be fine for people who are at home for much of the day.  It might be fine for people who work but whose partners are happy to carry the load while the writer's evenings and weekends are focused solely on writing.  But if you have kids who need takin...

Adele in The Blue Moon Cafe, Chester.  Yesterday I celebrated my 50th birthday.  First I took our dogs for a walk round Gilroy Nature Park which is already showing signs of spring.  Buds are swelling on the trees and birds were singing their fluting songs - I saw a robin, green finches, reed buntings and a mistle thrush as well as the usual mob of mallards, coots and Canada geese.   There was a woman feeding some of the horses in the adjacent field and I commented to her about their poor condition;  "Well, it's winter," she said, "so they roll in mud."  I know little about horses but they looked to be in a shabby state to me. Their coats are matted, mud-caked and damp.  While the higher half of the field looks less muddy than by the barbed wire fence, there is no truly dry area for them to stand on.  Some of the horses are wearing coats but these are filthy and damp-looking also.  There is no shelter in the field an...

As I rapidly head towards my 50th birthday, I'm a tad bewildered by 'How To Wear ...' fashion articles (pun intended).  Are methods of wearing clothes really a mystery, when all any person need do is stick their head through the neck hole, their arms through the arms holes or sleeves, pull the garment into place around the body then use any fasteners supplied.  This season's trending item will be next season's disparaged rag - assuming a person actually cares about such stuff. Thomas Joseph Walton used to say, "When I'm out, the wardrobe is out."  He was referring to his habit of wearing same clothes year in, year out.  When something finally fell into undeniable shabbiness his wife would ensure it vanished into the bin.  I saw him wear the same trousers for seven years, and they were already old when I met him.  Yet he did have better clothes; I once saw him dressed in a very smart evening suit with matching raincoat and trilby hat, when h...

What do you think of the new-look website?  The aim was to simplify the layout, reducing three columns to two so there was less visual clutter.  There's also a new colour scheme to consider; apparently some people using an old monitor found the previous one a little difficult to read. The temporary hiatus which Riverside Writers' meetings have undergone will end soon, as West Kirby Library have nearly finished repairing the interior after bits of the ceiling fell off.  The next meeting of Riverside Writers will take place on the 27th of this month.  Tim phoned to pass on the news about the library being ready to re-open, so my next little job is to zap an email round to everyone on the group's mailing list. Speaking of mailing lists, did you know I have a free emailing list with Yahoo Groups?  To sign up, use the clickable box in the side column.  Membership brings a number of privileges, such as having book release d...

ISBN: 9781476124902  Fifty copies of Bethany Rose have been set aside for volunteer bookworms.  To qualify to receive one free digital copy, you will need to have  - or contribute to - an active blog site or to be an Amazon reviewer.  In return for your free copy, you will pledge to write and publish your honest review of the novel, ideally within one month of receiving your copy. Apply by sending an email to ACBwrites@aol.com and write BETHANY ROSE REVIEW in the subject line.  Please provide an URL to your blog or reviews so that your claim may be verified. About the book: "Selkies, Ghosts, Terror and Romance!  Morgan seems perfect, but he is a member of a mysterious occult order. Can he protect Bethany Rose from power-crazed assassins?   "Horrified by visitations from a black-robed spectre, Bethany Rose runs to Morgan - and straight into danger.  They want to be together. But will love ...

The Faerie Pond, Stapledon Woods I've been busy writing Fabian , and was wondering how many further books this series might run to.   The answer suddenly popped into my head, which is something that tends to happen if I don't block the process somehow by trying too hard to make this work.  If I set out thinking something like, "Ok, I now want the answer to X" regards my writing, nothing happens.  If I just open my mind to possibilities, ask the question and then immediately let it go off into the ether - to use a term which is vague but sufficiently useful - and forget about it, then more often than not the answer flashes back.  Is my brain a cosmic postbox?  (That might explain the amount of 'junk mail'...!) So, the Artisan-Sorcerer Series will run to seven books in all.  I have the titles of the last three.  Each is named after the main character in that particular novel, eg. Tamsin , Rowan , Bethany Rose and the fourth, wh...

Following From: Goals for 2013 Goals for 2012 For the last two years, I've started the year by making a list of goals - partially for fun, and partially because it's a way of tracking my progress with projects. So, here were my goals for 2013: Complete 1st draft of Fabian. Complete NVQ Level 3 in Customer Care. Publish a 2nd free ebook anthology (with Riverside Writers and maybe other writers too). Write one short story per month (minimum). Write one poem per month (minimum). Add one new design to Spooky Cute Designs per month (minimum). (...And last but not least), have more fun. Let's see how I did... Ok, Fabian is not finished; approximately 30,000 words are still to be written, so while the end is in sight clearly there's work to be done. However, I not only completed the NVQ Level 3 in Customer Care but also achieved an NVQ Level 2 in Business Skills, and an NCFE Level 2 in the Principles of Dementia Care. This goes some way to...