Inspired by Crossed Genres' Post a Story for Haiti initiative, I posted a story up on my blog called The Glassy Roll of the Eye, a story about survival.

I've taken it one step further and turned it into an e-book on Amazon! All my author proceeds ($0.35 per sale) will go to the Red Cross Haiti appeal.
You don't need an e-book reader, you can download it to your computer.

It costs $1 in USA but unfortunately, due to international red tape gubbins, it costs over $3 outside USA. And the author proceeds still remain the same.


You can still read it for free on my blog and donate to a relief fund of your choice.

Any reviews/comments on Amazon will be helpful, too, even if you don't buy it.

I'll keep you posted. I'm excited about it, it all feels very 21st Century. And unlike traditional self publishing, we're not losing anything, so let's hope we can raise some money!

Read Full Post

If you click on the links to other blogs I follow you will find all sorts of advice about writing. Form, point of view, language, voice, beginnings, endings, structure... what could I possibly add that would be useful in any way?

Yesterday I was stuck on a short story. A very short story. How to get what I wanted to say into 200 words, and make it live?

So I went for a walk and I thought, as I was walking, this is the best advice I could give to someone who was in my position.

As I walked the story played around in my head and the important parts floated to the surface. Phrases struck me as odd, out of place, or reconfigured themselves to fit.

Read Full Post

Oh the sheer unadulterated pleasure, each stroke bringing the senses to life – what a wonderful guilty indulgence.
I’m talking about writing, of course.
Each stroke of the pen, or tap of the keyboard, eliciting free-flowing words: sometimes lyrical, on occasions funny; each sentence ascribing moods, feelings and philosophies to people who moments before were swimming in the chemicals pinging between the synapses of my brain.
But to me this all seems like a terrible indulgence. I trade in words, I’m a journalist. My working days are dictated by the deadlines and word-counts imposed by commissioning editors of publications requiring anything from a feature about the masturbatory habits of men, through to details of the latest pay deal for consultant radiologists. That’s how bizarre and on occasions dull my job can be.


Read Full Post

Here's an important thing: a venue that supports people living with depression. Little Episodes exists to 'help de-stigmatise depression and promote compassion and understanding', and is supported by Mind, and by the Little, Brown book group, among others. Check out their website as they are doing some amazing things, with some significant talent. I especially like the K's artwork. I was touched and honoured to have a story chosen for their next anthology, Back in 5 Minutes, which will be launched in London in February. They are open for submissions all year round, and invite artists, writers and creatives to send material here.

Read Full Post

This is the blog post where I take back everything I said a few weeks ago! No, actually, that's a complete lie, I don't take any of it back. I have been trying out the routine I described here on Jan 1st for the past few weeks, but the writing at night element of it just isn't working. I loved coming into my study at 10pm and writing until 2am, but then I was so hyped up I wasn't getting to sleep til 3am... and was waking J up in the process. I was feeling jet-lagged, and both us were sleeping badly, which really ruins everything. It just wasn't working.

But - I am the kind of person that often needs to make a RADICAL change in order to knock me out of my rut, and this was that radical change. I have learned an enormous amount from what I have been doing,....

Read Full Post

Rosie Edser has been writing short stories for five years, selling to women's magazines and entering competitions. She describes herself as 'addicted to the buzz that comes with seeing work in print'. She would write all day, every day given the chance.

My first sale was ...
To Take A Break ‘The Last Time He’ll Need This’ May 2005, I think.

My family think my writing is …
In danger of taking me over forever.

The best/worst thing about writing short stories for magazines is …
Being able to ‘talk’ about something I feel passionate about in the context of a story.

Long hand first or computer?
Computer, most of the time.

On completing a story I feel…
Emotionally sated.

When I run out of ideas I ....
Do something mundane.

Ideas come to me when…
I do something mundane, or when I look at other people’s lives, eavesdrop on a stranger’s conversation.

My biggest tip for new women’s mag writers would be…
Join a good writing class, read out your work, ask for help!



Read Full Post

I've been on a couple of shortlists lately, but this one is special. SENSE is a charity that campaigns on behalf of deafblind people. In March this year they will host an award ceremony at the Geffrye Museum where Miriam Margolyes will read excerpts from the winning stories.

Read Full Post

‘It all depends on the production’, said the programme seller when I expressed my dismay. Gone was the lovely theatre-in-the-round space created for the performances of Alan Aykbourne’s Norman Conquest trilogy, still in place for ‘Complicit’, starring Richard Dreyfuss. In its place was an awkward three-tiered horseshoe.

A recent TV advert for American Airlines shows the theatre’s artistic director Kevin Spacey in what I assumed was a pre-conversion Old Vic. Cooing about how he appreciated good service his onscreen persona transferred from the dress circle to his seat in AA business class (Currently to be see in the new George Clooney ‘comedy’ ‘Up in the Air, in case you didn’t catch Spacey) I wish I could say the same about my own experience at last Thursday’s matinee for ‘Six Degrees of Separation’.


Read Full Post