We are all social, in the end
Writing is hard. Not coal-mining hard, but emotionally taxing, mentally draining, occasionally soul-wilting. Some days you’ll wonder why you bother. Some days the words won’t flow. Some days you’ll reread a paragraph and question every decision you’ve ever made. But here’s why you keep going: because you have stories to…
As we come to the new year, we need to all make a resolution… Every writer compares themselves to others. It’s practically a national pastime. You read a brilliant sentence and briefly consider setting your laptop on fire. You see someone finish a novel and wonder why you’ve been drafting…
As I ready myself for the upcoming Norwegian Christmas, which they celebrate on the 24th. This is great for me, as I get two Christmas dinners. But I have been having a struggle for a while, procrastination is one word for it, another is phrase we use is writers block.…
As readers, when we were young, we first started ruining our enjoyment of books in English Literature class where we would review Macbeth, An Inspector Calls or some other classic book to the end of term and never want to read them again. The same happened to me when I…
Revising a manuscript is a bit like realising the house you built has several crooked walls, a suspicious smell, and a family of raccoons living in the attic. It’s overwhelming. It’s humbling. But it’s also where the magic happens. Revision lets you transform chaos into clarity. You refine character arcs,…
There comes a moment in every writer’s journey when a character refuses to do what they’re told. You’ve outlined their arc, planned their choices, possibly even diagrammed their emotional trajectory like a deranged cartographer, and then they simply disobey. This is not madness. This is writing. When characters “take over,”…
Finishing a draft is a milestone many new writers never reach. Not because they lack talent, but because finishing requires stamina, stubbornness, and the ability to ignore the seductive whispers of New Story Ideas that show up precisely when your current project becomes difficult. The middle of a manuscript is…
There’s a persistent belief that real writers write every day, preferably at dawn, possibly while wearing a whimsical scarf and a hat at a jaunty angle. While writing regularly is helpful, turning it into a rigid requirement is a fast track to burnout and creative rebellion, the kind where your…
Writing dialogue is a peculiar skill. We spend our whole lives speaking to people (some of whom we even like), yet the moment we try to write conversation on the page, it comes out stilted, stiff, and strangely formal, like two robots debating philosophy at a polite dinner party. Good…
The world of writing advice is vast, contradictory, and often delivered with the breezy confidence of someone explaining how to assemble flat-pack furniture armed only with optimism, a blunt spoon, and an IKEA instruction manual. One author will insist you must outline every chapter in advance, preferably colour-coded. Another will…
