My new office

“Look around where you are right now. Describe this setting – but do so in the words your viewpoint character would use.” This was the exercise I was set in the book I’m currently reading. So I tried, in the words and from the point of view of a 6th century peasant boy from Elba! Here…

I’ve already mentioned how I like to use Google Drive for writing the chapters of my book. I can think of three good reasons why (or four): I can access it from anywhere where I have Internet connectivity It automagically keeps earlier versions of a document It has a built-in dictionary/thesaurus function (see the Research…

I was a total greenhorn when I started writing my first novel in May 2012. The trigger was that I simply couldn’t find a historical novel about the Isle of Elba (except relating to Napoleon’s brief exile there) while enjoying a fascinating hiking tour. Seeing the cave where the exiled hermit San Cerbone lived became…

Among many interesting bits and bites, the December 2012 issue of The Woolf plugged the personal writing editor and coach Pro Writing Aid. Perhaps you all know and use it already. ProWritingAid highlights elements like repetitiveness, vague wording, sentence length variation, over-dependence on adverbs, passive voice, over-complicated sentence constructions, and so much more. I tried out the free online version and soon subscribed…

Every author stresses how important revision is. The trouble is, one easily overlooks one’s own weak points, omissions and errors. The solution sounds easy: Get a good Critique Partner for reciprocal manuscript correction. But how? There aren’t that many budding English-speaking authors in Oberlunkhofen! I tried several online author sites which offer some facility for…