Fi Phillips

It's the last day of February. There is blossom in my garden. It feels like spring is here - although it doesn't officially start until 20th May - so I felt like a fresh beginning on my blog, something new. Starting today, each month will see a new writing exercise appear on this site. I won't be marking papers. These exercises are for you to do with as you please, for personal, private work or to share, if you wish. That's up to you. This month's exercise is about food. Or rather it begins with food. Take one of your favourite foods and write a short piece on where you first ate it. For me, the food is bagels, and the place was Venice in Italy. It was my second short visit there. I planned to go with a friend but at the last minute, she cancelled. I had paid for the whole trip, expecting her to pay me back, so I now had two plane tickets and two hotel bookings. None of my other friends wanted to go. I was single at the time and, in my very early twenties, ...

In the massive miscellany of photographs that my parents left to me are many unidentified faces. I can guess at which side of the family some of them belong to (the smiling man that looks like my Father, the family photographed in a studio in Leeds where my Mother came from) but I have no idea whom the majority of them are. I thought I would use one of these as this month's photo inspiration. I would guess that this family were photographed pre 1920s. What can you tell me about them? Did they all get on? Was the daughter the centre of attention? What did the boys grow up to be?  Tell me a story about these faces.

It's half term holiday here. My husband has taken the week off too. I have one script to finish and another one to start. My children keep reminding me that there's a world outside the front door (park, softplay, McDonalds). I am therefore becoming very adept at juggling (and nowadays my children are old enough to land on their feet if I drop them). So this podcast (with transcript) from Steven Pressfield - Family Pressure - came just in time.

2014 has been a wonderful year for my murder mystery script writing business with the third commissioned play confirmed yesterday. With one play written and delivered, and the second underway, I've been working to a tight schedule to meet customer deadlines. An added complication is the fact that I work from home and juggle my work hours around my two children. Here's how I've managed to keep to my deadlines. Before I began each script, I had a brainstorm session. I wrote down all the things that I had to do besides writing the script. For instance, I have a morning school run and and another one in the afternoon. These are non negotiable. They are a must. However, certain tasks (like filing) can be put off for a few weeks. Decide what is on your non negotiable list and what can be postponed. I made a time plan. I know how long it will take to devise the idea for a script, and then the length of time it will take to write, edit and polish it. I have my customer de...

I'm currently working on a murder mystery play that is set in a shed. Okay, it's a large shed, but still the scenes have to keep the play interesting in the way that they utilise the space so I was delighted to come across 6 tips on making similar scenes feel different  on The Other Side of the Story. Have a look.

I've followed the usual Valentine's Day routine - present and card for my husband purchased from a store heaving with hearts, chocolates and romantic rhymes. We swapped cards and greetings this morning and there'll hopefully be some couple time this evening, if we can bribe the children to go to bed early. For the past twelve years, it's been the same, cards and pressies and romantic meals. I'm not complaining. I love my husband dearly - he makes me chuckle and inspires me to be a better person - but there were years before that dozen when I was single and the one love that I always clung to on those days was my love of writing. It's still there, although it now has to share me with a demanding family, but it gets its fair share of my time. I love to write for many reasons. Meeting new characters who come to me in the weirdest places. Seeing adventures in the most mundane circumstances. Moulding a story from the bare clay of 'what if' and '...

Today's choice words are from the wonderful Marie Forleo in this video from her Q&A Tuesdays - When Inspiration Backfires . How to be creative - PBS Digital Studios

I first heard about the Year of Reading Women through the Twitter hashtag #readwomen2014. In Joanna Walsh's article, Will #readwomen2014 change our sexist reading habits? she writes, "It's a truth universally acknowledged that, although women read more than men, and books by female authors are published in roughly the same numbers, they are more easily overlooked". Do we place more value in and respect for books written by men? I'd hate to think so but looking at my own reading choices, I have to admit that 75 - 80% of the books I read are written by men. Do I respect male writers more than female? Not consciously, no. It's an interesting topic that I'm sure will be discussed further throughout the year but for now I'm going to add my support by making a conscious effort to read more books by female writers, not instead of books by male writers but in a larger percentage than I currently do. Adding to my previous list of writers that I conv...

I'm struggling with a new chapter for the latest draft of my novel. I start and stutter and start again. This isn't writer's block because I know what I want to write and yet the words, the right words, either evade me or play annoyingly hard to get. I finally came to the conclusion that the difficulty was caused by the main character I was writing about. I need to get to know Blessing better, and as so often happens, a blog article popped into my inbox at just the right time to help me with this problem. 25 things a great character needs  has proved an incredible help in mapping out Blessing's character. Written by Chuck Wendig, it features on his site terribleminds  and is well worth a read.