Fi Phillips

Progress on my novel is coming along nicely and by the summer, I should be starting back on the submitting to literary agents trail. Am I the only one who finds that process scary? According to Write It Sideways, while the process may be a tad terrifying, it's also good for you. Check out their article - 5 reasons querying is good for you to find out more. On a completely different note, writer Suzanna Williams asks, Real life doesn't make sense but does fiction have to?  Finally, I have a video from Piers Blofeld, who is a literary agent himself from Sheil Land Associates, on the 5 types of rejection (and what to make of them).

Most days, in between school runs, you'll find me tapping away on my keyboard but from time to time, especially if I've finished a sizeable piece of work for a client, I'll escape from my desk to the welcoming hubbub of my local coffee shop. Surrounded by fellow coffee drinkers and with a flat white before me, I'll switch off the office-mode and indulge in some much-needed and unadulterated creative time. Here's how that little space of caffeinated freedom helps me to be a better writer. 1. It forces me to exercise my memory and my imagination After a shoulder injury a couple of years ago, I can't manage the weight of a large handbag pulling me off balance. Instead, I use a small cross-body handbag. This forces me to pare back what I carry around with me. My large writing notebook is out of the question, as is a tablet, never mind my laptop. Instead, I have a small notepad and a handful of pens. I could use the cafe wi-fi to access the internet but I...

This month's photo inspiration is an old photo that I own but I thought it might get your creative cogs turning. Ther are three women in the photo having tea in the garden. What is their relationship to each other? What do they think of each other? Whose garden is it? Whose dog is it? Why has the photograph been ripped into pieces? What does this inspire you to write?

Easter has been and gone. The chocolate eggs have been chomped and digested. I've started a new diet. What else is going on at Fi Central? Working on my novel Now that I'm working full time hours, any non-paid writing is being put off until evenings or weekends (including these blog posts). For a long time, I felt blocked with my novel. I could blame my lack of writing on how busy I was with my new business , or school holidays, or just needing 'thinking space'. I won't call it writer's block because that always seems like an excuse. I prefer Steven Pressfield's term 'resistance'. And boy, was I resisting planting my bum on that seat to work on my novel. There was an element of self doubt involved but the more I drilled down into why Inner Fi didn't want to write, the more I realised that with money coming in from my new business, the motivations to be a novelist had changed. Having my novel out there is no longer about earning a ...