Fi Phillips

One of the challenges I have in writing my novel is keeping track of where my characters are, where they have to go and the increasing amount of information that is revealed. Janice Hardy's article Five Ways To Grow Your Novel on the Fiction University site discusses how to handle all of this and more. Have a look.

Here's an interesting way to test your writing. Take the Writer's Diet Test . I used the first chapter of my novel and got "lean, no improvements needed" - phew.

Yesterday I wrote about my affection for the month of September but  autumn in general is a favourite time of the year for me. Like the harvest from the fields, orchards and hedgerows, this season always feels like a time of reward and fruition. As I mentioned yesterday, autumn brought to me my daughter and my husband. This was also when I got married. In her '52 Qualities of Prosperous Writers' newsletter, Christina Katz wrote this week about being 'bountiful'. She writes, Bountiful implies that your cup is already overflowing so you simply tip your abundance into the hands of others. No sainthood required! One thing I'm always thankful for is the abundance of ways in which I can apply my writing. There's this blog of course, the plays I write for Murdering The Text and the ideas I have for novels too. More recently, my writing 'cup' has overflowed and with the help of my husband (who is also my writing partner), we've taken the scenario and...

Christina Katz is the author of Get Known Before the Book Deal , Use Your Personal Strengths to Grow an Author Platform and Writer Mama, how to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids for Writer's Digest Books. She has written hundreds of articles for national, regional, and online publications, presents at literary and publishing events around the country, and is a monthly columnist for the Williamette Writer . Katz publishes a weekly e-zine, The Prosperous Writer , and hosts The Northwest Author Series. She holds an MFA in writing from Columbia College Chicago and a BA from Dartmouth College. A "gentle taskmaster" to her hundred or so students each year, Katz channels over a decade of professional writing experience into success strategies that help writers get on track and get published. Q: What is a platform? CK: Long story short. Your platform communicates your expertise to others, and it works all the time so you don't have to. Your platform includes your ...

I mentioned Christina Katz 's website and newsletter, The Prosperous Writer earlier this year . Since the beginning of January, she has been providing a weekly article on the qualities of prosperous writers. I thought you might be interested to hear what she has mentioned so far. 1. Dedication 2. Self Respect 3. Focus 4. Service 5. Perseverance 6. Passion 7. Containment 8. Humility 9. Saleable 10. Accountability 11. Good Health 12. Balance 13. Creativity 14. Experience 15. Bravery 16. Groundedness 17. Happiness 18. Self Producing 19. Strong Boundaries 20. Clarity 21. Authenticity 22. Commitment 23. Vision 24. Slightly Dissatisfied (my personal favourite so far) 25. Rhythmic 26. Joyful 27. Integrated 28. Empowerment 29. Polite 30. Busy If you'd like to subscribe to this helpful and informative newsletter, visit her website .

Do the parts of your writing career come together to form a whole like the sky bound moon in this picture or do they wave around each other, touching then parting, like the reflection of the moon on the water? This was the issue posted by Christina Katz in her blog series '52 Qualities of Prosperous Writers' this week. She writes of "juggling, balancing and harmonizing" separate parts of your writing career to make a whole, complete picture. One of my favourite writers is Neil Gaiman . This is of course partly down to his writing, but also because his 'work' is so diverse. He's written novels for adults and children ( Neverwhere , Good Omens , Coraline ), comics ( Books of Magic , Sandman: The Dream Hunters ), screenplay and theatre plays too. His internal world and imagination are magical and immense. His integrated writing persona is what I would love to aim for. My own writing career consists of two sides. I write murder mystery plays (and sometimes n...

I've been following The Prosperous Writer blog by Christina Katz this year in my drive to be a more effective writer. This week she talks about 'perseverance'. She says, "Writers who succeed in the long run do not succeed solely because they are talented. They succeed because they have cultivated the art of hanging in there". J K Rowling faced and overcame many rejection slips before her Harry Potter books found a publisher. Stephen King drove his wife to distraction (and near bankrupcy) while he beavered away at his short stories and novels before finally hitting the big time and becoming the successful, prolific published writer he is today. I have to admire these people for sticking with it and believing in themselves in the face of rejection. On bad days I beat myself up for not persevering over the distractions of the last two decades but on better days I have to admit that those years have allowed me to hone my skills and build my life experience. I can now...

I was initially going to write "I'm not talking about your general self respect, but rather your self respect as a writer" but now I think of it, the two are strongly tied together. I was brought up in a family that was loving and wanted me to write but that also felt I should have a proper job because my writing was just a hobby as far as they were concerned. I followed their lead and trained as a secretary. For years, I toiled away in office jobs and kept my writing as a safe haven to return to in my spare time. I dreamed of having my novels published but ultimately I had little respect for myself as a writer. It wasn't until I penned my first murder mystery play for the drama group I was part of that I began to think that my writing was anything more than a hobby. From then on, I began to make time for my writing, in fact guard that time ferociously. However, I still didn't call myself a writer to anyone other than my inner self. I was a secretary, a P.A., an ...

This was a question posed recently by Christina Katz in her January issue of The Prosperous Writer newsletter. For those of you who haven't heard of this lovely, talented lady, she is the author of Get Known Before The Book Deal, Use Your Personal Strengths To Grow An Author Platform, and Writer Mama. She is a prolific writer of articles for regional, national and online publications, and uses her professional writing experience to 'help writers get on track and get published'. Christina explained her question further as 'who do you dedicate all your hard work to?'. As writers, we're often asked 'why' do we write but to ask whom we write for is an interesting slant on the root of our writing. It's equally as revealing as the why but for me much more thought provoking. At school, I suppose I wrote for my English teachers. For my business, Murdering The Text , I write for my clients - amateur theatre groups, schools and general fundraisers. However, w...

Yes, that was me, heavily pregnant and still with book in hand. Now it should go without saying that if you want to be a writer, you should also be a reader. But you shouldn't 'just' be a reader. You should be an avid reader. Books Obvious eh? To know your genre, what's current, what's successful, you must read books in your chosen genre. A visit to the library will tell you what is popular and what the library service deem to be a book in your genre that has 'arrived'. A look around the larger bookshops such as Waterstones and Borders will let you see what is new and in the charts, who the most popular authors are and how prolific they are. Newspapers Both paper and online news will reveal current affairs, what issues are 'hot' and if you delve into the arts sections, you can keep track of the book charts. I find the Times book chart to be especially useful. Magazines What magazines do you read each month? If you're anything like me, you hav...