Fi Phillips

The first writing exercise of 2017 from me and it's August already. How did that happen? This month's writing exercise is about summer, or rather what summer means to you. For me, the summer is largely taken up with the school summer break - 6 or 7 weeks when my teens are away from school and my work has to take a sideways shunt to accommodate day trips and refereeing arguments. I also have to feed them but since we bought a new sandwich toaster, they're sorting their own lunches out by experimenting with hot sandwich fillings. Ingredients to date have included ham, bacon, cheese, bananas, peanut butter, chocolate and jam. I'll let you guess at what combinations they've concocted so far. So, back to the writing exercise. Summer. What does it mean to you? Does it even register in your busy life other than a change of wardrobe? Do you like summer skies or do you prefer the winter winds? Write a piece about summer from someone else's perspective: A si...

There is so much advice and opinion out there about how to write a novel (or how to write anything, for that matter) that after a while it can all turn into a blah shade of grey, the same thoughts, techniques and scenarios repeated over and over again. For me, the most informative advice is the kind that comes from a writer's personal experience, illustrated with their own 'story'. Nathan Filer's TEDx talk, How to write an award winning bestselling first novel, is just such a lesson. If you can spare fifteen minutes, then it's well worth watching. Nathan Filer

The new year is six days old and I'm sure that most people are clinging to their new year resolutions. If one of your resolutions is to tackle a novel this year, then a good place to start is this video in the Life Labs series by writer, Lucy Atkins - I want to write a novel in 2015 . Have a look.

I recently cut through our  village graveyard on the way home from a morning chore. As a child, and a teen, I found graveyards rather scary places to visit but now as an adult, they've taken on a different persona, something much more comforting - a garden of memories. What does this photograph make you think of? Does it raise thoughts of ghosts, or families gathering together to remember? What stands out to you? The words on the gravestones, the shadows, or the flowers left on the grave? What does this image inspire you to write?

On the way back to the car after a family walk, I came across this signpost and it struck me how the name of the street, 'Paradise' didn't really match with firstly, the condition of the signpost and secondly, its location in an area of city terrace houses. Even though I'm not a Christian, for me the idea of Paradise still links to the original, biblical idea (ideal?) of a beautiful garden, not a built-up row of red brick dwellings with tiny amounts of outside space. How could this be Paradise? Perhaps, the mistake is in my thinking. Perhaps, each of us has a different idea of Paradise: a break from the children and some adult conversation, freshly laid, untouched snow, or the buzz of the city. Where could you find an unexpected Paradise?

My novel is finished. It's been through a barrage of drafts, beta-read and painfully tweaked into its current form. The next stage is a professional manuscript assessment (need to save up for that). It's been a torturous journey to get here and I wish I'd come across Jeff Goins ' 5-Draft Method before now. I'll file it away to use on my next novel. Have a look.

Now that my novel is going through the final revisions, my mind keeps turning to 'what next'. Manuscript assessment? Agent? Marketing? New website? One of the fun aspects of this 'what next' stage can be creating a trailer for your book. YA and children's novelist, Kelly Hashway provides a 'how to' on her website - Making A Book Trailer . It's well worth a read and I'll be keeping it in mind for my own novel. Writers on Writing: Ian McEwan on Finding Confidence 

I'm coming to the final chapters of the final draft of my novel and while I'm inserting some new chapters, others simply need to be further polished. This is when I take a long look at my work and say 'is that necessary?' or 'could that be done better?'. I use adverbs incredibly sparingly but sometimes they do creep in there and I have to ask myself if they work or if I can write that section differently. Janice Hardy's Fiction University discusses this topic in the article Writing Basics: How to Use Adverbs . Have a look.

Here's a good one - 22 Lessons from Stephen King On How To Be a Great Writer . Have a look. Robert McKee's Storylogue Q&A: Working with Multiple Protagonists

I do my best to end each of the chapters in my novel on a question (even the final chapter). Chuck Wendig includes this method in his article, 25 Ways To Write A Real Page Turner of a Book .  Have a look. Elmore Leonard on Writing

I haven't got to the stage of worrying about cover design yet in the process of creating my novel but this article, by J D Smith on the Writers & Artists website, explains  The Importance of Cover Design .

I've been struggling with my novel writing over the last few weeks and when this happens, I always find it helpful to dip into the advice on The Writer's Village blog. This article,  Seven Quick Ways To Write Sentences That Sizzle  helped me finish the chapter that was causing me problems. Have a look. The first episode of Pan Macmillan's new book webshow - Book Break