Fi Phillips

Where have the last few weeks gone? I wrote September's post about my plans for the month with the full intention of posting lots more in the following weeks. Then, our house move happened and somewhere in there our internet connection was cut off for several days too.My time has been hijacked by continual carrying, unpacking, searching and way too much cleaning. I'm still surrounded by boxes but at least now they're only knee high and I can see my family over them. Yesterday, I handed over the keys for our old house and so today, I can finally sit in my new study without any immediate deadlines to drag me off my chair. So what's happening in October for me, as a writer? My Novel I'm still working on my novel, editing and polishing. I was excited to return to it this week but nervous too. Time away from my writing allows me to look at it with fresh eyes and I worried that I might have lost the thread of my storyline in all my editing but that doesn't...

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...