Fi Phillips

It's going to be a busy month with two family birthdays, Father's Day, client articles to write and a murder mystery to finish off for another client. Add to that the fact that we won't be having our normal June getaway because my daughter has exams and I don't think there'll be much of a chance for a breather this month. Having said that, I like busy. Busy pays the bills and keeps away the boredom. All that 'busy'  means that this month, more than most, I'll be planning like crazy. Here's my tick-list for June: Buy presents: For my son that'll probably be Overwatch related. Zenyatta is his current favourite character to play, plus he's now got a bank account and is very keen to earn interest on his money. My husband has had his main present already so we'll be looking for a selection of smaller offerings for his birthday and Father's Day, but nothing gimmicky so I'll be steering the teens away from the comedy socks. ...

May marks the end of spring and the beginning of summer, fitting in two bank holidays (if you're in the UK) and so two short weeks that makes it feel like holiday time is on the way. It's as if life is telling you to slow down for a while and take a break. Except, I don't feel like taking a break. I want to race on, head down, and get on with all the good stuff 2018 has thrown in my path. This has definitely proven to be a year of 'new' and 'motivation' so far. Murdering The Text Running along with that feeling of motivation is my plan to write two new murder mysteries this year. The first was an idea that came to me while looking back over some old pantomime photos. The second idea came from a discussion with a customer about a murder mystery they want me to write for them. Fi Phillips Copywriter This month, I'm on the look-out for new customers to bolster my income from my current customers and I'm working on a freebie for subscribers...

If January was a gift, then February is a gem waiting to be chipped from a wall of rock. In other words, there's a lot of good stuff ahead but I'm going to have to work hard to get it. I'll be drinking plenty of (decaf) coffee and tea, researching much, putting plans into effect, and generally living with my nose to the grindstone. And I'm loving it! Copywriting I've started on the website for my new copywriting business. I love this stage of any project - the beginning where you bring together all the resources you'll need and plan away. Having said that, I find it all too easy to switch into magpie mode and become distracted by all the shiny things. "Ooh, pretty Wordpress theme. Look at the colourful photos. Should I make a video?"  I'm rather proud of my logo. Have a look. Murdering The Text Although I'm shelving my next murder mystery play until my copywriting business is up and running, the idea pokes at m...

It was back to work for me today and I have to say that 2018 feels very different to 2017. Maybe, it's the 'new year vibe' with all its associated intentions and resolutions or perhaps it's starting the new year in a new home. Whatever it is, I feel motivated and raring to go. January, never mind 2018, is a very different world to the one I lived in a month ago. I've joined a new Facebook group for creatives which encourages its members to assign a word to 2018. My word is 'growth'. So what am I up to in January? My main focus will be setting up my copywriting business. Although I started down the freelance copywriting path in 2017, this year I want to solidify that path with an actual named business. I also want to set up my business in the right way this time round, not just flitting around the issue and missing critical areas that tripped me up further down the line when I was setting up Murdering The Text . There's legal steps to take, a we...

It's almost summer. How did that happen? I'm not complaining. My dog walks are more pleasant when I don't have to drag the pooch through the rain, and it's nice not to be bundled up in jumpers and big coats. Last week, I finished the murder mystery play I was writing and that'll soon be winging (or whatever emails do) its way to its client. More news about that later this year. This month, the copywriting continues and, after the month and a half of murder mystery-ing, I can return to my novel.  The birds are singing, the air is sweet, and life is good. What are you doing this May?

This is how I started the second day of the new year, walking around in rainy Venice with my husband to celebrate my fiftieth birthday. With our children safe at home with their uncle, we spent a wonderful long weekend in a city that constantly inspires me. Come the Tuesday morning, my children returned to school, my husband to work, and me to my writing and plenty of post Christmas housework. Smack down back to earth. January is my birthday month but unfortunately it's also a month that acts as an anti climax after the festive break. It's cold, often rainy and, let's face it, most of us have usually spent all our pennies until the next pay day comes around. It always seems like a terrible time to me to be making resolutions so I keep those until the spring. This month, therefore, continues without a lot of change. I'll continue to wait for responses from the literary agents whom I've submitted my novel to. I've had three no's (with encouraging feedb...

December this year finds me in a very festive mood and for once, I'm rather organised. I finished my Christmas present shopping in November. That's never happened before. I have Christmas cards ready to be written and wrapping paper at hand. We're not quite sure where the Christmas tree is going to go in our new house but that's only a minor blip on the festive horizon. I'm still unpacking boxes with the target of having it all finished by mid month, and delighting in re-discovering all kind of gems that I'd packed away during probably the move before last. I have a new desk for my first ever study. I'm sitting at it now as I type. This will probably be the last room I'll sort out but I'm all kinds of giddy to have all of my things together, unpacked and in view. So what of my writing for December? Waiting After sending off my novel to three agents mid November , I'm waiting for a response. One got back to me almost immediately to sa...

As I've said in the past, new year resolutions don't generally work for me. January never seems like the right time to 'begin' anything. It's cold, an anticlimax after the festive break and generally, I'm skint. Spring always sees me much more motivated and likely to start new things. So instead of new year 'resolutions', I'm setting a number of goals for the year - realistic, doable goals that I've a more than fair chance of achieving. Firstly, there's my novel (Haven: Shadowbinder). It's currently in the care of the writer, Brian Keaney as he assesses it for me, via the Writer's Workshop . Brian writes novels for children and young adults and once I finish my current reading list , I've decided that I must buy a couple of his books. His report should reach me before the end of January so once I've read, re-read and mentally digested his words of wisdom (and probably dried my eyes), my first goal of the year will be to...

It's that time again, the breath before the final leap into the new year. It's that chance to take a moment to look back before we shut the door on the old year, to check over our intentions for then and our wishes for the future. Back in January , I talked about what I had accomplished in 2013 and how I wanted to approach 2014. I think I managed to maintain that wish to see my life, good and bad, with new, refreshed eyes. Later that month , and again in February , I set myself a reading list. I got around halfway through that list, reading some wonderful novels and poetry. The rest are for next year's reading list. Towards the end of February, I began a new series of blog posts - Something Useful for 2014 - that provided my readers with monthly writing exercises. That's something I'll be continuing in 2015, along with my monthly photo inspiration posts. In the first half of the year, I took customer commissions for three separate murder mystery plays...

Yes, you did read that right. Festive Reapings is the third of the customer commissioned murder mystery plays that I wrote this year. With a cast of three men and five women, this murder mystery has a Christmas theme. Things aren't going well in the Grotto at Fairman's department store. The fairy has been sacked, Santa is drunk in the gents toilet, and to top it all, there are hardly any customers. What else could go wrong? Festive Reapings had its first outing in November this year and you can find more photos of the Purley Players' production  here . Find more details about this murder mystery on the Murdering the Text website .

"Stretch and breathe. Are you with me, ladies?" Priscilla Vincente, mature, glamorous, aerobics instructor has the world at her well-manicured fingertips. Men fall at her feet. Other women just don't stand a chance. And as for her class, she has them just where she wants them (under her thumb and paying for the benefit).  What could possibly spoil it all? This is the second of my new murder mystery plays, set in an aerobics class with four male and six female characters. You can now buy it from my website. Have a look .

Tom, Dick and Harry use Dick’s shed as a hideaway from their wives’ expectations but Wendy has other ideas for the space. Will she get her way and demolish the shed to make way for her summer house? Will Harry’s Star Wars collection remain safe in the attic? Will Bridget be sent away to live in a nursing home? Spend some time in the shed to find out. This is one of the new murder mystery plays that I wrote this year for my business, Murdering The Text . All three plays were commissioned by customers. Two have been performed so far. The last takes place in late November and has a Christmas theme. With four male characters and five female, you can find this new play on my website now .

2014 is upon us but I didn't want to start this shiny, new year without reflecting on the one that's just passed. 2013 was the year when I proved to myself that 'I can' if I believe in myself. I can: finish that murder mystery play that's had me dumbfounded for over a year - Fresh Blood guest write for a professional work from home blog - Guesting on Work From Home Wisdom attract new customers to Murdering The Text and finish the third draft of my novel.  On a personal note, 'I can' lose weight and keep it off. Between June and December, I lost 2 stones in weight. I have more to lose yet but I'm confident that I can be down to my target weight  by the summer.  My word for 2014 is 'refresh'. I have so many good things in my life already but I feel that I need to look at many of them with new eyes. I have no new year resolutions as such, just an incredible amount of optimism and excitement for the next twelve months. I have two m...

One piece of advice that is often offered by creative writing books and courses is to nail your characters before you begin writing. Work out their name, their age, how they look, where they were born, what their attitude is to marriage, etc, etc. The list is endless. For a long time, I followed this advice and attempted to write my characters into the details and personalities that I had so carefully written down and crafted beforehand. Do you know what happened for ninety nine per cent of the time? I wrote cardboard cutout characters who fell apart under the rain of conflict and time. I now understand that I was taking the 'get to know your character' advice too literally or too naively at least. What the advice should be is 'work out the details of your character's life that you need to begin writing'.  The difference between this and the 'nailing of characters' is that with my version, there is room for your characters to develop and grow as you the wr...

Image by EraPhernalia Vintage via Flickr This links back to ' drawing from your life experience '. The block of flats you walk by on the way to the bus stop or the railway station you use on a morning can all provide locations in your writing. I've lived in various areas of England and Wales, and beyond that family connections have leant further familiarity to places in Yorkshire and Scotland. I can picture my home town with great detail, even though I don't live there anymore and have used that city for one of my novels (as yet unpublished). The first few murder mystery plays written for Murdering The Text were based in and around an imaginary market town called Dedleigh. Dedleigh is based on several similar towns in Yorkshire. A children's novel that I wrote a few years ago (again, unpublished) used a house and area where I lived near Croydon, Surrey. In the novel I'm currently writing, the future set, modern city is completely imagined but the old to...

That was what I was posed by a recent commission. An am dram group approached me with the following request - a 'non murder' mystery play that would fit into the December/Christmas slot and include pantomime props. Oh and it had to appeal to a family audience too. After much brain strumming and drinking of coffee, I came up with the idea that it would be fun to people the play with a cast of pantomime characters. Ok, sounds good but what would bring these characters together? Maybe the fairy godmother was retiring? How about a wedding? And what would the crime be? Strum, strum, sip, slurp. In the end, I chose the scenario of a talent competition - familiar to most of us after the popularity of shows such as 'Britain's Got Talent' and 'X Factor'. The cast were drawn from various pantomime stories - Dandini as our annoying presenter, two evil judges, a dame and side kick and a handful of other pantomime contestants. Pantomime characters of course require panto...

But the fire is so delightful, And since we've no place to go, Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Can you tell that I'm feeling festive yet? In the run up to Christmas, I find my writing time is overrun with so many things that demand my attention. For the most part, it's child related - present buying for my children, Christmas decorations for my children to ooh and aah over, Christmas plays starring my children and chocolate filled advent calendar opening by my children. There's also present buying for friends and family, the normal housework which is bulked out slightly by the pre holiday cleaning and clearing, and festive planning. Still, my writing commitments continue to call. I'm currently writing a murder mystery play for an am dram group I've known for decades. It's set in a zoo and I have the added bonus of being able to write for known actors. I love to write the characters to suit the voices of the cast. On most evenings, you can find me tapp...