Fi Phillips

I'm not a lark. Early mornings do not happen naturally to me. Unfortunately, with two children and a school run to arrange, I'm the first one up in our house. It would be nice, sometimes, to be able to just get up and write, work on my creative outpourings like my literary heroes. Oliver Burkeman thought he would try just that - spending a day following the routines and habits of some of our creative greats. You can find out how he got along in Rise and shine: the daily routines of history's most creative minds .

I'm struggling with a new chapter for the latest draft of my novel. I start and stutter and start again. This isn't writer's block because I know what I want to write and yet the words, the right words, either evade me or play annoyingly hard to get. I finally came to the conclusion that the difficulty was caused by the main character I was writing about. I need to get to know Blessing better, and as so often happens, a blog article popped into my inbox at just the right time to help me with this problem. 25 things a great character needs  has proved an incredible help in mapping out Blessing's character. Written by Chuck Wendig, it features on his site terribleminds  and is well worth a read.

I've been reading a lot of Hallowe'en related blog posts about everything scary recently - carved pumpkins (that's ours on the left), costumes, recipes and films - but I was surprised how few mentioned books. So I've put together a short list of reading suitable for this night of ghosts and ghouls. I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett This is the fourth Pratchett novel about Tiffany Aching, reluctant witch and the noisy but loyal Wee Free Men. Tiffany is just settling into her new home and witchly community duties. She's doing her best but things get complicated when an evil ghost fixes its eerie sights on Tiffany. http://www.terrypratchett.co.uk/ The Witches by Roald Dahl My children love books by Dahl but I've kept this one back for now as I find it quite frightening myself. The High Witch plans to rid the country of children by turning them into mice (and if that isn't bad enough, she's placed a large order for mousetraps). Thankfully...

Image via Wikipedia  My daughter has developed a penchant for paperback novels. She can devour one in a single sitting. Not unusual for an adult but this eager reader is only eight years old. It was her birthday this weekend so I treated her to two books that I loved at her age, James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , both by the wonderful writer, Roald Dahl (pictured), an apt purchase because September is Roald Dahl month. This celebration of Dahl was originally launched on 13th September 2006 on what would have been his ninetieth birthday. 2010 sees this celebration stretch to embrace an entire month of festivities.  "Roald was a great believer in birthdays being filled with treats, so he would be happy that this tradition seems to be becoming an annual event," said Dahl's widow, Felicity. Events this September include: 'Fantastic Mr Fox' performed at the Little Angel Theatre, Islington a staging of  'George's Marvel...