Fi Phillips

This is where I found myself on Sunday morning. This is Chester City Hall. As part of the Chester Literature Festival, I was booked in to speak to a lovely lady called Carrie Kania , an agent from Conville and Walsh. The slot was for fifteen minutes, not long, to discuss the first fifty pages of my novel which I had previously emailed to her. I was directed up a sweeping staircase to wait on a wooden bench. I don't know if it's allowed but I took the opportunity to photograph the impressive, gothic interior. You can find a couple of shots at the bottom of this post. After waiting for only a couple of minutes (I was early), one of the heavy wooden doors opened. The writer before me left and Carrie invited me in, a small dog trotting at her heels. Her dog is called Foxy and once he had barked at me sufficiently to let me know who was boss, he settled down for a snooze. I nervously took a seat, notepad in hand, ready to hear the verdict on my writing. Carrie was relaxed, c...

I recently walked into my study and noticed that there was a white smear on the window. When I looked closer, I found this.  Can you make it out? It's an imprint of a bird that must have collided with the window. You can see its beak, breast feathers and the feathers from an outstretched wing. I checked the garden but there was no dead or injured bird, and no sign of feathers either, just in case a local cat had taken advantage. The imprint was created by something completely normal but it signifies a suspended moment in time, a reminder of the past, a ghost. What would it inspire you to write?

It's autumn. The trees are shaking off their greenery. My morning journeys are wrapped in fog from the fields that I drive past. There's a chill in the air even when the sun is shining. I can feel it in my bones (or maybe that's a touch of rheumatism). Everything is on the shift. This month's exercise is inspired by a word that, for me, denotes this time of year. Change is ever present although sometimes the change is so gradual that we don't notice it. On other occasions, change can be brutally quick, shocking even. If you were to write about 'change', what would your story tell me? Who would it be about? What would be its tone? How does change inspire you?

It truly feels like autumn now, the turning of the year into cooler days and tawny shades. I love this season for the same reason that I love spring - there's change in the air. My choice words this month come from the award winning writers Doris Lessing and Octavia Butler. The wonderful Doris Lessing talks about writing.

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...

Yes, I know it's mid month and I really should have posted this at the beginning of September but it's been a hectic couple of weeks and I've only just sat down (reaches for coffee). No, really, it has. The beginning of September saw my children return to school (youngest child joining his big sister at high school) which should have given me a chance to catch up on everything. I say 'should' because around the same time, my husband and I decided to start the cogs turning in the 'moving house' process. The documents are signed. The boxes have been purchased (and several of them packed). We have keys to collect and measurements to make in the new house. It's all good but it's also time-consuming. My daughter also turned into a teenager, this weekend just gone. There were presents to buy and wrap, and arrangements to be made for a birthday weekend away. We got back late last night. So, back to the topic at hand (need more coffee), my post, th...

One of the delights of my recent family holiday was having the time to read. The literary gem that I took away with me was The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern . I love a book that enthralls me so much that I forget time and my surroundings. The Night Circus was just such a book. This is a novel of magic, illusion (magical, mechanical and emotional), gameplay and love, set at the turn of the twentieth century in Europe and the USA. These are the first lines that I read. The circus arrives without warning.    No announcements precede it, no paper notices on downtown posts and  billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. To me, this opening does two things. It announces the arena that the novel will take place in, the circus, and it employs the magic of the circus (that most of will have experienced) to pull us in as an audience. We want to read on and find out what happens. The various cover desi...