Fi Phillips

I'm sure all writers pull from their own lives and experiences for at least a small part of their writing content, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes knowingly and in precise detail. Using what we know can ground our writing and add believability (apologies if that isn't a real world but it sounded right). This month's exercise is to look into your own experiences and memories to find something unusual, or bizarre, an event or detail that was out of the ordinary, and embroider that memory or detail into a piece of writing. My own memory happened on a winter's night on a railway bridge. My car skidded on black ice and piled into a lamp-post, thankfully preventing us from tumbling off the bridge onto the train line below. My then boyfriend was belted in but the force of the collision smacked him into the windscreen. I remember him screaming and then silence. Almost immediately, he went into shock. The passing drivers all pulled over and helped. One drove to the loca...

This entrance is close to where I live. My family and I traipse through it a couple of times each month. That's as much information as I'm going to give you. What do you think it is? Prison? Castle? Barn? Garden gate? What does it inspire you to write?

August has crept up on me. Who am I kidding? August has grabbed me by the heels and dashed me through the past ten days in a whirl of family trips and events. It's always this way during the school summer break, finding ways to keep my kids (now teen and pre teen) amused and fed, and throw in my normal routine too. I wrote about this back in 2009 when I called it the August Monster . With the first draft of my second novel completed (last month's target), I decided to take a step back from it all before I went any further. My muse, however, had a different plan. Cue several nights of tossing and turning and making notes on my mobile phone whenever ideas dived into my head. I had always planned to write the Steve Haven books as a trilogy but the more I threw around the events that had to happen in the story, the more I realised that a series of books would suit much better, allowing me to tell the whole story rather than rushing through the bare bones. The August target ...

A foreboding entrance or a gothic welcome? What do you think? I found this gateway whilst on holiday with my family. What story could this lead to?

As I expected, June outdistanced me in a race towards the end of the school term, dragging me behind it (and preventing me from posting anything on this blog - sorry about that). July always brings mixed feelings for me. There is so much to arrange and finalise before the school holidays and yet once the summer break is here I can relax. Only eleven more days to go. With a puppy to amuse along with my children, this year's summer break is bound to include many many visits to dog friendly sites. Fingers crossed the weather is good enough for time spent outdoors. Writing With my novel in the hands of several agents, I've made the decision not to send it out to anyone else until I've completed the entire trilogy. My target this month is to complete the plot, chapter plan and story arcs for the trilogy and finish the first draft of the second novel, with the summer break target of completing the first draft of the entire trilogy. Mslexia Children's Novel Competi...

Summer arrives this month in the UK, with its warmer days (mostly and not necessarily without rain), vibrant colours and the chance to unwrap from winter woollies (or is that just me?). As a mum, this season is dominated by the summer break and amusing my children. What new adventures and fresh horizons will the long break from school bring this year? For the last couple of months, my life has felt chaotic with new interests and the latest addition to our family, puppy Bailey devouring a large slice of my time. Now she's settled in and I've got my head around the additional activities in my life, it's time to reorganise. Catching Up I've let a lot slide over the past few weeks so June and the summer will be all about catching up with the tasks that I've pushed to the back of my mind and only touched on recently. Along with the housework and my health regime, I desperately need to carve out a daily niche for my writing. I managed last month's writing t...

Write what you know is a phrase that's often thrown at writers. I've even talked about it myself on this blog . Like most lessons, it can have different meanings and challenges to different people. Author Emma Newman wrote about this topic in The Untrue Truth of "Write What You Know" as a guest writer on Chuck Wendig's terribleminds site. Her article is well worth a read with its discussion of transferable skills. Have a look.