My guest this week began writing at roughly the same time as she started piano lessons. She says music and writing have always been natural pursuits for her, ways to help her grapple with a fundamental need to express the inexpressible. When she needed an aural companion for her epic fantasy series she found it in Bill Whelan’s rousing Riverdance. She is Melissa McPhail and she’s on the Red Blog with her Undercover Soundtrack.
Nail Your Novel – Writing, publishing and self-publishing advice from a bestselling ghostwriter and book doctor
Nail Your Novel
‘The mystery of enchanted forests and the thrumming chill of icy passes’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Melissa McPhail
- Leave a Comment

Subscribe here
Sign up for my newsletter

- 'If you're a writer or are considering becoming a writer, buy Roz's Nail Your Novel and Stephen King's On Writing. Everything else is a waste of time and money.'
- 'Showed me where I was going wrong... without making me feel like an idiot'
- 'Made me want to drop everything and get back to the manuscript'
Email me
Rozmorriswriter [at] gmail [dot] com
Find me here too
I tweet about writing as @NailYourNovel
- 'I've gone back to this book time and time again to remind myself why I write' 5 stars for Nail Your Novel- bit.ly/9uS40x 31 minutes ago
- RT @nailyournovel: Do you want indie writers to be eligible for literary prizes and mainstream reviews? Sign ow.ly/lnuXu Pls RT 1 hour ago
I tweet about any other nonsense as @ByRozMorris
- ThanksRT @porter_anderson: "Linda Gillard..explained how Philip Glass rescued her novel’s structure" @KoboWritingLife ow.ly/lnxck 1 hour ago
- 'It's never bad to make the reader feel uneasy' @jonpinnock is on The Undercover Soundtrack ow.ly/lo46K #writing 2 hours ago
All content copyright Roz Morris 2009-2013 and may not be reproduced.
If you wish to REBLOG a post, that's very nice of you - please take no more than 10% of the piece and please link back to the full post here.
Posts about My Memories of a Future Life
- 'Music: the language of souls' – The Undercover Soundtrack
- Carol's black dress – deleted scene
- I swear I made you up – apology to Vellanoweth
- It's not real but it's true – at The Other Side of the Story
- Leading characters to freedom – at For Books' Sake
- Novels tell the deepest truth
- Rejections, stories from real life and … stories – at Hampton Reviews
- Serialising my novel helped me raise my game – at Tuesday Serial
- Shaking off the ghost – writing as me: at Jessica Bell's
- Should you serialise your novel on Kindle? at Jane Friedman's blog
- The A303: a storyteller's road
- The making of a novel
- Underwater futures – at Underground Book Reviews
- Visions of the future – at Potomac Review
- Writer behind the mask – what's in a name?
- Writing a blurb for a rather 'difficult' book – at Jami Gold's
Posts at Women Writers

Posts at Do Authors Dream of Electric Books?
- A modest writer's guide to Christmas newsletters
- Beware: writer at work
- Do self-publishers still need to explain why?
- Giving it some English: a Very British Blog Tour
- How do we discover what we want to read?
- How long should a book be?
- How to get on well with Twitter
- I swear I made you up – apology to Vellanoweth
- Living the stuff of novels – ghostwriting
- Music tells us stories
- Our Friends Electric – in praise of writing bloggers
- Proper publishers don't need propaganda
- RSI and when your books come back to haunt you
- Stand up for good self-publishers
- The Accidental Blogger – more than just a platform
- The day I broke an ESP experiment
- What is a book? In praise of print
- What makes you a writer?
- Where do you write?
- While publishers play safe, writers create the brands of the future
- Why writing a blurb is like being inside the TARDIS
What do you want to read about today?

It’s all here somewhere
agents Amazon authors beginners beginnings books Character deepen your story entertainment fiction Fix and Finish With Confidence having ideas how to write a book how to write a novel ideas inspiration interview Kindle literary fiction literature music music for writing My Memories of a Future Life Nail Your Novel: Why Writers Abandon Books and How You Can Draft Nail Your Novel: Why Writers Abandon Books and How You Can Draft, Fix and Finish With Confidence novels Planning Plot polishing publishing revising Rewriting Roz Morris self-publishing The Undercover Soundtrack unblocking undercover soundtrack writer's block writing writing a novel - Nail Your Novel writing business writing life writing prompt writing routine writing to musicType something. See what happens
My profile

Hottest posts

…careful now
- Music for telling stories – guest spot on Kobo Writing Life
- ‘It’s never a bad thing to make the reader feel a bit uneasy’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Jonathan Pinnock
- Why fiction characters matter and how we make them memorable – video and podcast with Joanna Penn
- Psst… the Characters Book is now available in print!
- When to trust the reader’s intuition – and when to spell out what a character feels: post at KM Weiland’s Wordplay
Out and about

Podcasts
- Ghostwriting and why I love Ian Fleming – podcast at Guys Can Read
- Ghostwriting, filming with Matt Damon and My Memories of a Future Life – on Page Turners at BlogTalkRadio
- How to self-publish an ebook and maybe land a book deal – at The Write Lines
- Put through my paces by Guys Can Read – my novel, literary writing and how indie writers hold the future
- Should you change your novel if a publisher suggests it? Interview at The Writers' Lounge
- Structure, creativity, one-click publishing… and the fossil record for our books. Talking to John Rakestraw
- Talking to Joanna Penn about nailing your novel
- Talking to Unruly Publishing Guides – why polishing and editing are so important
- The long and the short of writing novels – at Beyondaries (video and transcript)
- Writing literary fiction – discussion with Joanna Penn
Guest spots in other people's homes
- For stories involving horses: something I wrote aeons ago for roleplayers and other storymakers
- How to be positive about rejections
- On writing, revising and being on submission
- 5 tips for dynamite scenes
- It's, its, there, their – simple mistakes that ruin your reader's enjoyment. Guest post at Chazzwrites
- Ghostwriting, hiring an editor and the Kindle millionaires
- Ghostwriting: how to break in
- Covers – what every author needs to know, even if not self-published
- Why I'm self-publishing – guest post at Catherine, Caffeinated
- Should you serialise your novel on Kindle? at Jane Friedman's blog
- Serialising my novel helped me raise my game – at Tuesday Serial
- Writing a blurb for a rather 'difficult' book – at Jami Gold's
- Getting readers to fill in the blanks – at KM Weiland's Wordplay

Interviews
- Twitterviewed! Big questions answered in 140 characters
- The day I broke an ESP experiment
- Writers in control of their destinies – back at Everything
- Visions of the future – at Potomac Review
- Underwater futures – at Underground Book Reviews
- Taking the lid off critiquing: part 1
- Why writers should be readers – at Joe Bunting's blog
- Rejections, stories from real life and … stories – at Hampton Reviews
- How I got my agent – talking to Writer's Digest
- Wielding the writing sword at Dragonfly Scrolls
- Everything – interviewed by Chila Woychik of Port Yonder Press
- Chatting to Dorothy Dreyer at We Do Write
- Writing literary fiction – discussion with Joanna Penn
- The making of a novel

Authorised personnel only
Alliance of Independent Authors Professional Member















