7 ways to write with confidence – guest post at Ingram Spark

Some books never get out of the writer’s mind and onto the page … and when IngramSpark heard about my new workbook, they thought I might have some advice. Voila, 7 essential points for writing with confidence, which you can see over at their blog. Actually, I didn’t expect to be in your inbox again so quickly after the previous post, but launch times always get a bit frenetic.

Actually #2…

Special offer!

This extra post also lets me share a sudden, mad offer. This weekend, in honour of the Bookbrunch Selfie Awards, I’m having a flash sale for my novel Lifeform Three – which a few years ago had a nibble at a very prestigious award (I’ve never been able to tell the story before, but you can find it here).  For this weekend, the Kindle edition of Lifeform Three is  just 99c. Grab it now!

‘A cracked but steely song of survival and beauty’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Philip Miller

My guest this week is a poet and award-winning arts correspondent as well as a literary novelist. His novel is a reckoning with loss and a mystery involving a lost painting, and his musical companions range from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Boards of Canada. He describes BOC’s music as making you feel you might walk into a mirror or meet yourself – which is not only brilliant, it’s a fairly accurate manifesto for the unsettling journey of the book. Even more exciting, I noticed as I downloaded the cover image that the novel is endorsed by one of my favourite mischievously inventive writers, Alasdair Gray. Deep breath. Philip Miller is on the Red Blog with his Undercover Soundtrack.

‘Freedom and life force’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Christine Tsen

My guest this week is a cellist and chamber musician who has just published her first poetry collection with Vine Leaves Press. She says music inspires her to write and to strive to express meaning in the cadence and feeling of words. Her soundtrack includes the classical standards you might expect, but also Evanescence and Josh Groban – and a moment when she saw the solo violinist Joshua Bell posing as a street musician. She is Christine Tsen and she’s on the Red Blog with her Undercover Soundtrack.