Sustained writing takes at least two kinds of energy, two acts of commitment, if you like. This week on the water You start with the tendril of an idea, a whisper of a story, something that, for reasons that are frequently inexplicable, excite your imagination. It doesn’t have to be much, but there’s something about it that beckons you, that says: “This is worth thinking about,” or, perhaps better, “This is something that generates a particular feeling in me that I want to explore, in a...
3 days ago • 6 min read
Hello Reader, Write the Memoir You've Always Dreamt of Have you been sitting on your story? It's time to get stuck in. There's a moment in every would-be memoirist's life when the urge to tell your story becomes impossible to ignore. Maybe you've been thinking about it for years. Maybe something happened recently that made you realise: this needs to be written. But where do you start? Which slice of your life matters most? And what will you do when the obstacles inevitably appear? Join Joanne...
8 days ago • 1 min read
Robert Pirosh was an Oscar-winning Hollywood screenwriter who penned either alone or with writing partners some of Tinseltown’s most famous productions, including the Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera, The Wizard of Oz, I Married a Witch, and the television series which later inspired the film, The Fugitive. This week on the water He started out in New York as a copywriter for an ad agency – but he had always longed to emigrate to Los Angeles and make his name in the capital of celluloid....
10 days ago • 4 min read
In last week's webinar, we asked our audience, among other things, to identify the single biggest obstacle standing between them and their writing goals for this year. I expected a scatter of responses – time management, plotting problems, finding an agent. Instead, person after person named the same thing: the inner critic. That voice telling them they're not good enough, that they're imposters, that they lack real talent. This week on the water I've been thinking about this all week,...
17 days ago • 5 min read
Hello Reader, This Thursday evening, we're gathering a small group of writers for the first session of our Live Creative Writing Course. We still have a couple of spaces available, and we wanted to let you know in case you've been considering it. Over the next ten weeks, we'll be working through the fundamental skills every writer needs – whether you're just starting out or you're an experienced writer looking to refresh your craft. We'll cover everything from finding your voice and building...
23 days ago • 1 min read
Would you agree that one of the greatest challenges facing any serious writer is worming our way into another person’s consciousness and imagining for a moment what it is like to be them? It’s an act of hubris, of course. My consciousness of the world is not accessible to anyone else. It’s the one place, if you can accept for a moment that there are spatial coordinates for consciousness, that is utterly private, inviolable, sacrosanct. Oh, you might wrest my secrets from me by applying...
24 days ago • 5 min read
I've been thinking about something Karin Slaughter said in a recent interview about her latest novel, We Are All Guilty Here – a novel, by the way, that I can heartily recommend. When asked whether she writes with actors or readers in mind, she cut through to what matters: "I just sit down and write. It's been the same from the first book to this book (her 25th) I just want to tell the best story I can tell and learn as a writer and make sure that I'm doing my job of keeping people interested...
about 1 month ago • 6 min read
Hello Reader, Start the Year Writing: A Free Interactive Webinar Monday 19 January 2026 I'm not sure that anything I've ever resolved to do at the start of the year has come to fruition. Something about the demands made by New Year's resolutions, the way they wag their fingers in my face, makes me rebellious. So this January, we're not doing resolutions. We're doing something better. Join Richard and me for our first webinar of the year, where we'll help you clarify your writing intentions...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
You might have missed my note last week announcing a brief hiatus in my weekly motivations, which I’m replacing with a handful of short stories – two last, two this week. This week on the water They are stories that I’ve been writing over the past eighteen months or two years and which I intend eventually to publish as a collection. They’re not related, one to another, except in tone: they all, to some degree or other push boundaries, some physical, some psychological, some behavioural. And...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read