Chilling By The River
After three days of full-on treats, and rather more walking than we’d promised ourselves, today is a fairly unstructured day. We are meeting friends for lunch, but otherwise the day […]
Got My Mojo Back…
One of the gifts I inherited from my father is the ability to sleep well. I am lucky enough to be able to fall asleep anywhere, any time: in […]
Elizabeth chats with…C. Hope Clark
This month’s guest is an American author and writers’ friend. Her weekly and fortnightly newsletters provide thousands of us with writing tips, leads to competitions and grants and a no-nonsense […]
Taking the Day Off to Chat to Tina
Yes, I know it’s Monday; I know I’ve just had the weekend off; I know I should be working today – and right at the top of today’s ‘To Do’ […]
The Cheat
Today’s snippet of new prose is a piece of flash fiction arising from another of Morgen Bailey’s Story Writing Exercises: Monday Monologue: Her girl/boyfriend is cheating on her [25th February 2013]. […]
Going Away To Get Away
“Have you booked a holiday yet,” friends have been saying all year. “When are you going away?” “We’re not,” I reply, “at least not in the sense you mean.” […]
Risk Management
All businesses are subject to risk and our business as writers is no exception. These days, risk management has become a huge topic: the subject of whole books; the purpose […]
Cash Flow Planning: Expenditure and Dealing with Deficits
Having looked at income, we now turn to expenditure. Here, there is tends to be more certainty, especially with regard to fixed costs (the costs we incur whether or not […]
Cash Flow Planning: Income
Like the P&L and balance sheet, cash flow can be looked at historically. In this context, it is used to show how changes in the balance sheet have occurred over […]
Accounting Statements: Introduction
In the past two articles, we’ve looked at what records we need to keep in our small business; records both of income and of expenditure. Now we’re going to start […]
Saying Thanks: For The Generosity of Writers
I’m sitting in my newly-refurbished writing retreat, aka the garden room, across the lawn from the house. It is the first time I’ve worked in here for five months, following […]
Finanical Systems: Keeping it Appropriate
A belated Happy New Year to you all. It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these Business of Writing articles. A lot has happened in the meantime, not […]
Tax Matters
[This week’s post is specific to the UK; the principles apply in most countries but the specifics vary, so non-Brits need to review the requirements with your national authorities] In […]
The Next Big Thing: Tina’s Work in Progress
Last week, I tagged writer Tina K Burton, giving her the task of talking about her latest work in progress. Tina doesn’t have her own blog, although you can find out […]
Business Structures
One of the questions to be resolved when setting up any small business is which structure is the most appropriate? There are a number of options including: self-employment; partnerships; limited […]
Giving It Away: Should We Write For Free?
[By pure co-incidence, fellow-writer Patsy Collins has also been blogging about the same topic this week, although she is talking about the provision of free books for Kindle. Read her […]
Thinking About Finances
One phrase that is often quoted by experienced business people is: turnover is vanity; profit is sanity. The long-term objective of any small business is to be successful, otherwise why […]
Business Start-Up: Getting Paid
We’ve talked about finding the customers; we’ve looked at getting the work (i.e. the writing) done. Now we’re going to focus on the third element: getting paid. Talking about money […]
Business Start-up: Doing the Work
[There was no post last week, due to long weekend in Paris, and just a quickie today, as I’m in the middle of extended celebrations for a BIG birthday. Normal […]
Business Start-up: Reaching the Customers
Setting up a successful small business is a major step — and is not one we should take lightly. It’s also a huge topic, so I’m going to cover it […]
Business Plans for Writers
The starting point for every new business should be a good, clear business plan — and our writing business is no different. It’s an important tool, for example, in talking […]
Objectives That Help, Not Hinder
Recently, someone asked me “how do I deal with multiple projects; how do I sort out what I should be doing?” My immediate response was that she should work on […]
Swanwick 2012: day 7
…and in a flash, it was gone!
Swanwick Day 6: It Doesn’t Happen By Magic
It’s all a bit of a blur: Malcolm Chislholm showed us how to use Twitter and Facebook; how to set up a website for free – and how to publish […]
New-Time Publishing and Old-Time Music Hall: Day 5 at Swanwick
Wednesday already! Normal weather conditions have been restored; it poured at Swanwick today — there was no sitting outside this afternoon. The inspiration, enthusiasm and chattering are still evident —but […]
Authorpreneurship and Fish-Nets: Swanwick Day 4
It’s been another brilliant day at Swanwick, but I can’t help thinking that when I said at lunchtime I’d enough material to write today’s blog — I should have actually […]
Titantic Tweets and Furious Facebooking
Well, it’s been a strange day and a long one. It started with a (virtual) Welsh Male Voice Choir in ‘Lift Up Your Hearts’ and finished with Elvis and family […]
Swanwick: Scurrilous Rumours and Graphic Murders
A delegate has been caught in bed with one of the lecturers at Swanwick just minutes after an “individual tuition” session. Half the class walked out of the Enticing and […]
Swanwick: Intelligent Silliness and Thelma’s Pants
This posting should have been a detailed account of how hard we’re all working and all the writerly activities we are getting up to. As the title suggests, I may […]
Swanwick: S Day minus 1
Every year, during the second week in August, around 300 writers gather in Swanwick for the Writers’ Summer School, which has been running for more than sixty years. I don’t […]
Time Management for Grasshoppers
I’ve been thinking a lot about time management recently. I’ve been a writer for three months now. Well – that’s not strictly true – I’ve been a writer for a […]