Category «Mistakes»

Between a block and a hard place (Mistake #74)

Three or four times over the few years this blog has been running I’ve been asked ‘why don’t you write about writer’s block?’ – and I’ve never got around to it. Reasons? I feel a lot of it has been said already, and most writers who write about writing have had something to say on …

Missive attachment (Mistake #73)

Question from a student: “After submitting a letter, how long should one wait before assuming the letter will not be used? Should one treat letters as ‘disposable’?” Send one off and if you don’t hear anything, forget about it and write another?” I have been asked this many times before, and I probably always give …

Nice, nice, and more nice (Mistake #72)

A long, long gap since my last post, for which I apologise, but I took a much-needed holiday in August. Italy, to see some nice relatives and eat some nice food and enjoy some nice weather – and to deal with some not so nice lizards trespassing in my bedroom and some un-nice snakes seeking …

Only the gifted few (Mistake #71)

Some weeks ago I wrote Mistake No. 69 and received a tweet from a writer who told me bluntly he’d stopped reading at a certain point during the post, fairly early on. That point was: “But it’s not really about the writing. Most people can write.” I asked him neutrally whether the post had bored …

Writers write books (Mistake #70)

Here’s a wise quote from a writer of whom I’d not previously heard, but who contributed a piece for the latest edition of The Author. Her name is Juliet Gardiner. She wrote: “Writers have never sat at home writing books. What they have done – and continue to do – is sit at home writing …

Submitting a good idea (Mistake #69)

If you’re a new writer, having a good idea is good, but submitting a good idea may not be good enough. You don’t need me to tell you that breaking into magazines and newspapers is hard. Attracting an editor’s attention – merely getting a reply to your emails – is tough enough. And there are …

Impatience (Mistake #68)

I see a lot of student papers which come to me a day early. By that I mean that the writer should not have sent it to me when he sent it – but slept on it instead. The article-writing process – from the first glimmer of the idea, all the way through to submitting …

Where there’s a Bill… (Mistake #67)

I’ve written before about writing competitions of which I disapprove. You’ll find some background at the Copyright page on my blog. And as I said last year, it’s a mistake not to read terms and conditions. So here we go with another, this one from Cornish Traditional Cottages, who are inviting short articles for their …

Twin brackets, commas and dashes (Mistake #66)

Good day. Here’s a little lesson which I hope you’ll find useful. Consider three sentences: The poet Angela Smith (who had travelled from the Shetlands) said the book festival was a huge success. The poet Angela Smith, who had travelled from the Shetlands, said the book festival was a huge success. The poet Angela Smith …

Net losses (Mistake #65)

I read a tweet last week, on the day of the Wikipedia blackout, by a writer pointing out that journalists might have to actually spend the day doing some proper in-depth research – for a change! – rather than click into the collaborative online people’s encyclopedia and trusting the information they found there. It was …