Inspiration
FAVOURITE BOOKS
One Day/ David Nicholls
Matilda/ Roald Dahl
Enduring Love/ Ian McEwan
Jaws/ Peter Benchley
Bridget Jones' Diary/ Helen Fielding
Wuthering Heights/ Emily Bronte
About A Boy/ Nick Hornby
Norwegian Wood/ Haruki Marakumi
us/ david nicholls
​
​
Favourite Short Stories
As life has got busier, I find I read far more short stories. Some are famous, some are not but here is a list of ones that have stuck with me long after reading.
My Daughter, The Fox/ Jackie Kay
Neighbors/ Raymond Carver
Muggins Here/ David Mitchell
Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets/ Zadie Smith
Lamb to the Slaughter / Roald Dahl
How To Be An Other Woman/ Lorrie Moore
Stone Mattress/ Margaret Attwood
The Cheater’s Guide to Love/ Junot Diaz
Write drunk;
edit sober.
Ernest Hemingway
So hard to choose! I also love a bit of Austen, Salinger, Hemingway, Keyes & Sparks.
Favourite TV Series
I think some of the best writing is in television these days. I watch it all (quite literally, my husband despairs) from Eastenders to Buffy to True Detective – I don’t discriminate. One of my favourite TV writers is Sally Wainwright who wrote BBC’s ‘Happy Valley.’ Here is a list of stuff that’s had me binge watching until my husband has had to prise the remote control out of my hands.
The Walking Dead
The Affair
Orange is the New Black
YOU
KILLING EVE
Game of Thrones
The IT Crowd
FLEABAG
stranger things
Favourite Films
(500) Days of Summer
when harry met sally
Brokeback Mountain
shame
Lost in Translation
little miss sunshine
pulp fiction
billy elliott
You only learn to be a better writer by actually writing.
Doris Lessing
ALSO INSPIRED
BY CAKE
Website Inspiration
Oh, the internet. It can be a dark and scary place; one moment you’re sitting down to write. Then you decide to check your Facebook and an hour later you’re in hysterics, watching a panda come down a slide for the fifteenth time on YouTube.
But sometimes the word wide web is a magnificent place especially for writers. Here are some the sites and blogs I visit regularly for advice, inspiration and welcome distractions.
For inspiration, advice, opportunity, short fiction and support, my internet history tells me I hang out with these guys quite a lot. Go have a wander....
Visual Verse
​
Find your writing community! If you get on Twitter, Insta and Facebook, there are so many supportive groups and networks to connect to other writers, bloggers and readers.
​
#writingcommunity
#amwriting
#writersofinsta
​
You can say ‘chick lit’ around me. I’m proud to write it and LOVE my genre – literary snobs be gone with you! (Especially those who believe we writers all belong in our own special niches...meh...) So one of my favourites sites is Novelicious that celebrates women’s fiction and its authors...
The Romantic Novelists' Association is also a great place to bump into like-minded writers.
