Welcome to another Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Every week I suggest ways we can make our fiction suck slightly less. Sometimes I write little mini-essays on one specific improvement you can apply to your work, and sometimes I put an aspiring author’s first page … Read more
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Death Of 1000 Cuts is my weekly blog about learning to write and edit fiction. New posts appear every Thursday, plus the occasional bonus post when I’ve got extra content to fit in. The most popular feature is ‘In The Barber’s Chair’, where we take the first page of an aspiring author’s novel or short … Read more
Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This week we’re putting another aspiring author’s first page in the barber’s chair. If you feel your work could do with a similar trim and you’re not afraid of a little honesty then please submit via the ‘Contact … Read more
Writing a poem is like baking a cake. If it works, yay! You got a cake, and you can eat it and share it right away. If it doesn’t work, oh well. You wasted an afternoon and you probably learned something that’ll let you make a better cake tomorrow. Writing a novel is like trying … Read more
Welcome back to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Sorry for the brief hiatus – as explained on Monday, a big workload coincided with a heavy cold that knocked me out for two weeks. I also needed some time to work on my own novel, practising … Read more
Hey dear friends – apologies for the little hiatus. I’ve had a metric bumload of work to do (mostly creative and fun) plus a heavy cold that took me out of action for two weeks. November ended with a memorable run of gigs, including a lovely Bristol Old Vic show with Luke Kennard, Francesca Beard … Read more
Hello dear friends. Just a quick note to say I’m pausing the blog updates – for this week at least – just to give myself a bit of breathing space. I am crazy-busy at the moment and I’ve been allowing myself to get a bit overwhelmed. I love writing my blog, silly and inconsequential and … Read more
So for those of you who missed it (probably deliberately), on Friday I did my yearly 100 Poems In A Day challenge. You can read the poems I wrote here. I actually think this is the pantsest crop of poems I’ve written in all five years. Which is fine. I mean, the bar was set … Read more
TODAY I AM DOING THIS. HIT UP THE 100 POEMS IN A DAY 2013 BLOG TO READ THE POEMS AS I WRITE THEM, AND FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER TO SUGGEST POEM TITLES. USE THE HASHTAG #100POEMS – THAT IS ALL. GODSPEED.
Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. I’m running low on first pages, you lovely people. Stop procrastinating, bite the bullet, and send me the first page of your incredible, super-polished, future prize-winning novel or short story. 250 words max, just title and text, via … Read more
I’m not posting a Poem O’ The Week this week, and I don’t even care. Why? Because this Friday, I will attempt to write 100 Poems In A Day. Yep, my annual run for the ton is happening a week early this year, on account of my having gigs all next week. Click on the … Read more
Release date: 1992 Systems: Arcade Everyone who ever played a beat em up looks back on Golden Axe with fondness. When I get into pub conversations with anyone from casual gave-games-up-when-they-hit-18 dabblers to hardcore Gamer Til I Die sociopaths, and I mention I’m working on a history of beat em ups, everyone immediately says ‘Oh … Read more
Hallo friend. I been at a stag do all weekend, off in the Hope Valley. I haven’t been in that part of the country since a creative writing holiday about 10 years ago and it’s beautiful, particularly in this part of autumn, when the dying leaves are a crazy range of colours, from yellow through … Read more
So look, I know I missed my schedule with Death Of 1000 Cuts yesterday, and I also know you don’t really mind. Thanks for not minding, hypothetical blog-reading pal. I am more or less done with the latest round of edits on my novel. I know I keep alternately restarting and finishing the editing process, … Read more
Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Sorry for the delay in getting this week’s post up. I have been editing my own novel, which as you can imagine is a pretty traumatic process. Coming face to face with my own shitty dialogue and improbable … Read more
Some strange, sucker-barnacled club slams into the deck while all around the starboard lee, more rise, white cobras in a mist lit by distress flares. The purser smokes his pipe and watches, impassive as a clay idol. Arms slop over the gunwale and shirtless deckhands slap them back with shuffleboard tangs and boathooks; grooved suckers … Read more
Release date: 1991 Systems: Arcade, Commodore 64 Remember when The Simpsons was edgy and impossibly funny and we all liked it? Remember how we laughed at the escapades of the titular dysfunctional family as they fought to save their youngest daughter Maggie from cackling master criminal Smithers? (and check out the canonical age of Homer … Read more
What’s cracking peepsters? You might as well know straight off the bat that I have no gigs scheduled this week. I’m bedding down for five days o’ writing before heading off to my good mate’s stag do this weekend. This will be my first stag as a teetotaller. Not that it makes much difference – … Read more
On Friday November 22nd of this year, I will attempt to write 100 poems in a day – starting at 9am, and finishing before midnight. As you probably know, I have past form on this: 100 Poems In A Day 2009 101 Poems In A Day 2010 101 Poems In A Day 2011 100 Poems … Read more
Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Each week we take a look at the first page of an aspiring author’s novel or short story, and figure out ways to make it better. Good self-editing chops are what writing is all about. Think of this … Read more
Since the Poets’ Graves tour, a lot of the poems I’ve been working on have been about death. This one is no exception. Like all my Wednesday poems, it’s a work in progress. 3 Ideas For Modern Funerals 1. The crematorium is made up like a courtroom The coffin propped in the dock A judge … Read more
Release date: 1988 Systems: Arcade, Master System, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST I remember the first time I played Dynamite Düx at the arcade in Weston-super-Mare. A friend and I made it to the Stage 3 end-of-level boss, the rock golem, before finally our fighting spirit and pocketfuls of 10ps ran out. … Read more
Hey dear friends. It’s me, your pal ‘Tim Clare’, driving his pick into the blogosphere coalface in celebration of another week’s beginning. When you’re off on tour, life is rich with incident. You see new places, you make new friends, you get into scrapes. You experience soaring triumphs, borne aloft by strangers, and cold, dizzying … Read more
November the 1st is like New Year’s Day for aspiring writers. Instead of forking out for gym memberships or ostentatiously snipping Marlboro Lights in half over a pedal bin, they crack their knuckles, tweet ‘wish me luck! #NaNoWriMo’ and bed in for a month of handwringing Facebook updates apologising that they’ve fallen behind their word … Read more
Hey everybody, welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. In The Barber’s Chair will be back next week (crazy-busy this week!) and if you want to submit (250 words max, just title and extract, no explanatory blather please) then email via the ‘Contact Me’ link … Read more