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Hello and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. It’s not been an easy week, for a number of reasons, including contracting some kind of gastric bug that has seen me lying in bed clutching my gut and grimacing like some ham actor milking his … Read more

Bonjour et welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is a weekly blog about fiction writing with a focus on editing. Most weeks, we look at the first page of an author’s novel or short story and try to find ways to make it … Read more

I’m going to this year’s 9 Worlds convention – it’s my first ever con, and I am a new-minted Fantasy author, and I am nervous and excited and fully-expecting to sort of stagger round in a baffled haze, missing stuff. As part of 9 Worlds I am going to be doing the first ever LIVE … Read more

Good afternoon and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts, making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. I hope you’re all well. Sorry for the late posting of this and last week’s installment, and the missing episode the week before. We’ve had some sadness in the family and it’s been a difficult time. … Read more

Hello and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. I’m sorry I missed last week’s post, and that this week’s is late. It’s been a difficult time for a number of reasons, and we’ve had some sadness. Life is often like that, I guess. So … Read more

Hello and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is a weekly blog about writing and editing your work to make it better. Most weeks we take a novice author’s first page and look at ways of making it better. I’d love your first … Read more

Hello and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is a blog for writers and readers who are interested in the craft of making text suck less. Most weeks we look at a novice author’s first page and suggest some ways of making it … Read more

Hello dear friends and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Each week we take a novice author’s first page and look at ways of making it better. If you’d like to contribute the first page of your novel or short story, please read our … Read more

Ungh and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. If you’d like to submit your work, please read our submission guidelines. Please buy my novel, The Honours. It’s not shit (here’s the Guardian review) and you will be contributing to the possibility that I will … Read more

Bonjour and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. You know what? I’ve been finding writing really stressful and difficult over the last few weeks. I think, weirdly, it comes from having people say nice things about The Honours. When I wrote it, I really … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Each week we look at a novice writer’s first page and try to think up ways to make it better. If you’d like to submit your first page of your novel or story, please read my submission guidelines. … Read more

Oof – good day, and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. If you’d like to submit your own work to this blog, please read the Submission Guidelines. If you’d like to buy my debut novel, The Honours, to show your support, you can do … Read more

Hello and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts, making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is a blog about writing, reading and editing, where we look at ways of making stories better. Most weeks I take a novice author’s first page and look at what works and what could be improved. … Read more

I’ve noticed some handwringing over what genre to stick The Honours under. I appreciate the anxiety – taxonomy is important. Books are like Pokémon – they come in many types, each with different strengths and weaknesses, the more you own, the cooler you are, and the most popular ones are a bit shit. To save … Read more

Hello and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is a blog for writers, readers and editors, about ways we can take fiction and make it better. The blog appears every Thursday, and most weeks we look at the first page from a novice … Read more

I’ve written previously about the tensions of writing a novel – specifically that process of mourning an old bit that wasn’t working, and the new growth that springs up in the aftermath, once the dead part has had a chance to mulch down. And I do think this is one of the most important attitudinal … Read more

Bonsoir et welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Every Thursday this blog appears, giving you advice on writing and rewriting. In a couple of weeks, we will have been going two years! Christ. My debut novel, The Honours, came out on Thursday. It’s in … Read more

It’s my book birthday today. The Honours is finally released into the wild. It’s in shops. Yesssss. It occurred to me that, rather than farting on about myself and how I feel (spoiler: I feel good), it might be worth acknowledging that books don’t get written by one person. That’s a romantic myth. I had … Read more

When I first went to the doctor with depression, she described it as ‘the worst case I’ve seen in my career’. I could not speak. I could barely move. She convinced me that accepting help – and medication – for my condition was nothing to be ashamed of. Today’s British papers, with typical sensitivity, have … Read more

Hello and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. It is one week until my debut novel comes out. I thought I was okay, but – and this will come as a great revelation to precisely no one – it turns out that teetering on … Read more

Bonjour and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is a blog for writers, readers and editors, where we look at writers’ first pages and discuss ways of making them better. If you have a novel or short story you’ve taken as far as … Read more

Merry Thursdaymas and welcome to another Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Most Thursdays we take an author’s first page and look at ways of making it better. If you’d like to submit yours for similar scrutiny, please read our Submission Guidelines. The release of my … Read more

Hello and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is a blog for writers, readers, editors, and people interested in the craft of storytelling. The more analytically-minded amongst you will have perceived by many tokens that Death Of 1000 Cuts did not appear in … Read more

THE 5 STAGES OF WRITING GRIEF You know that familiar beat where someone’s getting a tarot reading, and they draw the Death card, and the tarot reader’s like: ‘Don’t worry. This card is commonly misinterpreted. It actually symbolises change.’ You know that, right? Perhaps you don’t. I’ve been a devoted reader of Chat: It’s Fate … Read more

Hello and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Apologies for the ever-so-slightly tardy nature of today’s post – I’ve been down at the Arvon Foundation in Totleigh Barton, as the guest writer at one of their superb week-long creative writing courses. My first ever … Read more