Category: Learning

  • Theatre: everything to play for, moment by moment

    Theatre: everything to play for, moment by moment

    Why’s a script more like an advent calendar or a Haynes manual than a novel?

  • It’s all in the telling (and that can be hard)

    It’s all in the telling (and that can be hard)

    The story-telling process (and not the end result) is where to put your focus …I may have been quiet, but, cor, have I been writing! I’m at the 65k word mark on a comedy novel, and loving the hard graft you get when crafting a story. This is my second prose adventure (the first is…

  • Don’t wait for Santa

    Don’t wait for Santa

    All through my life, this is the book I most wanted to steal from the library. And for the second year running, I’m one of its authors (so I got it for free!)…

  • Developing a photo very, very slowly…

    Developing a photo very, very slowly…

    Yes, this is one for you writer technique nerds out there. And if it interests or helps you, I would love your thoughts.

  • Getting Creative When You Doubt You Can

    Getting Creative When You Doubt You Can

    Inspired by an acquaintance who’d been made so miserable by her utter conviction she didn’t have a creative bone in her, I wanted to encourage some self-care in others, and to share what I wrote. You can hear me read it on Kristin’s podcast here…

  • PODCAST appearance

    The Second Chapter In the autumn, the multi-hyphenate, multi-talented Kristin Duffy invited me onto her exciting podcast. Here’s the two of us, ahead of Skin In The Game heading to the New Wimbledon Theatre. Kristin produced the show and played the doomed heroine… listen in to find out more… Here!

  • Make Work. Bring something into existence.

    It turns out I am writing a novel. The first such attempt in maybe 13 years. I had forgotten – hiding in my scripts and what they demand of me – that this process plays a different instrument inside. I hear a different music. Another thing, quieter and much, much stronger, is happening. And I…

  • Brain-Pickings, Skills-Swaps, Audience-delighting & Fair Pay

    If you know how to sell audio drama, want to get involved, or do a skills swap* with me for your know-how, I would love to hear from you. Click the header to find out more…

  • Writing without, you know, “writing”

    Writing without, you know, “writing”

    I used to catch ideas (which are so like butterflies, it almost seems cruel) by leaving myself answerphone messages on the home landline. The light would flicker at me when I got back in the warm at the end of the day: “hello,” glowed the message from a past me of oo, hours ago; “remember…

  • The Pitlochry Play #1: the sound of water

    The Pitlochry Play #1: the sound of water

    I’m here in Pitlochry, land of Pitlochry Festival Theatre and much, much more. Today’s day 3 of my playwrighting residency at the theatre and I’m rolling around like a pig in poo at the luxury of all this writing space and thinking time. I’m not here to share anything about my “process” with you, but I can’t…

  • Glittered Knickers…

    I love it when a plan you never knew you had comes together. An old friend up at Bath Uni decided we needed an International Women’s Day entertainment night in Widcombe. It’s over 20 years since I did one of these, back at the students’ union, so when she said, “Want to do something for…

  • A Song & Dance for your details…

    A much-loved but unproduced theatre script,  A Bit of a Song & Dance, made the BBC Drama Script Room long-list! They had a record number of entries, and a phenomenal amount to read, so I’m especially pleased – and grateful! As all writers out there know, there’s subjectivity in all of this, too, so I’m…