Tag: writing community

Jeevani Charika: Doing Funky Things | Mark Stay’s Creative Differences Episode 16

Jeevani Charika writes award nominated romantic women’s fiction and romcoms. She’s written books on how to write romcoms, and sustaining a career as a writer and she also has an amazing YouTube channel teaching authors how to use Canva to make marketing graphics. Her latest book How Can I Resist You is out now! 

We Discuss: 

What she’s learned from her love of Korean dramas 

How ‘writing tighter’ has been good for her prose style 

How oversleeping led to a breakthrough in her career 

Why she enjoys doing funky things with Canva and much more… 

LISTEN NOW

Or watch on Youtube…

LINKS 

Jeevani’s website: http://www.rhodabaxter.com

Jeevani’s Canva Tips Youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/@jeevanicharika

Jeevani’s Substack: https://substack.com/@canvatips4author

What’s Giving Us Joy… 

A Merry Little Ex-mas (Netflix): https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81735104

T Kingfisher’s books with the Paladins (I earn commission if you click on this link): https://amzn.to/49ZV358

A Mind of My Own, Kathy Burke (I earn commission if you click on this link): https://amzn.to/4ovrNGJ

Cole Haddon’s 5am Storytalk: https://colehaddon.substack.com

50 Years of Shit Robots: https://shows.acast.com/fifty-years-of-shit-robots

Film Stories: https://filmstories.co.uk/category/podcast/

Pluribus: https://tv.apple.com/gb/show/pluribus/umc.cmc.37axgovs2yozlyh3c2cmwzlza

A huge thanks to Emily for production assistance, to Kai Newton for the edit, and Dominic Currie for the jingle. 

Support the show 

Visit https://markstaycreativedifferences.com/

Join The Green Room: https://ko-fi.com/markstaywriter/tiers

Buy my books here: https://witchesofwoodville.com/#bookshop

And there’s more about me at: https://markstaywrites.com/

Pernille Hughes: Lock Yourself in a Room | Mark Stay’s Creative Differences Episode 15

Pernille Hughes is the author of TEN YEARS, PROBABLY THE BEST KISS IN THE WORLD and PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE; novels brimming with warmth, wit and unforgettable characters. And now she’s back with her new novel A COPENHAGEN SNOWMANCE, which is here to herald in Christmas. Yes, I said the C-word! What of it??

WE DISCUSS:

Discovering your voice

Hygge

Hero drafts

Finding your tribe

Writing on HRT and why you should lock yourself in a room with a glass of wine when writing… and much more!

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Or watch it on Youtube…

LINKS

Pernille’s website: http://www.pernillehughes.com 

Writing Regency England by Jayne Davis: https://www.jaynedavisromance.co.uk/writing-regency-england/

What’s Giving us Joy…

Celebrity Traitors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Celebrity_Traitors 

Slow Horses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Horses

The Great Pottery Throw Down: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Pottery_Throw_Down

Ludovico Einaudi: https://ludovicoeinaudi.com/ 

Vitamin String Quartet: https://www.vitaminstringquartet.com/

Mr MC Grammar: https://www.mrmcgrammar.com/ 

Christmas on Fifth Avenue by Julie Caplin: (I earn commission if you click on this link) https://amzn.to/4paxDP1

Christmas at the Scottish Lodge by Donna Ashcroft: (I earn commission if you click on this link) https://amzn.to/48zsM3V

Cressida McLaughlin, The Secret Mistletoe Promise: (I earn commission if you click on this link) https://amzn.to/49Af4yT

Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson: (I earn commission if you click on this link) https://amzn.to/4og65Gy

Alan Partridge: How Are You?: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002hcb7/how-are-you-its-alan-partridge 

Katherine Priddy: Matches: https://www.katherinepriddy.co.uk/home/ 

A huge thanks to Emily for production assistance, to Kai Newton for the edit, and Dominic Currie for the jingle. 

Support the show

Visit https://markstaycreativedifferences.com/
Join The Green Room: https://ko-fi.com/markstaywriter/tiers
Buy my books here: https://witchesofwoodville.com/#bookshop
And there’s more about me at: https://markstaywrites.com/

Creative Differences is One Today

Creative Differences, the monthly podcast where I talk to writers about the little things that make a big difference to their writing process, is a year old today! It’s been such a treat to chat to authors, and to have writers and readers like your good selves joining us on the livestreams and asking such excellent questions of the guests.

If you’ve not dipped in, then there’s never a better time to start. I’ve interviewed bestselling and award-winning authors like Sarah Pinborough, Nadine Matheson, Gareth L Powell, Tracy Buchanan, Rowan Coleman and Nicola May, and debut authors and writers that I just really like. You can find them all on Youtube or on your favourite podcast provider…

LISTEN TO THE PODCASTS

Or you can watch them all on this Youtube playlist…

And there are bite-size clips here…

And if you’re a writer looking for guidance in this crazy world of publishing, then you can join me in the Green Room…

Twice a month, I run live sessions on Zoom where you can ask me questions about the craft of writing, your WIP, or the business of publishing. The sessions are fun and informal and chatty. You can send me questions in advance. They’ll be recorded live and saved on Kofi for exclusive access to Green Room supporters.

I’m running this via Kofi, where you can join by clicking on the Green Room membership tier for £20 a month. There’s no long term commitment. With Kofi, you can support for just a month, or for as long as you like. 

My goal is to be able to give supporters advice that will make a real difference to their writing and career, because the way I see it: having worked in this industry as a salesperson, bookseller and author for over 30 years, I’ve made every mistake, so you don’t have to.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE GREEN ROOM

Thanks again to everyone who has supported the podcast by listening, sharing or leaving a rating/review with their podcast provider. It makes a huge difference!

Passive Aggressive or Punctuation?

A learned debate on the use of punctuation in messaging apps from the Creative Differences podcast, featuring contributions from professors Rowan Coleman and George Stay …

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Rowan Coleman: “I Was a Bit Grumpy…”

Special guest Rowan Coleman, bestselling author of Never Tear Us Apart, reveals how a research trip to Malta started with her being ‘a bit grumpy’ but resulted with her making a magical connection with the island…

TRANSCRIPT

MARK: You went to Malta to research this. So what’s your process when you go to a place to research? Do you have like a shopping list of things to do, or do you just step out the hotel and go, right, where do I go now?

ROWAN: I was a bit grumpy about it, actually. Because, believe it or not, because the island itself is… but it’s sort of tied up with my own feelings about my relationship with my father. And so I was like, well, I expect I’m just gonna hate it and it’s going to be rubbish and I won’t like it. But when I turned up, it was the opposite. I did actually feel weirdly, immediately connected to it. And my shopping list is… I don’t really have a specific set of things for this book, because I first visited before I started writing it, really. If I’ve written a book already, like with The Summer of Impossible Things, I knew that I wanted to get to various locations in Brooklyn. But for this book, I was just getting a sense of the island for the first time, and so I just let it lead me. And it’s very small. It’s about the size of the Isle of Wight. And so the first thing that drew me were the ancient temples, and there are many Mesolithic temples on the island that are absolutely magical and fascinating. And that kind of was like my my first step on a very organic journey into putting all the components of the book together.

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Or watch it on Youtube…

Rowan Coleman: “I Forgive Myself…”

Special guest Rowan Coleman, bestselling author of Never Tear Us Apart, reveals how forgiveness has become part of her creative process…

TRANSCRIPT

MARK: What small thing has made a big difference to your creative process?

ROWAN: I think the thing that’s made the biggest difference to my creative process is forgiving myself. For not… Sometimes going quite slowly to sometimes just doing small bits at a time. I am a late diagnosed, unmedicated ADHD woman, and I used to think… I was convinced that I had a very strict writing regime and sat at my desk from 9 to 5, and wrote every day, and I didn’t realise that this was, in fact, not true until I took my kids with me to a book event when they were quite young. And I was saying this and I heard this laughter from the back of the hall, I was like, what? Why are you laughing, darling? “You don’t do that. All you do faff around all day on the internet.” (laughs) I thought, that is true. That is all I do. So now I sort of just think, well, if it’s not… if you can’t… you know, sometimes you have to write when you have to write because we all have multiple things that we’re juggling, you know, proper jobs and, teaching courses and all that stuff. And sometimes you just have to go, right. Well, this is my time to write, and I have to write, but if it’s… if I can’t be that disciplined, I just say, all right, well, it’s not happening today, but it will happen tomorrow. And you only write ten words. That’s fine, because that’s ten more words and you’ll add to it tomorrow. And I sort of just let myself off the hook and I don’t let myself feel shame about it anymore, which is a big part of growing up with neurodiversity. Undiagnosed neurodiversity particularly is kind of constantly feeling that you’re not trying hard enough. So I try to tell myself now that I am, in fact, trying hard enough, and it does somehow work out in the end. I don’t know how, but it does.

MARK: Yeah, I think the moral of the story is be kind to yourself and don’t invite your kids to book events.

ROWAN: I mean, I don’t know what’s worse: that one, or when they came when they were a little bit older and were sitting in the front row on Switches.

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Rowan Coleman: What Would Charlotte Brontë Do? | Mark Stay’s Creative Differences Episode 12

Bestselling and award-winning author Rowan Coleman joined me to discuss her new book Never Tear Us Apart, revealing how a family photo inspired her to research in Malta, why she wrote her next book, The Good Boy, under a pen name, then there was something about quantum physics, and ultimately she asks the question we all want an answer to in any situation: What would Charlotte Brontë do? This was a really fun chat with tons of great advice for writers.

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Or watch it on Youtube…

LINKS

ROWAN’S WEBSITE 

ROWAN’S SUBSTACK ON QUANTUM PHYSICS 

ROWAN’S CURTIS BROWN COURSE 

MURDERBOT

SINNERS

INVINCIBLE

HOW TO WRITE A FANTASY BATTLE BY SUZANNAH ROWNTREE

CMAT

Join the Green Room

Rowan Coleman (take 2!) on the Creative Differences Livestream

Let’s try again, shall we? After the Starlink failure this week, we’re going to have another go at a livestream with the magnificent ROWAN COLEMAN on MONDAY 28th JULY, 8pm BST!

Join us on FACEBOOK

Or on Youtube…

Rowan Coleman is the internationally bestselling and award winning author and screenwriter of many novels including THE MEMORY BOOK, THE SUMMER OF IMPOSSIBLE THINGS and THE GIRL AT THE WINDOW. Her latest novel NEVER TEAR US APART is out now, and under the name Stella Hayward she’ll be publishing THE GOOD BOY in September (about a dog who turns into a man)… Rowan and I have also been working together on a few collaborations, so we might chat about that too. Who knows? You will if you show up!
Do please join us live as you’ll have the opportunity to ask Rowan questions on the night. It’s going to be so much fun. Monday 28th July 8pm BST.

Nicola Whyte: Write What Makes You Happy

Special guest Nicola Whyte, debut writer of 10 Marchfield Square, reveals how writing for herself led to a breakthrough…

TRANSCRIPT:

MARK: What’s the best happy accident of your writing career?

NICOLA: Well, it might have been that Times Chicken House one. Subbing that in at the last minute… But actually, it kind of turned me off writing for children for a bit because the subbing after that was brutal. And so I thought, I’m just, you know what: I’m done. I’m done trying to please people and do whatever… So I’m just going to write whatever makes me happy. And of course, that was Marchfield, so…

MARK: You said earlier about writing for yourself and writing super long books or whatever, but I think that’s the key to it, though, isn’t it? You’ve got to write… You can’t chase the market. You’ve got to write what you love, and what you’re passionate about. And when those stars aligned in terms of; the market’s ready for it, then great things will happen. So, I think that’s the lesson to be learned from that. And writing for kids… I’ve tried it. It’s the hardest thing ever. It really is such a such a difficult market.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

Or watch it all on Youtube…

Looking up Murder Online…

Special guest Nicola Whyte, debut writer of 10 Marchfield Square, reveals how to look up murdering people online without drawing the attention of the authorities (and Mark has a book recommendation)…

TRANSCRIPT

MARK: As a crime writer, do you get why people will see your internet search history and incriminate yourself? Well, this I mean, I think any writer will, will worry about this. So what was the strangest thing you’ve had to look up?

NICOLA: I mean, every now and again, I will suffix it with ‘for a crime novel’ on the end, just in case. Like that gets me out of jail free. I don’t know what is the most incriminating…? I think, probably, undetectable poisons these days. I think it’s quite hard now to come up with an undetectable poison.

MARK: I bought a book called Deadly Doses, which is a really good book on poisons, so I don’t have to look it up anymore. You remember books, don’t you?

NICOLA: Yeah, offline; innocence is what you’re saying.

MARK: Yeah. Absolutely.

NICOLA: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I found some interesting stuff….

MARK: (Holds book up) Yes. A Writer’s guide to Poisons.

NICOLA: Yeah. Okay. I’m going to get that.

MARK: Essential reading.

NICOLA: I had to do some very dodgy case study reading on antifreeze poisoning. 

MARK: Right?

NICOLA: The Americans, they poison each other countries a lot. You know, I think they have a lot of, like, deserts and things that are very brightly coloured and sweet. And, yeah, there’s a lot of people trying it almost — almost ! — not quite getting away with antifreeze poisoning.

MARK: Excellent.

NICOLA: Very crime novel!

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Or watch it on Youtube…