When I asked my friend Allison Rushby, author of many novels for children, YA and adults, to come up with a post full of writing tips for kids, I had to laugh when she sent me one with this headline: Writing for kids: stay weird, stay different But when I read...
Writing for kids: How to be more creative
The number one question that kids ask me when I do school talks, more popular even than how much I earn or what colour my toothbrush is (true story, I get asked this!), is this one: Where do you get your ideas? When I tell them that ideas are all around us and that...
Some lessons I’ve learned from writing for kids
I'm over at The Creative Penn today, with a guest post about what writing for kids has taught me about writing. Joanna Penn is a New York Times bestselling author and one of the most influential voices in indie publishing today – and one of the most generous writers...
Writing for kids: How to write comics
One of the things I love most about all of the various things I do is meeting other writers. Through the podcast, the blog, social media and the Your Kid's Next Read Facebook group, I get to come into contact with the amazing people out there who are writing all of...
What teaching kids about writing has taught me about writing
There's nothing like getting up in front of 100+ grade-five boys to talk about writing to ... clarify the mind. As you look out across the endlessly wiggling room, the ones who are staring at you as though you are a science experiment they'd quite like to dissect, the...
How to edit your own writing: 5 top tips from a writer
"How do I edit my own writing?" "Where do I start editing my own manuscript?" "How do I edit my first draft? When I put out my survey recently, I asked you to let me known the one thing I can help you with this year. The questions above are just a smattering of the...
My top 10 posts about writing (2016 edition)
This is the annual countdown of my top 10 posts about writing. If you're looking for good writing advice, this is a great place to start. If you're an old friend (*waves*), it's a good spot to catch up with anything you may have missed. 10. 6 Skills You Need To Make...
Industry insider: How to write funny (for kids)
Today, I'm lucky enough to have the wonderful Oliver Phommavanh in for a cup of tea and a chat (or, actually, a large hamburger if his Instagram feed is anything to go by). Oliver is the author of six books for kids, including incredibly popular titles such as...
Industry Insider: Writing a successful series
As part of the celebrations for the 100th episode of the So You Want To Be A Writer podcast, I've been trawling back through our impressive archive of interviews to bring you the best tips for my Industry Insider series. This week, we're looking at how to write a...