Write, Damn It! with Zoe Richards

In this episode I share the journey I've been on since December 2021, and what happened from starting my first draft in February 2022 of the book I now have a publishing deal for. And it really does take a writing village to get to this point on the journey. If you are feeling alone on your journey, you can connect with me on all the main social medias with @zoerichardsuk Support the show Joi...

Philippa East grew up in Scotland and originally studied Psychology and Philosophy before training as a Clinical Psychologist. She writes psychological thrillers / psychological suspense novels, and her debut Little White Lies was longlisted for the Guardian's "Not-The-Booker" prize and shortlisted for the CWA Dagger for best debut of 2020. Her further novels include Safe and Sound,...

Support the show Join me on Substack - here - for more insights into writing and being published, as well as mindset tips and tools. You can subscribe to get access to much more from me, including workshops and coaching. If you would like to show your love for the podcast, please consider buying me a coffee through BuyMeACoffee.com. This gives you an opportunity to make a small, one-off donation -...

The one where we get into talking about ADHD and neuro-diversity. This is a fascinating conversation with non-fiction author, Angela Kirwin, who has known she has ADHD from her late teens. After working for years in social care in prison, Angela left to write 'Criminal - How Our Prisons Are Failing Us All' which was published in 2022 with Orion Trapeze - the paperback came out in May 202...

We can all be affected by traps, fears and patterns of behaviour that don't necessarily help us. In this episode you can find out about some of the common traps, fears and patters, and learn a simple technique for starting to change things to help your writing. There's the over-achiever, the positive feedback addict and the course addict to name just a few - and if you find yourself caug...

Have you ever come across STARR? Or maybe you know it as STAR? It's an interview technique - yes, I know, this is a writing podcast, but bear with me here. Even though this is a technique to use in interviews, it's based on telling stories - and what is our writing about? Telling stories. Listen in to find out more about STARR, and how you can use it in your writing to free up your think...

When it comes to our writing, to querying, to doing any publicity as a writer, we need to be able to answer the question 'who am I?' But that's not the only way this question can be helpful - we can also use it when we are thinking about our characters, and for our readers too. Listen in to find out how you can delve deeper into your answer to the question 'who am I?' Supp...

Sarah Hilary is the guest I chat with on this week's episode - and forgive me for it being a longer than usual episode, but I couldn't bring myself to delete any of our conversation. Sarah is such an interesting person to talk with, and I'm sure we could have carried on talking for a while. Amongst a raft of interesting stuff, here are some highlights to look out for: At 16:15 Learn...

I used to do bouldering - climbing without ropes. And it's all about learning from the basics, and problem solving. In this episode I look at how we as writers can benefit from seeing ourselves as problem solvers, too. Support the show Join me on Substack - here - for more insights into writing and being published, as well as mindset tips and tools. You can subscribe to get access to much mor...

Would some useful coaching questions help you get over your overwhelm and stop you feeling stuck with your writing? Get a pen and paper for this episode, and jot down the questions - if you want to go straight to the questions, start at 11:00 minutes into the episode. We get into how Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs comes into our writing, and how we can use it to help us as a writer, along with t...

There are many reasons we get stuck with our writing - and one, that in some ways is a gift, is when we have so many ideas that we don't know which to focus on. In this episode I share a simple technique from my project management experience that we can use to get greater clarity around which idea to put our efforts into. Listen in to find out how you can use this simple technique, called spl...

Fascinating conversation with JD Kirk, the pen name of multi-award-winning author, screenwriter, and writer of comics, Barry Hutchison.  Born and raised in Fort William in the Highlands of Scotland, JD wanted to be a writer from the age of nine, when a kindly librarian wrote his name on the spine of a notebook in which he’d written a terrible short story and put it on the shelf.  Since then, he’s...

I've been watching how my agent goes about her role within the editing process, and I've learned 4 really helpful things. As a result, I am now taking a different approach to my editing, and I think it's having a positive impact. If you're lost in the editing mire, listen in to find out what the 4 simple steps are that you can use straight away to improve your editing process....

What if being too focused on getting an agent or a publishing deal is impacting on our writing? Product can become much more important than process and performance if we focus on outcome over experience. With that focus on the outcome, we may be missing out the practice stage - practice out-performs success every day, because we won't get success every day ... but we can practice every day an...

A few years ago I was on a course and the tutor repeatedly told us that there are no rules ... and then in the feedback on my writing from the tutor and fellow students it became clear that there are rules, and I needed to know them. Some were about grammar, some about structure, some about pace ... and so much more. So I struggled being told that there are no rules when clearly there are. In this...

Nigel Stewart is the guest this week. He's published 4 books, and is currently working on his 5th. His latest book is Justinian's Daughters, based in St Davids in South Wales. We talked about imposter syndrome, staying grounded, how writing lyrics helps with writing novels, phrases that keep us focused such as 'let's make this better', and trusting the reader. Listen in at...

As we go in search of imperfection, it helps to understand the impact of cognitive bias through both the expert beginner syndrome and imposter syndrome, and what we can do about it. In this slightly longer short, I share the 4 things we can find ourselves doing when we hit a problem, and number 4 is the one we need to take most note of, as this will help us to learn and grow as a writer. Blog post...

Feedback is a bit of a rollercoaster, isn't it? I've had some that made me so happy, and others that made wonder why I've bothered writing. And I'll admit it, once I got feedback that stopped me writing for a few years. In truth, though, all the feedback I've received on my writing has got me to where I am now, and much of that is down to my attitude to feedback.  In this...

Failing as a writer is a given - we are going to fail. And brush ourselves off, and fail again. Every step of the way. Listen in to Episode 16, and join the failure train. It's all part of the journey.  It's strange, though, isn't it? If your life has been anything like mine, we're conditioned to only look for success. How often have you been guided to see the benefits of failu...

'Read, read, read. Write, write, write. Submit, submit, submit.' Jeevani Charika shares her top tip for keeping motivated and getting the writing done, as well as sharing thoughts on the routine she set up for herself as a writer who is also a mum and carer, the issues she had with a contract and what she did about that, and how she set up The Debut Authors' Club with writers Janet...

5 Minute Friday introduces you to a simple technique that I developed out of my grandfather's old Navy sayings - learn how to use the 30 for 30 technique to help you get the writing done. Simple yet incredibly effective. Support the show Join me on Substack - here - for more insights into writing and being published, as well as mindset tips and tools. You can subscribe to get access to much m...

Did you know you have an upper limit? In this episode, I take you through how to work on your habits by understanding your upper limit, how your identity gets in the way of changing habits, and the technique of nudging habits along, a little at a time, so that you can make changes that stick. I also give you some small tips you can introduce that will help make a difference for you. Support the sh...

What informs your writing? I work in project management, and we always talk about input, output, outcomes - we have to know what the input is (the current situation, the problem), so that we can work on that and create an output (data, information, a system etc), which leads to an outcome (improved position with the data, for example). And I find this a useful way to think of what informs our writ...

In this episode I talk about what a book coach is, and it can be helpful to have one - and I also give you 3 questions (plus a bonus question) that you can use to coach yourself. If you don't have a pen and paper handy to jot the questions down, you can download my FREE Mini Reboot which includes a simple guide for self-coaching. The 3 questions I use in this episode, along with another 3, ar...

Knowing that we go on a journey of learning, through the 4 different levels of competence, why is it, as writers, we talk in absolutes? I only write in this way, I never plot, I write in 3rd person ... etc - we work with absolutes when we're still learning. In this 5 Minute Friday I share the 4 levels of competence, and how we can move up the levels by ditching absolutist thinking. Support th...