Here’s a little excerpt from Gotham Writer’s Workshop’s newsletter – click on the link to read the rest of this good advice.

Thriller Author Shares Her Insight

British author of the acclaimed thrillers Sister and Afterwards, Rosamund Lupton shares what gets and keeps her writing.

Q: What is your method for overcoming writer’s block ?
A: I think there are many ways to overcome writers block, depending on where you are with your book and simply how the rest of your life is going. Sometimes I think you just have to write, even if its ‘rubbish’, and as you write it can magically become ‘not rubbish’. I had to write 2,000 words a day for my second book to meet the deadline, so I just had to start typing. (Continue reading here.)

What does your character want? 

Sit your character down and make them answer the following questions:

1- When you woke this morning, what was your first thought?

2- What do you want more than anything? Are you being honest?

3- What do you worry about?

It’s been a lovely, long, hot summer in Saskatoon and, while I have been editing and keeping up with the Wattpad workshops, I haven’t been generating much new writing. I’ve finished a draft of a book and tinkered with another project, but I haven’t had the thrill of filling a blank page with a new story for a while.

Sometimes, when I’ve been focusing on edits for months, I start a new project by thinking about the end result. I get caught up in my imagination with what an editor might think. I am immediately stuck. I can’t write a thing. It’s scary to think about who might read a book one day, the judgements, reviews, argh! And so I give up before I’ve begun.

I deal with this in two ways

– 1) I close the door to all that noise. I shut my office door and ignore the world outside. I disconnect from the internet. I switch off the phone.

-2)I remind myself that I’m my first reader. The book has to please me. In fact, before it’s even a book in my head, it HAS TO BE A STORY.

It’s September first and time for me to get back to regular blogging, writing and dreaming. What are your writing goals for September?