This month we have expert advice from Heather Cooke on turning two dimensional characters into flesh. Ten Top Tips is about fitting writing into your daily life. Student Successes show you what you can achieve if you really try and inspiration is full of interesting stuff.

• Editor's News
• Successes
• Expert Advice
• Top Tips
• Useful Sites
• Inspiration

Hello Dear Readers,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Well, it’s 2012, how do you feel? Everyone well rested and raring to go I hope.

Now, New Year’s resolutions! Hands up all those who make them and break them in the first week. Well, it might help to know that men are 22% more likely to keep to theirs if they set specific goals to aim for. So, rather than saying ‘I’m going to write more this year’, you fellas should be saying ‘I am going to write for one hour each day’. And, for the ladies, it seems that telling your friends and family what you are planning on starting or stopping is the best way to guarantee success. Let us know what resolutions you’ve made and how you plan to stick to them. (See Useful Websites for a fun way to come up with New Year’s resolutions.)

This month we have Expert Advice from Heather Cooke on how to turn cardboard characters into flesh. You may not realise but this is as important in non-fiction as it is in fiction. Ten Top Tips covers an area that’ll strike a chord with lots of our students – how to fit writing into your daily life. Student Successes should inspire you to keep on keeping on and Useful Websites has one to help script writers, one that’s just for fun and a great site to help you improve your writing skills.

If you are planning on treating yourself for Christmas and you are in the vicinity of the University of Hertfordshire you should consider the Get Writing 2012 event planned for February 11th 2012. It’s a great day to learn more from a range of published writers through workshops such as ‘Find your niche’, ‘In a fantasy world’, ‘Show me the funny’ and ‘Writing fiction successfully’. You can also book one-to-one time with an author of your choice. It’s £55 for the day which is a pretty good deal.

If you are holding any events you think our students would find of interest please do let us know.

Happy writing

Shelley

P.S Don’t forget our Poetry Writing Competition is now accepting entries.