by Chris Smith | Mar 1, 2021
You’d never call Cheryl Strayed (pictured) a shirker. Today, her books regularly hit the bestseller lists, her memoir Wild was made into an Oscar-nominated film. She’s successful and prolific by any measure. But for years she was stuck – she didn’t write a thing. She...
by Chris Smith | Feb 9, 2021
Everybody writes differently but one thing’s the same. The writers who have a more balanced, easier and less wrung-out relationship with writing have all developed some kind of personal system to keep them going and to stop them from stalling. Before lockdown I used...
by Chris Smith | Jan 29, 2021
June the 18th 1858 should go down in history as the day when one of the world’s most influential, revolutionary books was finally sparked into life. On that day the English naturalist Charles Darwin – who was little known at the time – was opening his morning mail...
by Chris Smith | Jan 22, 2021
Writing goals are important because they give you something to aim for. They give you the structure, direction and clarity you need to keep moving forwards with your project. However, the wrong goal can become a millstone that demotivates and leads to delay, and make...
by Chris Smith | Nov 18, 2020
Kevin Kelly had something of an epiphany in the early years of editing Wired, the iconic magazine he founded in the 90s. It was an epiphany that taught him a lesson about writing, creative practice – and about life. In many fields – writing included – a myth...
