Ten-Minute Blog Break - 20th January

Welcome back for some more great blogs! After last week's rather heavyweight discussion about free speech, this week our bloggers are speaking freely on a whole range of diverse topics.


Vanessa Harbour is exploring the limits of free speech in a different way, with an great post about the right (and the very, very wrong) way to treat editors and agents. If you've ever tried to slide your manuscript under a toilet cubicle door, then Vanessa's blog is required reading!

Whether you're a teenager or not, Nicola Morgan's article for the Guardian Children's Books site on beating the January blues is well worth a read.

K.M. Lockwood is going all Gothic on us this week, reporting on a British Library panel discussion with Chris Riddell, Chris Priestley and Sally Gardner to support the Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination exhibition.

Not content with turning up on the Blog Break last week, Liz Flanagan has another excellent author interview on her blog, with Sally Green. Sally, who found success rather suddenly with her debut novel Half Bad, talks frankly about the editorial process and shares some tips on breaking through.

You wouldn't fix a leaking tap without the proper tools^*, so why start on a picture book without your writer's tool kit? Kate Peridot continues her excellent practical series with a whole host of techniques to make your writing stand out.

Last, but definitely not least, we find Dave Cousins baking rock cakes and celebrating his nan in a lovely blog post. You've heard of literary heroines? Well, Dave's nan was a veritable literacy heroine, who set Dave on the path to becoming a writer.

Nick.

* OK, so you might just call a plumber, but that's not really the point.

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A SCBWI member since 2009, Nick Cross is an Undiscovered Voices winner who writes children's short fiction for Stew Magazine.

On his blog, Nick is thinking about flashbacks, and their use as a narrative device: Flashback to the Future.