Fearless Creativity, Ruthless Critique

Tim Bowler In Exeter: Fearless Creativity, Ruthless Critique

By Lesley Moss 

You get the feeling Tim Bowler is on your side. “I haven’t brought any books to sell,” he says, at the start of our Exeter event: “I’m here today for you.”

From Calstock to Tiverton, from Yeovil, from Exmouth, from Dartmoor and beyond, intrepid South West writers have travelled to St Luke’s Chapel to meet Tim, to learn and enjoy. As he’s the author of over twenty published books and winner of the Carnegie medal, there’s a wealth of wisdom and experience on offer. Tim shares his own creative process with generosity, liberates us from our well-trodden writing and plotting habits while emphasising there’s no right or wrong way.

We must find our own True North: the way our story wants to go

You never crack writing, Tim says, but the fight and the difficulties can produce good work, and learning. 

Write a page every day, no matter what: look after the sentences, the words - and the story will look after itself 

Write with fearless creativity and be ruthless in your critique 

Near the end, Tim read an inspiring extract from his latest novel, Gamechanger. For many of us, the alchemy of exchanging ideas with other writers, friends old and new, and the permission to reconnect with our creativity in new and expansive ways, may prove to be a gamechanger too.

Thanks, Tim!

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Tim Bowler has written over twenty books for teenagers and won fifteen awards, including the prestigious Carnegie Medal. He has been described by the Sunday Telegraph as ‘The master of the psychological thriller’ and by the Independent as ‘one of the truly individual voices in British teenage fiction’. His books have sold well over a million copies worldwide. www.timbowler.co.uk

Lesley Moss writes middle-grade novels, comic and fantasy, plus picture-book texts, and is a member of The Funeverse. She has volunteered for SCBWI for several years as a South West Network organiser and was an e-crit moderator.