Alan Moore gives some helpful advice to writers…

In my opinion, both Watchmen and V for Vendetta are outstanding pieces of work, so any advice this chap gives is well worth listening to.

The article from Digital Spy makes a huge deal of his advice to self-publish, but for me, the standout piece of advice was to keep writing: rework until you are completely happy with what you’ve done, and when you get down to it, you’re the only person who will know for sure when it’s right.

But on the topic of the publishing industry, he had this to say:

As far as publishing goes, my first tip is publishing today is a complete mess. I know brilliant authors who cannot get published… Most of the book publishers don’t want to take a chance on publishing fiction when they can publish an autobiography of The Stig or something like that… The best way these days is publish yourself, it’s become easier and easier.

I certainly agree that publishing is easy; the problem is selling what you’ve published.

Watch the video, and if you’re in one of those ‘what the hell’s it all for’ kind of a rut then watch it again.

Abigail’s Garden

Every so often, I like to dabble in poetry. I say ‘dabble’ because, if I’m honest, it’s not my strongest area.

Still, I think it’s something every writer should have a crack at; poetry give you a sense of timing and feel for conciseness that can only help improve your writing in general (even though you may not be aware of it).

Anyway, while ‘having a crack at it’ I came up with Abigail’s Garden, which I thought I’d share.