Sometimes I wonder if my brain and my mouth have become disconnected, and the words I intended to say have come out in some kind of alien tongue. You know what it's like: you ask a question, or comment on something, and get a totally unconnected response. A recent order made over the phone is a case in point. When the goods arrived they were the wrong colour, they were different sizes and the discount had been left off. I'm sure I said, more than once, what I actually wanted. 

It happens ofte...

I was scrolling through Facebook recently, feeling a little guilty about wasting time, when something totally different from the posts of dogs behaving badly and images of people's lunch stopped me. I don't normally feel I've missed out, but here were images of Hobbit Day on 22nd September, the birthday of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins in J. R. R. Tolkien's novels. People dressed as hobbits and took part in a daylong party with music, food, dancing and probably Gandalf's fireworks to round off the ...

When I wrote a few blogs ago about a piece of writing that did not seem to fit anywhere, one category I had not considered was creative non-fiction. It was only when a member of Get the Word Out suggested that I did not need to turn it into a poem or use it as the basis of a story, and that it was complete as it was, that I realised I had produced a piece of creative non-fiction. In fact, if someone had asked me to define the category before, I would have struggled.

Although I mostly write fi...

Is it unreasonable to expect a live performance of a play to follow the script exactly? Surely, only robots can be word perfect every time, and does it really matter if Portia says 'The quality of mercy is not strain'd/It droppeth like the gentle rain of heaven/Upon the place beneath' (William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice Act Four Scene One), instead of … 'it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven…'. Shakespeare's works are so famous that there would be bound to be someone in the a...

There are few pleasures greater than opening a brand new book. Running your fingers over a creaseless cover in its fresh, stain-free colours gives a thrill of anticipation for what you'll discover on the pristine pages inside. It might be a classic or a bestseller, but when you open that copy, you feel like an explorer discovering a new country, as if you are the first person ever to read what's written in it. The smell of new ink and paper is as attractive to a book-lover as lavender is to a...

I'd love to say the words I want are on the tip of my tongue, but they aren't. I've been writing about a steamy jungle, and I feel I've run out of vocabulary to describe the place and its atmosphere. How many ways are there to say 'tangled', 'humid', or 'green'? I feel I've used every one of them at least half a dozen times, which is five times too many.

Resorting to Roget's Thesaurus hasn't helped. I searched under the headings 'jungle', 'foliage', 'tangle', 'greenery' and more, but only one...

As a review, saying something is awful is not only crushing to the person who created the book, film painting etc., but it's really unhelpful. Fingers crossed, I never get a review like it! Saying you liked something or thought it was good is actually little better. Okay, you can polish your nails and feel pleased for being praised, but you still won't know why: what did you get right? what didn't hit the spot?

I recently saw the film of Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet. I absolutely loved the book, ...

Or does it? There is no right or wrong way to plan a piece of writing. Use whichever method suits you, because if you ignore it, you're likely to run into trouble. Some people are pantsers, and are happy to set off on a 150,000-word novel with only the skimpiest of ideas to guide them. Others aren't comfortable unless they have every plot point, character flaw, setting and back story marked on a spreadsheet or graph, as if they're heading out on an expedition to find the source of the Nile al...

You've written a play. Great! Now what are you going to do with it? There are hosts of theatres, theatre companies and groups, but which ones put on new work and are open to submissions? Which ones pay? Will you be expected to have input in the production, or be forbidden to 'interfere'? How are plays licensed for performance? How do you get them published?

A good place to start looking for answers is the BBC's Writers Room. It lists all kinds of openings and advice for TV, film, radio and st...