My six top tips for writing

1. Don’t procrastinate! You’ve heard it before, but it’s so true. Discipline yourself to sit down and write - whether you feel like it or not. Almost always creativity will follow.

2. Set yourself realistic goals - whether daily, weekly, or over longer periods.

3. Make notes of ideas (send yourself texts or emails) and collect/cut out articles that have nuggets of good ideas, or well-crafted words, for incorporation in your book.

4. You no longer have to rely on getting a Literary Agent or Publisher. In today’s world you can self-publish, with or without an agency to assist you in doing so. What you will need however, if you can possibly afford it, is a good Literary Publicist. This function has emerged as the most critical for your book to reach as wide and varied an audience as possible.

5. With the ever increasing popularity of e-books and in today’s media savvy world, you will need to either have yourself, or engage someone who has, the capability to put together and run an on-going social media marketing campaign for your book.

6. Don’t be discouraged by extraneous factors, thinking I’m too young, too old, too inexperienced, or haven’t got what it takes. Just keep going and believe in yourself - remembering that wonderful quote: “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eye of the goal”.