TuesdayTips83

Guest Blog Post
Fiona Veitch Smith
Finding Your Writing Rhythm.

This week I am delighted to welcome Fiona Veitch Smith. Fiona is the author of the Poppy Denby Investigates novels, Golden Age-style murder mysteries set in the 1920s. The Jazz Files was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger (2016), while subsequent books were shortlisted for the Foreword Review Mystery Novel of the Year and the People’s Book Prize. She worked as a journalist on Cape Town newspapers in the 1990s before returning to the UK to work on regional magazines in NE England. Thereafter, she spent a decade lecturing creative writing at Northumbria University and journalism at Newcastle University. She is now the Assistant Secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association. She lives in Newcastle upon Tyne with her husband and teenage daughter.
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Fiona's #TuesdayTip.
Find your OWN writing rhythm. You will hear writing gurus (many of them famous authors) telling you that you must write every day to be a ‘real’ writer. That you must set yourself a word count. That you must carry on writing and not go back over what you’ve written before you reach the end of your novel. Well, I do none of those things. Due to caring duties and other work commitments, I only write three days a week, for only a few hours at a time. I rarely set myself a word count. I always go back over what I have written before I move on. And yet I have managed to write a novel a year for the last 10 years as well as a couple of dozen children’s picture books and hundreds of magazine and blog articles. If the ‘write every day, never go back over what you have written, and set yourself a word count’ style works for you then stick to it, but if it doesn’t, don’t be scared to work to your own rhythm. The important thing is that you write. Your way and in your time. And that it brings you, and hopefully others, some joy. Happy writing.
​(c) 2021 Fiona Veitch Smith

The Poppy Denby Investigates novels are Golden Age murder mysteries set in the 1920s dealing with issues of social justice while sizzling with jazz-age style. Poppy, dubbed the 1920’s most stylish sleuth, works on a London tabloid and solves murders on the side.
The first in the series is The Jazz Files and is available on Amazon.
The latest, The Crystal Crypt​ has just been released and is available here:
To find out more about Fiona and Poppy Denby, you can visit her website www.poppydenby.com and Facebook page or follow her on Twitter @FionaVeitchSmit and Instagram @fionaveitchsmith_author.