I have always been a rebellious person.  An ex-boyfriend forbid me to have my hair cut as he wanted me to wear it long… So I opted for the popular style amongst boys at the time and had ‘curtains’ cut in.  My teachers forbid me to wear makeup and denim at school… So I wore jeans and plenty of nail varnish and eye-liner.  Rebelling against my Mum was difficult.  I wanted a black, leather mini-skirt, she bought one for herself to match.  I wanted my nose pierced, she suggested we went together (I chickened out).  I wanted to listen to loud music with loads of swearing in it, she reminded me that my Uncle is founding member of the 70s/80s punk band Solvent Abuse.  I wanted to read more adult books, she handed me her copies of DH Lawrence, Martina Cole, etc. etc.  You get the picture…  So I turned…

First I want to take a minute to say THANK YOU to everyone who commented on my last post or followed my blog after I wrote the post ‘The 5 Worst Writing Tips I’ve Ever Received.’ It was really thrilling to have so many people engaged in the conversation, and I hope we can keep it up!

Now I’d like to take a minute to introduce this post, which is the companion post to ‘The 5 Worst Writing Tips I’ve Ever Received.’ In this one, I’m going to briefly lay out the five best, most inspirational, most effective  tidbits of advice about writing that I’ve ever heard. These are things that made me think harder about my writing, strive to broaden my language and deepen my characters, and inspired me to persevere as a writer. So, without further ado, here they are:

5.  Write the story you want…