Sue McDonagh Writer

Recently I asked the lovely Likers on my Facebook Author page what they would like to know about how I write. This generated quite a lot of questions, and prompted this post.      Each question merits its own blog post really, but I've tried to answer as fully as possible in a reader friendly format. Q: Do you you use writing software, e.g. Scrivener or similar? Are you a plotter or a pantser, or somewhere in between?      I use plain ol' Word, on a Mac. But I also write in longhand, particularly in the early stages, and I'm a sucker for gorgeous stationary!      Longhand allows me to write in a stream of conscious, unedited way, and this is where I find out about my characters and what they want and why.      Plotting v Pantsing?  I'm a bit of each! I spend a really long time developing my characters, where they live, their pets, their cars, their Pinterest Boards, their friends, that sort of thing, and then I write a sort of map of how the story will progress, where t

I'm thrilled to be sharing this Festival of Books and Bookishness with fellow ChocLit author Kirsty Ferry, who has been writing for much longer than me and has an impressive sixteen published novels to her name. Sue: Hi Kirsty! You are very young, but you have quite a string of published novels behind you. When did you start writing? Kirsty: I’ve been writing since I was a child, but had to have a break when my son was born, and I found I had no time to do anything. When he was about seven I got made redundant and did an OU writing course which I enjoyed, then went on to complete my degree with them alongside starting a new job. Two of my modules were Creative Writing, so I had fun with those, and actually all of the stories I wrote for the course have all ended up published in some shape or form, so I guess I’ve been writing ‘seriously’ for about thirteen years now.   Some Veil Did Fall   was based on a short story I did for the first course, and I decided it had some

 The #ChocRubyFestival comes to YOU!!  FLASH GIVEAWAY BELOW!! Hellooo! Well, I'm going to pretend that I write this Blog regularly and obviously you haven't been paying attention as you seem to have missed several months years posts. (You haven't. I'm teasing you.) Like my Giveaways↑? One Hot-off-the-Press Copy of Meet Me at the Art Cafe and a pack of blank Greetings Cards from my own original paintings, all inspired by the stunning Gower Peninsula, which is the setting from my Art Cafe novels. If you'd like to win this - but not the gorgeous crochet blanket they're lying about on that took me an eternity to make - all you need to do is share it on Twitter or Facebook, wherever you found it, and tell me you shared it on that post. If you Follow/Like my Twitter/Facebook page I'll love you forever, obviously. If you don't tell me you've shared it, then I can't put you in the draw. Oh, and the draw will be... drum r