Everyone can write, we need to give ourselves permission to write creatively… and practice.
Apprentice for the raw recruit.
Artisan for those on the journey.
Shorts and Excerpts to amuse and inform.
The Reading Room to consider reading and its future.
Write, write, write, write, write. If you’re alone, write while the kettle boils. On a bus or train, write some more. Coffee, lunch or tea break, write something else. The only way to become a fluent write is to do...
I have an ambition, not worth a place on the bucket list, but one worthy of consideration for a few spare days. I would like to write a short play about a tv production team in the 1970s which is...
Many, many years ago a journalist colleague was reading a novel in her lunch break. She took it from a shop bag and almost half an hour later had finished it. I could barely keep up with her finger as...
There are many books out there about plot. I won’t tell you which ones to read because it all depends on what you want to write. They will talk about protagonist and antagonist. They will talk about character development and...
For me the big question concerning AI and writing is ‘why’? I can understand, sort of, the use of AI for research. The results are potentially accurate assuming the algorithm has accessed enough web sites for its data. I’m prepared...
There’s an easy answer – anywhere you like. Sadly inspiration doesn’t come to us neatly packaged. We can’t open a box and find a set of instructions that will turn out to be a perfect, flat-pack novel. We must be...
Well, that’s that then. It’s all over. At last. Tomorrow life begins again. Every minute of every test match as it happens, uninterrupted. Day after day. Every ball, every wicket, every run. Lunch at lunch, tea at tea. Supper at...
‘I do I dooooo Iiiiiiii doo Mmmmmm I Arthur James Smethwick do take, hrmmmmm. I whatever do take Molly Rose Bimble. God I mustn’t laugh. Molly Rose Bimble as my lawful wedded wife.’ ‘Art, are you ready, what are you...
‘Fuck off, you bastard.’ She screamed the words at him. She spat them. If they’d been bullets he would be dead. The Saturday traffic sped past. An island in the middle of a High Street thronged with shoppers wasn’t where...
Everyone can tell a story
We all do it, every day. We recount what’s happened at work, at school, on holiday. We tell people about our conversations, our relationships, our successes and our failures – and always, without thinking about it, we manage to entertain. So don’t tell me you can’t write a story, and don’t let anyone tell you that.
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Copyright: Steve Gregory, Firstworks 2026