I’ve been struggling to know what to add, since the world turned into an episode of Black Mirror. I’ve been on Twitter a lot in the past couple of weeks, and there’s a whole community of people who’re making the best of this bad situation and those that are sharing their lowest points. We’re all…
Author: Caroline Hardaker
Hallo there!
I'm a compulsive wordsmith, writer, poet, artisan, and sometimes crafter of woollen curiosities.
Visit CarolineHardakerWrites.com for written endeavours, or Knittynudo.wordpress.com for some curiously felted little creatures.
How to write a character personality
Writing a character personality for your story, novel, or script is a key part of bringing your words to life. It’s the protagonist at the heart of the story that will make your readers want to keep going, to follow them to the end point. Think about a book you’ve read or film you’ve seen…
Little Quakes Every Day – release date confirmed for 2020
I’ve been SO EXCITED to share this – and as my poetry publisher knows – I can get pretty darn excitable when I have news to share. So here goes… I can officially confirm that my next fully poetry collection, Little Quakes Every Day, will be released on 9th November this year (2020, for retrospective…
How I feel about 2020
I’m loving reading people’s decade in review blogs. It’s lovely to see how people have changed and grown, but of course they’re not all happy stories. Over the last few weeks I was debating doing one myself, but decided against it. Too much has changed, and it’s better to focus on today than yesterday or…
Why it’s ok to stop
This month’s blog is late, but for good reason. When something happens, something deep and changing, it’s difficult to focus. Difficult to concentrate. As someone that writes for a living every day, writes for pleasure, writes for the sheer love of it – I’ve barely set a word down in a month. And that’s ok….
Mindfulness for writers | How to try mindful writing
I’m a huge advocate for mindfulness in all walks of life, not just writing. Everyone can benefit from the sense of calm instigated by yoga, or the self-awareness prompted by meditation. But what’s the relationship between mindfulness and writing? And how can we start to produce mindful writing? What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is the awareness…
How long should you wait between writing new drafts of your novel?
When looking up advice about drafting and redrafting your novel, you’ll frequently see writers and editors suggesting that you wait between clicking the cap on your pen after your first draft and reloading the typewriter for your second draft (yes I live in the 1940s). But how long does this wait have to be? How…
Why is poetry important? (An interview)
A mid-month post from me – not JUST to shake things up, but to share a few things that’ve been published recently. (Anyone else really LOVING feeling autumnal, right now? I’m getting really into my knit jumpers, big mugs of tea, and fluffy socks. I’m raging hot – but it’s still worth it.) I was…
5 Books I’ve been loving this summer (and why you should give them a go too)
Is it just me, or does summer often feel shorter than other seasons? Long gone are the seemingly endless summer holidays as a kid – now it just feels like a few weeks of heat, flanked by rain. Still – it’s magical to see the world bloom, foliage flushing green and lush, and the sky…
How to plot a novel | Your first draft checklist)
Trying to figure out how to plot a novel, and not sure where to start? One thing’s clear – if I didn’t draw up a story outline before drafting, my narratives would fizzle away into nothing. No character arcs. No pacing. No flow. No meaning. Nuffink. All writers need to find their own way (we…
