Learning how to Howl

Okay young writers out there, this is it. It is your time to create or destroy your minds. I, for my part, if you are interested, will do my best to encourage both your minds and your writing to achieve the best of your potential.

You are the writers of the future. You are the ones whose books will sit upon library and bookshop shelves, that will be read in school and at home.

Through this blog I will offer advice and encouragement. I will attempt to remember my ‘younger days’ - how it felt to write in the early stages. Times are different, I am not ignorant of this, but the challenges of writing have really not changed. There are some processes which all great writers employ. I will hopefully outline these in a way you can understand and learn from.
I can answer your questions, your queries. I can stand firm under the barrage of your anger if necessary.

This is new territory. I have worked a lot with young writers in the past through workshops in school and in the community. I have even been a writer in residence at a school in Ireland for a school year. But this is the first time I have put keyboard to screen to work with an anonymous, faceless, cyber gathering - if there is a gathering at all. I may indeed be twittering on to myself for most of the time. But so be it. I have a lot to learn too. And no matter what level of writing you are at it all comes back to the basics in the end.

We have something we want to say. And so for now, let us howl together, shriek into the night.