Say I am a writer
A very well-known writer of my acquaintance once said that a key bridge for any writer to cross is to admit, to themselves and to the world, that they are a writer. A writer, when presented with an opportunity to out themselves, will often hesitate. They’ll say they do a bit of writing, or that they dabble, or that they turn their hand to it from time to time.
What the Saw Doctors teach writers about voice
The Saw Doctors were formed from the remnants of other bands in the mid-1980s, out of Tuam. Growing up just over the Mayo/Galway border in Ballinrobe, I felt like I had stumbled into the maternity ward for the birth of a new musical dimension.
Taking your work out across the Red River
There’s a popular line about writing: you do it for yourself. And it’s true, up to a point. It would be difficult to sustain the long hours and the figuring out merely on the faint promise of producing a bestseller.
My gradual truce with conflict
For a long time, the use of the word ‘conflict’ in writing advice bothered me. Stories tend to need conflict, we're told. Otherwise, they can wither and die.
Building a novel without knowing the shape of it
A novel – in my admittedly limited experience* – feels like it gets built as much as it gets written. When I start, there isn’t a grand design**. No finished sketch pinned up on the wall. There’s simply a sense that something could stand here - maybe a town, a character, a tension humming beneath the surface.
Curiosity beats over-planning, in my book
For a long time, I thought writing a novel meant knowing where you were going before you began. Plot it out. Understand the structure. Know what happens in the end, and preferably in the middle too. That belief probably delayed me writing a novel by years.
How changing a character can save a story
A little trick I have found to be very useful when I am struggling to create a character who will serve my needs is to change something dramatic about them, such as their sex. Often, when starting out on the process of writing a character I have a real person in mind. It’s inevitable. The characters I write emerge from my experiences.
Three nuggets of advice from my master’s in creative writing
When people learn that I studied for a master’s in creative writing at the University of Limerick, where internationally renowned figures such as Joseph O’Connor and Donal Ryan are among the teachers, they invariably want to know more. What did I learn from them?
How early readers keep a story on track
Blessed are the early readers – and the late ones too – for they shall spot the untightened gears and pulleys that might otherwise derail the hurtling train. I retained quite the retinue of early and late readers for my debut novel On The Way Out: Barry Maguire, Brian Joyce, Carolina Batista, Colm Burtchaell, Conor Hughes, Declan Varley, Dymphna Culhane, Eamon Loughlin, Eilín O’Carroll, Emma Horan, Helen Bree, John Culhane, Kellie Thornton, Marie Shannon, Mary Halligan, Maurice Horan, Michael Horan, Michelle Horan, Mike Quinn, Noreen Gilligan, Pat Conway, Peter Browne, Sinead Horan, Siobhan Corcoran, Stephen Carolan, Suzanne Walsh, Shirley Byrne and Veronica Keys.
How writer and editor shape the story’s path
How does a writer interact with their editor? That’s a question I often get asked. My editor for On The Way Out was my work colleague at the Western Development Commission, Aisling Moroney. And just as I was a debut novelist, she was a debut novel editor. Why not!
