Sunday, 28 December 2025
Wednesday, 10 December 2025
The Beginners' Guide to Creating Yourself as a Writer
Write
Maybe this is a little obvious. But try to set aside some time for writing. Maybe five minutes a day? Don’t laugh. Those five minutes will often turn into half an hour or more.
Have a writing place
This doesn't have to be a room of your own. You don't have to write in a café, in the library or on a train. You can of course. But if you don't have the luxury of any of these places, find somewhere where you're comfortable. See that as your space.
Make your writing time sacrosanct
You may need to train the people you live with to respect that when you are writing you are working and you are not to be disturbed. I leave my study door ajar when I'm happy to be disturbed. It is firmly shut when I am writing and mustn't be disturbed.
Read
Something happens by osmosis if you do. Some people say they don't want to read because they don’t want to be influenced by others. I'm never convinced by that argument but perhaps you don't just want to mimic Stephen King. You want to be a horror writer with your own style and ideas. Yet reading other can get you used to the way words work and even sometimes allow you to see what works less well. If you're frighten you might end up impersonating one of the greats- just read in another genre.
Befriend other writers
Maybe join a critique group but take care with this. Make sure you find the right sort of group. Join writers' online forums but again be careful about which ones. Be a little picky. Find the right group of friends and these will be of true value. They'll understand exactly what you're going through.
Writing is rewriting
Be prepared for a lot of this. Make your text shine. And then ….
Send your work out
Boldly. Do your due diligence. Look for the right places. Don’t let rejection crush you. Get back on the horse. Have lots of fishing rods hanging off the end of the pier.
Competitions
Yes there are only ever a handful of winners but it is useful discipline, especially if you take the trouble to see who has won and study what they’ve written.
TV and cinema are good too
Because after all it’s all about story. As is the gossip in the pub. In fact, there is story all around you. Keep your eyes and ears open.
Writerly events
Get to as many writers' events, festivals and conferences as you can.
And did I mention it before? Just write!
An interesting event tomorrow
Tomorrow we launch The Spruce and On the feast of Stephen.
These are both feel-good Christmas stories for young children and children are welcome at the event.
Will you join us?
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Join here.
Join through this link or jut email me for the Zoom link direct.
More info about the books:
It's rotten having a birthday just before Christmas.
Sometimes Toby gets just one present for both his birthday and Christmas. Sometimes people just give him money because they've run out of present ideas. Then when he comes to spend that money there's hardly anything left in the shops. It’s the same this year. He can't find any Lego bricks he wants.
An old man who reminds him of his Grandpa Jack is sitting cold and hungry on the street. Toby thinks of another use for his birthday money. What he does afterwards reminds his Grandpa Jack of a well-known Christmas song.
On the Feast of Stephen by Gill and Ashleigh James is a feel-good story for early readers.
Find your copy here
The finery of Christmas only lasts a short while.
The excitement fades and the children lose interest in the little tree. It now longs for the life it had before. It realises that being amongst nature even in all sorts of weather was far more rewarding that being stuck indoors. And it would have had an advantage over the other trees; it would have remained while they lost their leaves in the autumn.
Now, though, the warmth in the house has made it shed most of its needles and it is confined to a dustbin.
Yet there is hope. One of the children finds a way of being kinder to its nature.
Find your copy here
It would be great to see you there.
Sunday, 7 December 2025
Book bundle
I'm offering copies of The Best of CafeLit 12, 13 and 9 for £15.00, postage free.
This year we present a selection of some of the best stories from each month. There is a balance of longer and shorter stories, darker and lighter tales, serious and funny prose, experimental and conventional. Many of them invite you to reflect. There is also a welcome balance of old friends, writers who have contributed to CaféLit over the years, and of new voices.
Each story in this little volume is the right length and quality for enjoying as you sip the assigned drink in your favourite Creative Café. You need never feel alone again in a café. So what’s the mood today? Espresso? Earl Grey tea? Hot chocolate with marshmallows? You'll find most drinks in our drinks index.
This year contributors were asked to select stories they enjoyed the most. For each story they had published, they could select one. This produced quite a long list. There is real mixture of authors here: ones we’ve published several times and know really well, others we are just getting to know, and some who are published with us for the very first time.
Each story in this little volume is the right length and quality for enjoying as you sip the assigned drink in your favourite Creative Café. You need never feel alone again in a café. So what’s the mood today? Espresso? Earl Grey tea? Hot chocolate with marshmallows? You'll find most drinks in our drinks index.
We asked those writers who were published in "The Best of CaféLit 8" to
vote for their five favourite stories published on the CaféLit web site
in 2019. We awarded five points for number one choices, four for number
two and so on. These are the stories that received the most votes.
Each
story in this little volume is the right length and quality for
enjoying as you sip the assigned drink in your favourite Creative Café.
You need never feel alone again in a café. So what's the mood today?
Espresso? Earl Grey tea? Hot chocolate with marshmallows? You'll find
most drinks in our drinks index.
Wednesday, 3 December 2025
News 3 December 2025
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Tuesday, 18 November 2025
I talk to Jim Bates about his collection 'Where the heart is'
Why did you decide to collect these particular stories together? What is the overriding theme here for you
I hope this doesn’t sound too weird, but I chose these stories with my dear departed mother in mind. Mom passed away in 2011. We were very close. She knew how much I loved to write, yet had been putting off jumping in and making even the tiniest of beginnings due to many reasons (family, career, the usual suspects). In one of the last conversations we had, she counseled me to ‘Start following your dream, Jim. Before it’s too late.’ You know what? She was right. I took her advice. The night after that conversation, I took the leap and committed to start writing every day with the idea in mind of trying to be the best writer I could be. I’m glad I did! This was back in 2011, and it was the best thing I've ever done. I love writing, and this collection of stories, “Where the Heart Is,” is a book I’m sure Mom would have liked. The stories are character-driven and have a positive message, both themes that my mom enjoyed in the books she read. Mom, these are for you!
I love the cover. Why was this particular picture important?
I’m so glad you like the cover. I do, too! The inspiration came from one of the photos on the calendar that hangs in the small room that is my writing space. I have an appreciation for lakes, and I love to sit and look out over them and enjoy their beauty. Being on a lakeshore is also a nice time to contemplate life. The cover represents both of those quiet pastimes. Thank you to Martin James for helping me select the cover image and also for the final great design. It’s perfect!
You worked with our intern, Fatima, on this collection. Can you tell us a little about that process?
Heartfelt kudos go out to Fatima! She was wonderful to work with. I appreciated that she was conscientious, thorough, and she also gave me some great input. I’d love to use her again if that were ever possible!
Jim, you’re a prolific writer of short stories. How do you manage to keep finding inspiration?
That’s a very kind comment, Gill. Thank you very much. I’ll answer by reiterating that I love to write, and that I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Seven years after dedicating myself to writing in 2011, I started sending my work out for publication. You published my first story, “Remembrance Day,” in 2018, and it gave me a huge boost in confidence. Thank you so much for that! I am a very quiet person. I do not mind being by myself at all. I love to go for walks and read. Throughout my day, I’m always thinking about possibilities for stories or poems. When the idea comes to me, I’ll write it down. Today, for example, I was playing with my yo-yo. (Yes, you heard me right, my yo-yo. It’s part of my morning routine LOL!) The idea of a poem came to me as I was doing an “Around the World” move. I went upstairs and jotted the poem down in my notebook. I went over that first draft and liked it. I then wrote the poem. I still liked it. It will be added to my new poetry collection, “Quantum Moments.” Ideas like that happen to me all the time, and I’m glad that they do! It helps to keep writing interesting, challenging, and fun.
Do you have any advice for those who are new to writing short stories?
Yes. Try to write every day. If you have a story you are working on, keep at it. Once you finish, review it, make sure it’s the way you want it, and then write another one. Stay with it! Ray Bradbury said, “If you write a story a week for a year, you’ll have 52 stories at the end of that year. I’ll guarantee at least one of them will be good.” To that I’ll add, probably more than one. The point is, keep writing. You only get better by writing. I’ll also add this: write for yourself. Write stories that you would want to read. If you like what you’ve written, that’s the main thing. You can never please everyone, so you have to please yourself. At the end of the day, you can say, “You know what? I don’t care what others say, I think my story is pretty good.” When you get to that point, when you like your own work, it’s a great place to be.
Are you working on any new projects?
Yes. Right now, I’m doing the final edits for “The Rebels,” which is Book 5 of my Creekside Chronicles YA (and older) dystopian/adventure series. It’s almost ready to be published. I’m also in the process of publishing “Periodic Haiku,” a collection of 5-7-5 syllable haiku poems based on the first 118 elements of the periodic table. And I’m also working on a collection of poems to be published in 2026 entitled “Quantum Memories.”
Do you have any events planned?
No events planned at this time except for ‘soft releases’ on FB and my blog.
Note: Thank you so much, Gill, for the opportunity to be on your blog. Your continual support of my writing efforts is stupendous and means the world to me! Again, thank you so much.
See Jim's web site here: https://theviewfromlonglake.com
Find your copy of the book here
Friday, 14 November 2025
Book Club Guide for 140 x 140
- Open the book randomly at three different places. Which is your favourite of these three stories? Why?
- Read through the stories for the month in which your birthday occurs. Can you find one story that makes you laugh, one that makes you think and one that disturbs?
- Thumb through the book and find a story that includes: colour, politics or class distinction
- Have you an overall favourite? Explain what you like about this story.
- Random reading. Get your group to sit in a circle. The first person opens the book at a random page, reads the story out loud and passes it to the next person in the group. Continue until everyone has read a story.
- Pick three stories randomly and analyse them. Is this a story, a vignette, a commentary, a mini-essay?
- Identify themes in the book. Chose a favourite theme and comment on all of the stories that fit that theme.
- Analyse one entry in depth. What is it? How is the content structured? How is language used to get the main points across? Can you find any poetic devices such as personification, metaphor, similes, alliteration etc.?
- Use the contents page to identify three stories that appeal. Which of the three is your favourite and why?
- Pick an entry randomly and try to work out which picture may have inspired it.
Find your copy here
Thursday, 13 November 2025
Twenty Great Things about Being a Writer
- I get to be exactly who I want to be.
- I get to invent lots of worlds.
- I have a lot of friends in my writing world.
- Book events are fun.
- Watching TV, going to the cinema or theatre and reading fiction count as work.
- Even listening to gossip at the pub feeds the hunger for stories.
- It’s perfectly okay that I go clothes shopping and come back with books.
- Who needs lots of fancy clothes, anyway, if you're a writer?
- All the time I spend writing just makes me a better writer.
- We change as writers all the time - you never know what's coming next.
- I’m in incredibly good company: Shakespeare, Dickens, Maeve Binchy.
- And of course Michael Morpurgo, Philip Pullman and Jacqueline Wilson.
- I work from home. Remind me: what’s a rush hour?
- And when I do venture out I find lots of stories. Journeys on busses are particularly good.
- Everything is interesting and tells me a story.
- We frame a series of events into a story.
- I earn money while I’m on holiday.
- I still earn money from work I did years ago.
- I don’t mind being snowed in.
- I enjoy writing so much I even write when I'm on holiday.
Sunday, 9 November 2025
Buy these three writing craft books for £5.00
There are three prompts a day for the whole of 2023. Some are short and pithy, others are inspired by obscure days e.g. 8 January Bubble Bath Day, and some go into more detail on an aspect of writing craft. There are series that go over a number of days. A few prompts are about works in progress and several give you the choice of working with a text you have already created, creating something new or even editing a completed piece of work. But every prompt gives you the opportunity to write something as well.
These prompts were put together by writers published by the Bridge House, CaféLit and Chapeltown imprints, and their friends.
Happy writing!
What shall I do with my Creative Writing group?
Here are a list of suggestions based on what you might do over a year, whether you meet once a week or once a month. Each suggested session plan allows you to plan an interesting session with your group, and suggests what to do in the session, what you need to prepare before the session and how you might follow it up. Suggested timings are included.
Have fun with my Let's get Writing. Those creative juices will soon be flowing.
Fifty-seven easy to use fact sheets that cover all that you need to know if you are relatively new to writing. Ideal too for the creative writing teacher.
Topics include:
- story structure
- poetry forms
- presentation of work
- how to get your work out there
- script writing
- networking
- organisations that can help
- self-publishing
- getting new ideas
- building characters
The Tip Sheets have deliberately been left as a Word document so that users may customize them.
Gill
James is an experienced writer and teacher. The Tip Sheets pass on
information that she has acquired over twenty or so years.
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