Simon Jones

As a less experienced writer I used to obsess over plot. Plot was everything. This seems to be the case for a lot of people who aren’t writers, too — a common criticism of a film or book will be that “the plot isn’t very good”, or “the plot’s a bit basic”. When I used to write as a kid, my entire focus would be on trying to formulate a twisty-turny, intricate plot. Image by Alain Pham. It’s not surprising that my early attempts to write stories ended up feeling flat and lifeless.

Playing catch-up on a few interesting bits and pieces, first of which is to highlight a contribution I made to a free resource pack for writers over at the National Centre for Writing. This one was all about METHOD and featured insight from Jenny Offill, Eimear McBride, Bregje Hofstede and Moto Shibata. It’s very good. It also includes an article by me focusing on useful digital tools for writers. It’s very me. Do take a look over at the NCW website.

I’ve never enjoyed editing. Have avoided it like the plague, in fact. So much so that I fell into a serialised form of writing novels whereby I write and publish a chapter online every week, over on Wattpad. It works for me and keeps me productive, but the Wattpad versions of my books are evidently not going to be as polished as something you’d buy in a bookshop. In 2016 I finished my first novel, A Day of Faces, and immediately moved on to writing my second.