Mark Ayre Writing

Must we talk about another book on writing? I love this challenge, but sometimes it does feel like I’ve made a rod for my own back, when I’m staring at yet another book it’s going to be almost impossible to review. Look, I’ve said all I’m going to say about books on writing. You want […]

Last week I spent a lot of time talking about one of my favourite TV shows, and because I think originality is overrated (or I forgot to plan or something), I’m going to do the same this week. Difference is, this time I don’t have books to review on which said TV show was based. […]

So, you’ve dodged jail for harassing literary agents long enough to get your book self-published online – congratulations. Since then, you’ve no doubt been sitting back, waiting for the money to roll in and, if so, thank Christ I’ve come back with my next guide because getting your book up online is only half the […]

Today is a good day. I’ve not done much, but I get to be positive. How rare is that? See, today (29-Sep-2018) I finished the first draft of my next novel. The sequel to The Black Sheep’s Shadow, which isn’t even due out until November. This sequel, once completed is due out in May 2019. […]

A couple of entries ago I reviewed a book on Inbound Marketing. In doing so, I probably mentioned how I got into marketing because of my love of writing. History, too, feeds into my love of writing. From an early age, it was my favourite subject. Not so much the later stuff, but up to […]

This weekend was a bit of a loss. Productivity wise, I mean. No, no, don’t try and make me feel better. I know I should have done more. Okay, I did 18,000 words of my novel which was only 2,000 short of the target, and pretty good, but let’s remember I had three blogs to […]

It’s Sunday, 11:17 am. I didn’t do enough yesterday. Surprise surprise. I’ve loads of writing to do today, and here I am writing this blog. Of course, I’m three or four blogs behind now as well. No matter how well we do, it always goes back to shit in the end. Though, I suppose there […]

A lot of the time when people write reviews for books or films or games or whatever else, they have to put a disclaimer at the start saying they either have no affiliation with the producer of the reviewed item and therefore please believe them or that they have indeed been paid to review the […]

Hey, isn’t it weird how fast time goes? I know some of you out there will be grumbling “oh, he thinks it goes fast now, he’s only 28, wait until he’s 82, then see how quickly the time slips by. Well, firstly, I’m 26, not 28 and, secondly, I get that, it’s all a matter […]

You have no idea for how many years I’ve tried to sustain a consistent blogging effort. Honest, since I was a teenager, it’s been going on. I would sit down, tell myself I was going to blog blog blog and not stop. Then I’d stop. Sometimes it would be blogging on life, sometimes writing tips, […]

Last month we spoke about how you can best secure yourself an agent, and it’s great to receive your emails regarding your success. Of course, as yet, no one has secured an agent, but it’s great to hear that less than 10% of you have been arrested and so far we are looking at one […]

This blog comes at a very inconvenient time. See, I’ve taken a week off work to catch up on my blogging and to finish the latest draft of my book, and things have been going well. I’ve been working hard. Getting up before eight I’ve been reading my latest Man vs Bookshelf book until around […]

I’ve mentioned before how autobiographies often give you very little to say, and I’m going to mention it again now because, well, I’ve got very little to say. It’s filler. Word count. Not that it matters. Not that I need to fill a word quota. It would be stupid to think otherwise. But I do. […]

A CHILD IS MISSING. A MAN HAS BEEN ATTACKED The black sheep’s shadow hangs over this once peaceful village and, unless James acts fast, it may never see clear skies again Send me the book OR READ THE FIRST THREE CHAPTERS NOWChapter one (read online)Chapter two (read online)Chapter three (read online)Chapters 1-3 (PDF download)Chapters 1-3 […]

There are a lot of reasons to buy a book, some sensible, some not so much. One of them is because you emphatically agree with its title. I’ll leave it up to you to decide where on the scale that comes. The gym and me It may surprise you to know, given what I look […]

It’s Sunday afternoon, a week after I finished one blog and started another. In the first, I spoke about the word count of my upcoming novel – The Black Sheep’s Shadow and how it concerned me. I was slashing words left and right and, while I was sure it was improving the story, I had […]

Last week, just before I started this blog, I was sitting in bed thinking about it. Wondering whether I could write two blogs in a row opening with a section about the word count of my latest novel. I decided that I could, and for a good reason. So, I grabbed my laptop, wrote the […]

It feels as though my blog writing game has been well off recently. Asked to guess, I would probably say I had not written more than one a week in the last five weeks, but this cannot be so. They come out every five days, and I’m still three weeks ahead of schedule. But I’ve […]

I’ve been procrastinating again, but then, it’s been a stressful day. A few months ago my girlfriend and I decided we wanted to move house. There were numerous reasons for this, the main one being I am the only person on the current mortgage, and we’d quite like to buy somewhere together. Somewhere bigger. Somewhere […]

The stress, will it ever end? Two man vs bookshelf blogs ago I said I was no longer going to put time limits on when I wrote these blogs, and when I did my writing. I’ve been editing my novel, and it was taking so long, and becoming so draining. I was postponing task after […]