Cynthia Marsh's Blog

To get everyone into the Christmas spirit and help spark some ideas for their writing over the festive period, at last Monday's meeting of Watford Writers I ran a creative writing workshop, along with Helen Nicell. The idea was to have some fun with a few writing exercises designed to burn through writing blocks and get the creative juices flowing. With the ethos of there was no right or wrong way to do the exercises and that it was about exploring ideas and expanding boundaries, mu...

So it is nearly Christmas and what have I done?  Quite a lot as happens, I've surprised even myself!

To get the bad news out of the way, the third Aten Sequence book - 'Tomb of the Golden Osiris' is still in bits on my laptop awaiting radical revision and rebuilding. A project for the dark winter nights of early 2016!

For the first time this November I participated in National Novel Writing Month - NaNoWriMo.




The aim of this challenge is to write 50,000 words of a novel from scratch between...

  At Watford Writers there are many authors and poets of great talent, so let this blog post introduce you to Rosemary Morris who writes historical romance novels.

There is a gigantic canvas for a historical novelist to choose from. So far Rosemary Morris has chosen to set her published novels in the reign of Queen Anne Stuart 1702 – 1714 and the ever popular Regency era 1811 - 1820. She is now writing Tuesday’s Child a Regency novel and revising Proud Norman Nest set in the reign of Edwar...

I���m sure you���ve read books that, without quite knowing how it was done, brought memories, feelings and emotions you didn���t even know you had up to the surface to flood through you.  Books you���ve laughed with, cried with and even screamed in terror with.

They are not always the obvious books; the romantic weepy, the slasher horror story or the slapstick comedy.  They can be books about ordinary lives and the kind of people we might know. People going about their business; experiencing thei...

I’m sure you’ve read books that, without quite knowing how it was done, brought memories, feelings and emotions you didn’t even know you had up to the surface to flood through you.  Books you’ve laughed with, cried with and even screamed in terror with.
They are not always the obvious books; the romantic weepy, the slasher horror story or the slapstick comedy.  They can be books about ordinary lives and the kind of people we might know. People going about their daily business; experi...

On the 1st June  there was a special event at Watford Writers where the winners of the 2015 Watford Live! Richard Harrington Trophy were announced.

The theme was 'Fairytales' and the top ten short stories chosen by the independent judges were read to a bumper number of attendees before the winners were announced.  The creativity and original twists on the theme of 'Fairytales' was amazing, ranging from traditional stories to modern, even dark tales of the little folk.

Out local MP Ric...

I suppose you could say I came to writing via a circuitous route.  I started the first Aten Sequence book a few months before I went travelling in 2007 around Australia, with all good intentions of having it finished by the time I returned. Well that never happened ��� too many beaches, kangaroos, outback trails, excellent restaurants and fun to be had!

On my return I discovered an American website called Hubpages and started writing articles and earning money online, so fiction writing was firml...

I suppose you could say I came to writing via a circuitous route.  I started the first Aten Sequence book a few months before I went travelling in 2007 around Australia, with all good intentions of having it finished by the time I returned. Well that never happened – too many beaches, kangaroos, outback trails, excellent restaurants and fun to be had!
On my return I discovered an American website called Hubpages and started writing articles and earning money online, so fiction writing was...

This is a short story I wrote for a flash fiction competition at Watford Writers.    It was my first evening at the writing group and my first entry.  I was very proud my story was voted into second place.


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In the Aten Sequence Books, our not-so-noble hero Aten has persuaded the gullible Prince Amenophis that there is a new god in Egypt called Aten, who can only be worshipped through him.  The foolish prince is then persuaded to embark on a mission to clear all obstacles, including his own elder brother, out of his way of his becoming the next Pharaoh so he can impose his new religion on the Egyptians and thus allowing Aten access to the gold he needs stored in the vaults under the Temple of Karnak...