Introduction

I have been a writer for over 30 years and have published poetry, fiction and non-fiction in various magazines, journals and newspapers. I have also published one book of poetry (Further Than Night, Bystander Press, 2000), and completed a MA in Creative Writing (involving the writing of a 70,000-word novel) and a PhD in Creative Writing (an 8,000-line verse novel). I have been the editor of a print journal and am the current editor of an online journal. I have judged writing competitions and won a major poetry competition. I have also taught writing for over 15 years (having earlier taught martial arts).

From all this experience I have developed a model of the writing process that I call The Writing Cycle. There are five stages to this cycle:

1. Preparation
2. First Draft
3. Secondary Composition
4. Publication
5. Business

In subsequent blogs I intend to explain the model and explore its usefulness for different genres of writing. I hope you enjoy what the model and this blog has to offer and I look forward to engaging in a dialogue with you about benefits of this process.