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Icy Sedgwick

Folklore & Fantasy Fiction

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About Writing

8 Things You Need To Know About Hiring An Editor

May 29, 2019 by Icy Sedgwick Leave a Comment

Hiring an editor can seem to be a bit of a minefield, full of do's and don'ts. Editor Sarah Fox gives you 8 crucial things to consider before you do!

Hiring an editor can sometimes seem to be a bit of a minefield, full of do’s and don’ts. It’s super important to have a proper editor look over your work, so I’ve thrown open my blog to the brilliant Sarah Fox to give you 8 crucial things to consider when you think about hiring an […]

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Filed Under: Writing Tips Tagged With: #mondayblogs, About Writing, editor, editors, guest post, hiring an editor, sarah fox, writing advice, writing tips

Why should, and shouldn’t, you do NaNoWriMo?

October 29, 2018 by Icy Sedgwick 6 Comments

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, has become a 'trial by fire' for writers. Here are 8 reasons why should, and shouldn't, give it a go.

You pretty much can’t avoid NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) every November. And with just three days left of October, it’s time to decide if you’re in or out. Whether you’re an author yourself, or just someone who knows one, you see that acronym pretty much everywhere soon. If you haven’t, the general point of NaNoWriMo is […]

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Filed Under: Writing Tips Tagged With: #mondayblogs, About Writing, NaNoWriMo, write tip, writing advice

5 Ways to Use Where You Live to Generate Ideas

October 15, 2018 by Icy Sedgwick 13 Comments

Writers are told to 'write what they know', so where better to generate ideas than from the world around you? But how do you do that? Here are 5 ways!

It was the 148th anniversary of the death of Charles Dickens this year. While much has been written about his life and work, we can still learn a lot from his methods! His depiction of a supposedly-fictional London was so realistic because he drew from how people lived and worked in Victorian society. Some of this he would […]

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Filed Under: Writing Tips Tagged With: #mondayblogs, About Writing, brain to page, creative writing, generate ideas, how to have ideas, idea generation, world building, write what you know

Awful first drafts are not the end of the world

June 11, 2018 by Icy Sedgwick 11 Comments

Awful first drafts aren't just a rite of passage for new writers; they're common for everyone! So what do you do when you realise your first attempt stinks?

Awful first drafts probably make up the bulk of the tweets I see about writing. If you’re reading this, then many of your contacts are probably writers. They’ve been through this too. Hell, maybe you’ve been through it! Maybe you’ve written something and thought “this is abysmal, who will want to read it?” And I […]

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Filed Under: Writing Tips Tagged With: #mondayblogs, About Writing, brain to page, first draft, writing advice

Should you always write stories in the right order?

November 27, 2017 by Icy Sedgwick 5 Comments

When you write stories, you're not restricted to pantsing or plotting. There is a third, hybrid, way. Click here to learn how to write in the wrong order.

The way people choose to write stories can be a personal choice. So hang around any writing forum, blog or Twitter chat for long enough, and talk will inevitably turn to a debate as old as writing itself… Are you a plotter or a pantser? The plotters want you to meticulously detail the contents of […]

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Filed Under: Writing Tips Tagged With: About Writing, creative writing, write in the right order

How to choose locations to boost your story!

December 12, 2016 by Icy Sedgwick Leave a Comment

Where you set your story is just as important as what happens in it. So let's look at how to choose locations to boost the world-building of your story!

Knowing how to choose locations is the easiest way to ensure the success of your world-building. After all, writers often spend a great deal of their time concentrating on developing authentic dialogue. They need fleshed out, 3-dimensional characters. And they spend hours creating a coherent plot, contained within a sensible structure. But what about setting and location? […]

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Filed Under: Writing Tips Tagged With: About Writing, creative writing, how to choose locations, location, setting, world building, write tip, writing fiction

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Who is Icy Sedgwick?

icy sedgwick

Icy is a folklore blogger and host of the Fabulous Folklore podcast. She is based in the north east of England, where she was born and raised amid the folk tales and legends of Tyneside and Northumberland. Icy is fascinated by history, cinema, art, and the occult, and griffins will always be her favourite mythical beast. She also writes dark fantasy novellas, Gothic short stories and the occasional weird Western, and she holds a PhD in Film Studies!

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