Literary Birthday – 18 March – Rosie Walsh

Happy Birthday, Rosie Walsh, born 18 March 1980.

Rosie Walsh Quotes

1. The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method and it’s hands-down the most valuable writing tool I’ve ever learned. Taking it on board has completely transformed my working life. It’s enabled me to cut my working hours by half, to get all of my other tasks done and – most importantly – it’s brought a sense of real calm to my writing practice. Which is no small matter. (Rosie Walsh’s Website)
2. Taking time to get outdoors somehow creates a whole load more writing time. I haven’t a clue how or why this works, but it does. (It is also the best way I know to solve plot problems.) (Rosie Walsh’s Website)
3. I sit down in a nice environment, ideally with something delicious and bad. As pictured. I freewrite for about two pomodoros’ worth of time, sketching out the main things I want to happen.(Rosie Walsh’s Website)
4. I write vague scenes on post-it notes and stick them on a wall. I colour-code, I move post-its around, I scribble over and replace them constantly. But before long, a whole story emerges. The first time I tried this approach I was astonished by how quickly I went from a one-sentence idea to a fully-planned novel. It took about three days. (Rosie Walsh’s Website)
5. Needless to say, the book will take charge of itself after a certain time, and your post-its will need updating. When I’m about halfway through I turn my post-its into a table, in which a more detailed description of each scene is nested with dates, times of day; that sort of thing. I maintain this table right through to my final edit and I refer back to it constantly. (Rosie Walsh’s Website)
6. Writing is my job; I have deadlines and contractual obligations. Crazy puts all of those under threat. It also diminishes the quality of my work and makes me think I dislike writing. (I don’t dislike writing.) Staying positive and calm, therefore, have become as important to me as owning a computer or eating my lunch. (Rosie Walsh’s Website)
7. Read! Read! Read! ALWAYS! (Rosie Walsh’s Website)
8. We ended up selling this book [The Man Who Didn’t Call/Ghosted]  to publishers all over the world, which meant I had to do even more edits, long after I thought I’d finished – and this process of repeatedly going back to the manuscript, even when I thought there was nothing to do, was fascinating. I learned so much about stripping out deadwood and finding simple, elegant ways of saying something that might previously have taken entire paragraphs. (NZ Booklovers)

Rosie Walsh is a British novelist and documentary producer and writer. She has lived and travelled all over the world. Her novels, The Man Who Didn’t Call/Ghosted and The Love of My Life, were international bestsellers and have sold more than two million copies worldwide. They have been translated into 35 languages. The One Day You Were My Husband is her third novel. Before writing as Rosie Walsh, she published four romantic comedies as Lucy Robinson, including The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me and A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger. She lives on a medieval farm in Devon, UK, with her partner and two young children. Find out more about her writing space and follow her on Instagram.

Source for image: Author’s Website Photo by Verity Rivers

by Amanda Patterson

Are you interested in more authors’ birthdays? Please click here: Literary Birthday Calendar