Blog – E. L. Williams Author

How To Help The Butterfly Witch Fly

It's hard to believe, but The Butterfly Witch lands in just two weeks. Two years and nine months after Gwenllian Llewellyn, cello in hand, strolled into my imagination on a cold and rainy January afternoon, she's finally ready to take flight.I'm t...

Book 4 Update: What if Addie LaRue was a witch....?

I’ve spent a lot of time hanging out in 1976 this month. Maybe it’s because the world feels a little scary at the moment, but I’ve loved escaping into another decade. That summer, the UK was in the grip of a fierce heatwave, and as I edit the fina...

Inspirational Author Interview: Mark Wells

Hi Mark. Tell us about you and your writing background. Did you always dream of becoming an author? I've always enjoyed reading and had a few stories published in the school magazine. Still, I didn't have the confidence to pursue a writing caree...

The Decaffeinated Writer

Like swans, I used to believe that writers and caffeine were bonded for life. Turns out, I was wrong.Had I actually written a list of things to give up in 2025, caffeine would only have appeared as a coffee stain on the paper—such is the usual cha...

Reading for Joy: Letting Go of the Goodreads Challenge

It’s that time of year again when bookworms everywhere share their stats and badges from Goodreads. Until last year, I was one of them, racing to hit my reading target before the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve.The thing is, reading as a w...

How Do You Know When To Quit?

We hear it all the time. To be a writer, you need to be persistent. Indeed, it’s the lifeblood of any creative pursuit, especially in a business as tough as this. But the line between admirable determination and self-destructive stubbornness is ra...

Four squares of paper spelling FAIR pegged to line. Yellow background.

Finding My Voice: The Power of Meeting Readers In Person

Last year, after becoming thoroughly disillusioned with the pay-to-play world of social media, I decided to get back to basics and try a couple of live events. No ads, no algorithms—just me, a table, and (hopefully) some interested readers.Despite...

Why Indie Authors are Cheering for Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift. Musician, billionaire businesswoman, and all-around global phenomenon is publishing her Eras Tour coffee table book without going through a big publishing house. With this bold choice, she’s effectively joining the ranks of the self-...

When Will I Ever Learn?

I ran out of rope this week. If dogged determination, relentless cheeriness, and blind optimism were plaited into a rope, I abruptly ran out of all three. I'm no mountaineer, but the metaphorical plummet from Mount Optimism felt all too real. I sa...

Halloween, Nostalgia, and Plastic Pumpkins

As you'd expect from a writer of witchy fiction, I love Halloween. If it could stretch all the way to springtime, I’d gladly trade Christmas for a few more months of eerie fun and autumnal beauty. There. I’ve said it. Autumn has always been my fav...

Mabon Reflections: The Dance of Day and Night

The wheel turns. This Sunday is Mabon, the autumn equinox. Day and night will be equal—like the black swan and the white, frozen on stage with toes pointed, wings outstretched, smiling. Knowing. This time, the black swan will win, and the days wil...

My Writing Week

Well, that title’s a fib for a start. We’ve been away this week, so I’ve not written a thing which makes me feel all sorts of things – chiefly, a bit itchy. It was planned downtime, but I’m not great when I’m not writing and I’m now desperate to g...

Woman in a witches hat turned side on to camera. An autumnal forest in the background.

The Season of the Witch

Autumn has arrived. While the sun is still warm, the garden thirsty for rain, there is the promise of change on the wind. The leaves on the trees are waiting. Even the bees seem busy only with their farewells to the flowers that sustained them thr...

close up of six brightly coloured, mainly faded pink and orange hot air balloons at sunset

Five misbeliefs that held back my author career

It took me more than a decade to write my first novel, The First Ethereal. To be precise, it was eleven years, four months and one day between writing the short story where I first ‘met’ Storm, one of my main characters, and, feeling physically si...

Why There Always Needs To Be A Next Book

Back in 2018 my world fell off a cliff when my mum died suddenly. She was in ITU for a week between collapsing at home alone and the doctors withdrawing life support. Throw in a close family estrangement just days later and, I'm not ashamed to say...

Today, I picked blueberries in the rain

Today is my half birthday. Exactly six months ago, I turned fifty, an age that seems impossibly old and yet, at the same time, is a number that I'm delighted and somewhat amazed to claim as my own.A day to reflect Today is also Lughnasadh, the fir...

All the Fun of the Fair

This time last week I was prepping for my first ever book fair. The idea struck me last October while I was up a ladder, paintbrush in hand. A quick social media post asking if local authors fancied a fair received an enthusiastic response. I appr...

neon letters spelling 'just breath' against a backdrop of green foliage.

The Breath of Writing

Writing is like breathing, I've decided. The inbreath is the writing itself—a golden light that races through my veins, recharging my batteries like a solar cell in the sun.The pause is the publishing. The 101 tasks that turn a manuscript into a b...

Dark blue and yellow feathered background. Book with same colour feathers entitled 'The Magic Keepers' in yellow text. Writing says, The magical new standalone Ethereal World Prequel 18 July 2024

Lessons in Patience

A week today, my plucky little third book, 'The Magic Keepers', will arrive in the world. I say plucky because this one was so determined to be written, it elbowed what was to be book number three aside like a bargain-hunting bibliophile in a Blac...

Impatiently Waiting: A Writer's Tale

Publishing a book is ten percent writing and editing and 90 percent waiting and faffing around with websites of various descriptions.If the tech fairy wasn't one of the magical beings invited to your christening, it also involves a lot of time on ...

Bracknell Book Fair 2024

At the back end of last year, frustrated that I couldn't find any local book fairs to attend, I decided to organise my own. As you do. Fast forward a few months and preparations are in full swing for Bracknell's first ever Book Fair on 20 July 202...

Interview with the USA Today bestselling, multi-award winning author, Helen Garraway

Hi Helen! Tell us about you and your writing background. When did you start? I have always been a voracious reader, a love I inherited from my mum, but I never thought I would be an author. I started writing in 2016. I had an idea noodling, but ha...

Inkborn Author Services - support for new writers

This month, I caught up with the very lovely Rebecca L. Fearnley, author, teacher and founder of Inkborn author services. Hi Rebecca! Tell us a bit about you and your writing background.Hi! I’m Rebecca L. Fearnley and I’m a fantasy and sci fi writ...

Author Event

After discovering last year that showing up to in-person events wasn't quite as terrifying as I imagined, I'm doing more in '24! The first is part of Wales Week /Berkshire which which takes place annually for a week either side of St David's Day (...

Viva! Review of The First Ethereal

As a new writer, the thought of people reviewing my books was ever so slightly terrifying. I knew that not everyone would like them, but would I crumble under the criticism?The short answer, to my surprise, was no. At my first-ever writer’s festiv...

Why every day is New Year's Day

Today, Friday 12 January is apparently, 'Quitter's Day'. Top marks to whichever PR Exec coined that delightfully negative phrase. Supposedly, it's the day that we all give up on our New Year's resolutions. The day that the chocolate biscuits go ba...

My top reads of 2023

I have no idea how many books I read in 2023. I used to do the Goodreads challenge every year and came to rely on it for keeping count, but I gave up back in the summer when it began glitching. Some books were logged, others weren't and the readin...

Why buying books direct is something to celebrate

There’s a wonderful trend in the indie author community – and no – it has nothing to do with TikTok. It’s authors selling their books direct to readers.So what? I hear you ask. Let me explain. Before writing my first book, I knew that there were p...

Author interview with cosy witchy fiction writer, G. Clatworthy

This month, I caught up with the very lovely G. Clatworthy, author of cosy witchy fiction, to find out more about her writing.Hi Gemma! Let's start at the beginning - when did you write your first book?Hi there! I started writing during the 2020 l...

The Indie Author Road

Today (Saturday 10 June) marks the start of Indie Author Week UK and I've been reflecting on my own journey.Back in the day, if you wanted to be a writer, your only option was to pitch your book to a literary agent and cross your fingers that you’...

My Year in Books (2022)

I read 53 books in 2022 according to Goodreads. While I love a ‘proper book’, I also love Audible as it means I can ‘read’ while doing housework, exercising, or travelling. It’s usually what I bribe myself with when I can feel my inner sloth compl...

Embracing the chaos

As a stationery-lover, I love new year. The lure of a crisp new page –as perfect as a fresh snowfall – is something I look forward to every year. But this year is the first where I’ve written a daily diary.My 2021 diary is bloated with notes and t...

Best Books of 2021

Back at the start of this year, I signed up to the Goodreads Challenge. I plucked a figure of 50 books out of the air and decided to see how far I could get.For years, I found it really difficult to read while I was writing. I’d get so into the st...

Feel the fear and write anyway

When I published Ethereal, one thing I heard time and time again from friends and readers was, ‘I have an idea for a novel, but I could never write one.’This was me for, oh, about twenty years. I’ve dreamed of being a writer for as long as I can r...

Publish and be damned

I did it. I published my novel. The First Ethereal exists in the world. It’s a thing. What lived only in my head for such a long time, is finally out there. It’s real.The truth is, I never really believed that I would do it. In fact, for a very lo...

Preparing to jump

I’ve not blogged in a while because I’ve been editing my novel. I sent it to my editor on Friday, word-blind, exhausted and more than a little nervous. It’s as good as I can make it on my own – now I need a professional to steer me in the right di...

Fancy a 'Joy' Day?

I had a ‘Joy day’ today; a full day dedicated to basically following my heart and doing exactly what I felt would bring me joy in the moment.It was a complete change from what I had planned, which was an hour-by-hour schedule of writing, online co...

The worried writer

This is a label I’ve worn with shame most of my life. Picture a worrier and you’ll no doubt see some sort of hand-wringing neurotic constantly checking the sky like Chicken Little.Then a few years ago I heard a radio interview with an astronaut th...

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