What does full-time writing look like? It depends on the writer – and what we create in our lives off the page depends directly on what we imagine. Today's Personal Training at the Writers' Gym takes in the spaces between what goes on the page, and how to work with our feelings about ourselves and the world to create the work lives as well as the art we want. Rachel Knightley's guest is Maura McHugh. Maura was born in the USA, but raised in Ireland, where she developed a love of mythology,...

Internationally best-selling author, artist, journalist and speaker John-Paul Flintoff trained in improvisation with Keith Johnstone. He designs today's word-count workout alongside Rachel Knightley as they discuss the benefits of stagecraft on communication, and how performance provides 'factory conditions' for understanding your own character motivation offstage as much as on it. John-Paul's books include the internationally bestselling How to Change the World, and A Modest Book on How to...

Internationally best-selling author, artist, journalist and speaker John-Paul Flintoff trained in improvisation with Keith Johnstone. He designs today’s word-count workout alongside Rachel Knightley as they discuss the benefits of stagecraft on communication, and how performance provides ’factory conditions’ for understanding your own character motivation offstage as much as on it.

"What writing advice really pisses you off?" was one of my favourite questions to ask award-winning author and editor Dan Coxon. At the time (an interview for the Business of Writing module I convene at Roehampton University), his answer was one of the most prolific – and apparently innocuous – answers out there. Maybe you've heard it. Dan's the first to say if it works for you, great. But what are the potential issues behind it...? In this episode of the Writers' Gym, all exercises and...

One thing that becomes clear the more accomplished we get in any area of writing (or of anything else): the kind of writing somebody else is doing still looks to us more like "real" writing... Dr Mike Jones is a rock lyricist (notably for Latin Quarter, including their Top 20 hit Radio Africa), reader and lecturer in music at Liverpool University. His work includes an MA programmes in partnership with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and another in the Beatles: Music Industry and...

A painter doesn't need permission to mix any colours they like. Yet, as writers, our memories, imagination, observations and questions about the world and ourselves come with "not supposed to go there" stamped all over them. How can we give ourselves permission to beat those blocks? Multi-award-winning author Jennifer Steil joins Rachel Knightley to talk about about what kept her writing through kidnap, cancer treatment and everyday life in the three countries she calls home. This is a...