Debbi Voisey DublinWriter Creative Writing - Musings

Debbi Voisey DublinWriter Creative Writing

See What Happens When You Stop Aiming For Meaning

9/2/2026

I believe that what many writers struggle with is finding a meaningful story, and a reason for sitting down and putting words onto paper or the blank screen. It’s a really scary thing when you feel you have no idea what to write about, absolutely no idea what story to write. But if you wait for that to happen, you might never sit down at your desk. We have to release ourselves from the idea that this is required every time we write. It’s not. You are perfectly entitled to sit and write nonsense, because there will be something within that nonsense that jumps out – a word, a phrase, a sentence, a whole concept hidden in scribble. Read it back armed with a highlighter pen, and then put it away for a few days before you look again. Nine times out of ten, you will see a story or the seeds of one.

I try to write something every day and I use a variety of prompts to help me do this. I write down random words people say on the TV; I flick through books with my eyes closed and land on a word, or take the first three words from the top of the page; I use an online random word, phrase or sentence generator; I ask my husband to shout out words. Using random prompts and feeling free to just ramble is a way of keeping your writing muscles flexed, even when meaning and genius is not even on the menu.

If you find you lack inspiration, I do a one-hour prompts session every Monday at 5pm, and this is part of my Time to Write club, which is a yearly membership to open up your creativity and productivity. You can find details of all the things we do at Time to Write at the link at the bottom of this post, as well as the other courses and events I have. I would love to see you there.

In the meantime, tell me if you find it easier or harder to write when you don’t know where something is going – and what you do when you feel the ideas are drying up. Leave a message in the comments.

First Acceptance of 2026 - And The Truth About All That...

7/2/2026

I was really excited to get my first acceptance of the year the other day, from a journal called Slash Magazine, and it will be in print. I will post the link to the magazine here when it is available. They will also have a digital edition.

I am still ploughing on with my submissions - I am up to 45 as of this morning, which is more than one per day. It seems a lot, but I have already received rejections for some of my earlier ones, so have sent them straight back out, so the submissions total is more than the story total.

I am also still waiting for news of the Flash 500 competition, in which I have two contenders, so keep your fingers crossed for me.

I am very aware that many people feel disheartened about the ratio of their subs to their acceptances, and that is normal. It's doubly hard when you hear about people being accepted and published, but you don't know THEIR ratio. I have submitted 45 times this year, but I have had 13 rejections and just one acceptance. The secret is to just keep going, because writing stories is what you do, sending them out is part of the process, and rejections are just part of the deal while you wait for that magical yes!

Tell me how you feel about writing and submitting? Are you feeling downhearted? I'd love to hear because I know that by talking about it, everyone can see that we are all in the same boat. Tell me in the comments what your current writing "mood" is, and let's see if we can change it together.

While you are stopping by, I would love if you looked around this site and checked out my pages, which include many of my published stories, and also visited my Substack page and clicked on Subscribe if you have not already. You will get information about all my upcoming events, workshops and courses, and news about my upcoming publications. Click the button at the end of this post.

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend. Don't forget to comment.

Visit and Subscribe to my Substack

Monday Musing

2/2/2026

We are into February and it has taken until now to get my new website up and running! I had a hairy couple of weeks where all the work I did seemed to go missing, and I could not figure out how to transfer my domain, but now I have, and I am happy with my new look website.

I would love you to cast you eyes over the entire site to see what I have done, and let me know if there are any glitches you can see - broken links and the like. And also, read back in my Musings Blog here, because I started this at the beginning of the year and there are a few short things for you to read, and I welcome comments on anything I post here. Let me know what you have been up to.

And as far as works in progress go, I am still working on my novel, which I hope to have finished this year, and my goal of submitting at least one story per day for publication in the wide world is going very well - we are 33 days into the year and I have 42 submissions out there so far. I know it will slow down, but at the moment I am more motivated than I have been for a long time, and it's giving me a new vigour.

What goals did you set yourself in your writing, or in any other aspect of life, and how are things going? I would love to hear, so do comment.

Why not set this page as a bookmark and check back regularly? I would love you to share the writing journey with me, so I am always up for hearing your stories.

Have a great Monday!

Ploughing on...

19/1/2026

Time does seem to fly away if you don't keep your eye on it! We are more than halfway through January already and my life just seems to get busier by the day. I went away for three days last week on one of my regular retreats to a hotel in Manchester, in order to do some uninterrupted writing. I got so much done, and also ran a workshop for WestWord while I was there.

Now my task is to get my website domain transferred over smoothly before the end of this month, while also doing some reading work for Globe Soup and Fiction Factory.

I want to get my novel course written this month too.

What is keeping (or what kept, if you are reading this late) you busy through January, and what writing goals do you have for 2026?

Catching up

6/1/2026

I have started a new schedule of writing to make sure I reach my submission goals for the year. My goal is to submit at least one thing every day, and I have started to get up an hour earlier every day to do just that before everything else kicks in and the day runs away with me.

This morning I submitted one piece, yesterday I did 2, so I am up to 3 pieces in 6 days (start of new year hiccups, you know?!). Over the next day or two I will catch up and be on track.

The website is also coming together and my next task is to transfer a domain. Not easy for me, but I am hoping to have that cracked by the end of the week.

No rest for the wicked, as they say!

New Goals

5/1/2026

It's a little boring to be posting about goals at New Year, and you are all probably fed up of hearing them, but this is more for myself than anyone else, and since I am currently migrating my site from somewhere else, you probably won't see this for a couple of weeks, at which time, I can update you on how it all went.

So, goals I shall declare! And these are all writing related, as this is the side of my life I need most organisation.

1. Submit at least one piece of writing ANYWHERE every day

2. Finish my novel

3. Develop my new novella-in-flash idea

4. Read more books (I never get time for this)

All of these goals need me to become more disciplined with time, something I struggle with, mostly because so many things keep me occupied and I tend to neglect my more creative side to do things that pay the bills.

So - watch this space. I hope you will stay with me for the journey, and I welcome comments at all times on these posts, so let me know what you are up to, and what goals you have for your writing this year.