Write Smarter with Gráinne O’Brien

Be inspired by the greats. They are there to guide you, not punish you.

Gráinne O’Brien

Some of you may recall that I used to run a weekly series a few years back called Irish Writers Wednesday, featuring, as the title suggests, a wonderful selection of writers who were all very generous with their words and advice. A few weeks back I put out a call for something similar but, this time, I was unspecific about country of origin. What I was looking for were writers who were willing to share nuggets of gathered knowledge with us all, a lessons learned type of blog series. So I am delighted today to introduce you all to my first guest, Gráinne O’Brien.

Gráinne O’Brien is an author and a bookseller. Her bestselling debut YA novel Solo was the winner of the An Post Book Award Teen and YA Book of the Year in 2025, and has been shortlisted for the An Post Book of The Year, Waterstones Children’s Prize, the Books Are My Bag Young Adult Award, and the KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Awards.  It was nominated for the 2026 Carnegie Medal for Writing, and named a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2025. In Spring 2027, Little Island will publish her second novel for young adults, Glass.

Originally from County Clare, Gráinne is now based in Limerick City with her husband and two cats. She hates mushrooms. Alongside her writing career, she is part of the management team at Kennys Bookshop and Art Gallery in Galway.

My name is Gráinne O’Brien. I am a (reformed) writing advice addict.

If there is a book on the craft of writing, I have read it. In my quest to become a publisher writer I sought guidance from the masters. On Writing, Release the Bats, The Seven Plots, Bird By Bird, Zen in the Art of Writing, Story Genius, Writing Down the Bones. You name it, I read it.

After each book, or workshop, or YouTube video, I would attempt to apply every piece of advice to my own writing life. Let’s try to write 1,000 words a day for a month. Let’s write every single day without fail for a year. Get up at 5am every morning for three months to do Morning Pages? Easy peasy.

I am not that woman.

I fall out of bed twenty minutes before I need to leave the house. I have thirty half-filled notebooks all with a different project and I will not mix notebooks. To me planning is just another way I procrastinate what I should be doing.

I would dedicate myself to a new way of writing. And I would fail. And I would be disappointed in myself. I would admonish myself for weeks after.

This is why you haven’t made it; I would tell myself; this is why you aren’t getting a book finished and published. If I could not commit to (insert advice I had taken from whichever book it was that I was looking for salvation in at that particular time), there was the answer. I was not making it because I wasn’t finishing anything.

During one of the lockdowns a creativity coach I followed on Instagram was offering free online sessions. In desperation I signed up.

She asked me how much time I could realistically commit to writing every day. I took a moment and said, fifteen minutes.

“Is that what you really wanted to answer?” She asked. 

“No. I wanted to say five minutes. That’s what I believe the answer is.”

That’s what we agreed to do for two months.

Write for five minutes a day.

Without any intention of building on it. Without planning to stretch it into ten minutes, or fifteen minutes, or three hours. If I did my five minutes that day, I was welcome to go about my life. Free. Safe in the knowledge that I had honoured this commitment to myself and my work. If I forgot, and was getting into bed, and that phone reminder popped up asking had I done my five minutes, I would grumble and pull out my notebook and set a timer.

A lot of the time, I did more than five minutes. I would be in the flow so I would turn off the timer and keep going. Sometimes I leapt up from my desk the second the timer went off having written twenty words. Sometimes I sat and stared at a blank page for five minutes. It all counted.

A lot of the first draft of Solo was scrawled down in these five-minute sprints.

After years of ensuring my own creative misery by trying to apply someone else’s advice to my own writing life, is to not try to do it. I still read books on the craft of writing. I love them. Now I treat them like tapas rather than ala carte.

If I come across a method I want to try, I consider how it could fit into my life, and I give it a go. If I am struggling to focus or write something, or that old voice starts to whisper that I am never going to finish anything ever again. I go back to my five minutes a day.

Read the books. Do the workshops. Listen to the podcasts. Immerse yourself in the joy of reading about another person’s craft. Be inspired by the greats. They are there to guide you, not punish you. Play around and find your version of “five minutes a day”. Set goals that are realistic to your life and your creative process. If you fail to meet them, adjust them, don’t beat yourself up.

Follow my advice. Don’t always follow the advice.

https://www.grainneobrienwriter.com/

 

[ About Solo ]

A lyrical YA verse novel about a teenager’s journey to heal from heartbreak, rediscover her inner strength, and find harmony again – perfect for readers who love emotional, empowering coming-of-age stories.

Daisy can feel like a solo act at home. On the outside of her twin brothers’ intense relationship, she leans towards her parents, particularly her father, for support. As a passionate classical musician, she is not wildly popular at school, but she has one close friend and a life filled with musical performance. Her life is turned upside down when her boyfriend suddenly breaks up with her, and Daisy is left disconnected from her one true love, music.

When she makes a new friend at school, mysterious Flora, Daisy finds a glimmer of peace in her chaotic life. Just as everything seems to be getting better, they all fall apart. Family tensions heighten as Daisy’s dad falls ill and Daisy needs to decide should she find her way back to who she was or look towards who she is going to become.