Authors Electric

  Have I ever told you about the day I went to Heaven for the first time? Via St Pancras? I arrived, not by a straight and narrow way, but via a broad and inviting set of steps.                                                                                          from Wikipedia   Of course, as St Petra explained to me, you can’t just walk in; there’s a ticket system. I was crestfallen at that, thinking I had come on this long and difficult journey only to be denied. What saved me and gained me admission was a dirty,   crumpled-up letter in the bottom of my bag.     It bore the logo of Barefoot Books. ‘Oh, you’re a WRITER,’   said St Petra, touching her forelock as a mark of respect, ‘Come and take your rightful place, O Best Beloved.’ Or something like that. So in I went and found my beautiful, my own, space at a shining desk with a lamp and a screen on which I could order any book I wanted from the catalogue – that is, effectively, ANY book. I searched the catalogue, I inputted m

  Hello everyone. I wanted to write today about where I got my inspiration for Irin Solis, the first character that you meet in my debut novel, Sisterhood. The name Irin means ‘peace’ and the surname Solis means ‘comfort’. I thought that together they would be a good fit for someone descended from a midwife. The birthing of babies has always been womans’ work. As far back as records go women have delivered the babies of their sisters, daughters and friends. They were usually women who were mothers themselves and so they attended these births with knowledge and compassion. Traditionally, the treatment of illness, injuries, pre and postnatal care, were not seen as a profession. The cures and remedies were part of the culture of the area and passed down from mother to daughter and shared between certain women in the community, especially those with a knowledge of herbs and plants. The human body was not understood scientifically and so old wives tales and superstitions in the form of char

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. I sometimes write all dialogue flash fiction. It’s an interesting challenge. It works best kept short. I usually come in at 300 words or under for this kind of writing. I have a soft spot for writing dialogue so this is fun to do. I have to watch myself for conversational ping-pong as I could get my characters talking and talking and talking! But for this kind of story I can do that and get away with it by keeping it to the point. These stories are often ones where I know what the last line will be first. This is sometimes a humorous punchline or a twist ending but I then work out my story backwards to get a to a logical starting point. What led to this conversation finishing with this ending? These tales are best limited to two characters (though I sometimes get either or both to refer to others who are “off stage” but are clearly contributing to the story in their absence). I name my characters early and repeat names

When I started my MA, many years ago, I was asked who I would like to be able to write like. I didn’t want to be able to write like anyone else, I wanted to write like me. There wasn’t anyone else who sounded the way I wanted to sound (I was writing for radio at the time). Until now. Sally Wainwright, the author of Happy Valley, hits the spot. She combines heavy drama with social commentary, fantastic characterisation, superb plotting and the touches of humour which make her work so memorable. Make ‘em cry, then make ‘em laugh. If you can elicit a physical reaction your viewer or reader will remember it, as it’s a memory substantiated by more than looking and listening.  Contrast is everything. The main character, the supremely tough and capable Sergeant Catherine Cawood, is brilliantly played by Sarah Lancashire. She tries to stop someone setting fire to himself by introducing herself to both him and us as follows: “I'm Catherine, by the way. I'm forty-seven. I'm divorce

  Monday evening presented me with the perfect reason for buying more notebooks. As homeschooling my children kept me away from shops, I am still looking for some wonderful ones, although I might have to check my shelf to see if any of my ten spare notebooks will do. They’re spare for a reason, of course, so they might be too nice to be actually used... I have been part of a wonderful group of History Writers for a while, even though my one slightly historical book is a time travelling Viking novella. As soon as I wrote it, just for fun, I realised how interesting the Viking Era was and how interesting research is. Viking Ferry isn’t particularly historically accurate, but as soon as I was done, I started thinking of a Viking series. We live in an interesting house, in a wonderful village. The house was built in 1817, and looking around the village, I wondered what kind of things could have gone wrong in the past. I always wanted to write a murder mystery, so I started looking into

  Books don't come more suspenseful than this red-blooded actioner. And not since Virgil has an author committed to writing daily only a couple of lines. Moreover, not even Virgil wrote a book with no words-- only numbers. More Reb MacRathian nonsense? Only if you don't believe in the amazing maze comprised of our writing, our lives, and our health. This new book resulted from a recent annual wellness exam in which my grades were mostly good-- except for my blood pressure. In the mid-170s, it was alarmingly high. The doctor showed me the following chart: His immediate goal was to get my BP down to 130, which would still leave me in danger as you can see from the chart. Ultimately, we must reach the green zone:  "Less than 120." For God's sake! How the hell was I to live to write the great books I might still have within me? I'd already abandoned alcohol, cigarettes, coffee, red meat, white bread; and I'd greatly reduced my intake  dairy, sugar, and sodium.