Authors Electric

  I’ve written the book. I’ve had it edited. I’ve proof read it over and over again and I’ve made use of the Word programme that reads your work aloud word by plodding word. In our house this is known as the boring voice due to the unending monotone which can make any piece, however interesting or exciting, sound totally and utterly deadly. It is so dire that I can only listen for twenty minutes maximum at any one time, otherwise I lose concentration and fail to pick up all the missing words and typos that it highlights. Having completed all this, I’ve formatted the e-book and uploaded it onto Kindle. All that remains to do is to upload the cover and I’m good to go. At this point I have ground to a complete and utter halt. It’s not as if I haven’t already designed the cover for “New Beginnings at Rosa’s.” I did this before I started preparing the e-book, but then the doubts crept in. The problem with covers, as I see it, is that they are all generic. Women’s fiction have a ...

Old Scratch Press (OSP), a poetry and short-form collective that I started in 2022, is seeking two new members to join us starting at the end of 2025. I began the press because authors who I had published in  Instant Noodles Lit Mag  asked me to publish a book of poetry for them. But, as a small indie publisher without a university backing me, it was a big ask to publish one-author-only books of poetry, because books of poetry typically do not sell in a press-sustaining way. I run my various publishing things with my long-suffering husband Dave , and we looked at what the major costs of producing a book are, beyond our time. We decided that, to do it, we'd pay some costs, and some of the labor that had costs associated with it beyond our personal time we could avoid if a group would come together and take on the labor. Basically I went to all the authors I'd worked with in anthologies or the lit mag, and asked them, "If you could trade a little labor for a published book,...

Margery Allingham on Mersea Island Very few people these days have read Margery Allingham’s first novel, Blackkerchief Dick , published in 1923 when she was aged 19. They are probably wise, though for the uber-Allingham nerd, there are definitely points of interest. But for anybody who writes fiction, its genesis is surely fascinating. The plot and characters for this first novel were, apparently, ‘given’ via a series of eight séances, initially undertaken by the Allingham family as a summer holiday pastime on Mersea Island in August 1921. From the first moment that I read through the slightly tired looking leaves of paper with transcription in capital letters and blunt pencil, that survive in Margery’s archive, I’ve felt convinced that here lies treasure for the literary psychologist.   The word séance probably makes this sound more occult than was intended. At its most basic level ‘playing the glass’ is a game.   A wineglass or tumbler is placed on a table and encircled ...

  It’s been a busy few days. Last week we visited a couple of castles, Linlithgow Palace first, most famous for its connection to Mary, Queen of Scots. My wife has had a fascination with Mary for as long as I’ve known her and the castle has been closed for the past few years for renovation work, so it was good to finally get there and soak up the atmosphere. As an aside, we also popped into the church that sits alongside, both for the stunning architecture and stained glass windows, and, for myself, to have a close look at the pipe organ they have – I’ve heard it in recordings of Bach and Widor, so it was good to see it in the flesh. Thursday was another train ride, over the Forth Rail Bride, to Aberdour, and have a look around the castle and gardens. This one will be familiar to anyone who’s watched Outlander, as it features as the Benedictine Monastery in the first series. One of the parts that really got me was the room with the painted ceiling. Yes, it’s faint, and...

June is National Crime Reading Month and we had a great time at West Barnes Library with Sam Frances and Rod Reynolds, talking about their female-led police detective books. Thanks to them for coming in and to the Friends of West Barnes Library who help me to organise the events. All Eyes On You  is the debut novel from Sam Frances, featuring DS Alice Washington. Sam describes the book as Bridget Jones meets Luther! Alice is a feisty and determined officer but still has the ability to majorly stuff up. Although it’s set in a fictional village in the UK, it’s not a cosy crime novel. Detective Casey Wray is back for a second outing in  Shatter Creek . The no-nonsense American cop is still dealing with police corruption on Long Island, as well as a shooting that disturbs the community. We talked about writing with different viewpoints and whether the authors are plotters, pantsers or plantsers! Rod tries to challenge himself with each book and maybe write it in a different way to...

Me: Write me a paragraph in the style of the crime author DJ Bennett  ChatGPT: Sure! D.J. Bennett is known for her gritty, atmospheric style, tight prose, and psychological depth, often weaving suspenseful plots with flawed but compelling protagonists. Here's a paragraph inspired by her tone and style:  The city breathed a low, oily fog that curled around the streetlamps and slid between the cracks in the pavement like something sentient. Detective Ava North leaned against the rusted rail of the overpass, cigarette forgotten in her fingers, eyes fixed on the pattern of blood just below—a smear like a dragged brushstroke, vivid against concrete. No witnesses, no weapon, just a girl with secrets stitched into her silence. And Ava, haunted by the same hunger that kept her up at night: the need to understand why people break, and how far they’ll go once they do.  Would you like me to write a few more paragraphs? Me: Yes, please  ChatGPT thinks for a few seconds and pr...