Authors Electric

It so happens that May is a singularly appropriate month for the following grammar grumble. Call me a pedant - sorry, madam, no pedant available just now but more will be arriving shortly ( cue howls of joyous mirth ) - but Things Have Got to a Pretty Pass. No, really.  Winston Churchill: a ban on prepositions ending sentences was a practice up with which he would not put. It’s not about split infinitives. Nor about prepositions not being allowed at the ends of sentences (up with which Winston Churchill famously refused to put). Nothing can be done with ‘she spoke to my friend and I’, I’m afraid, except to stand doggedly by me and try not to wince when others don’t. Thing is, all these infelicities (though the preposition rule is not an infelicity, Churchill was right there) don’t muddle meanings. You know exactly what people are saying, even if the grammar isn’t perfect.  No. What flummoxed me a few days ago was this sub-heading in The Times , in a story about the Factor 8 ...

What did I do in March? I was smitten, hip and eye.   The Hip I'd had severe arthritis in my left hip for two or three years. I used to go to the gym and I loved walking in the countryside, but the pain was so bad, I became pretty much house-bound. My partner and friends nagged me to ask for a referral to a consultant, and after the usual delay (thank you so much, Tories),  I finally saw a Trauma and Orthopaedic consultant  in December '23.  He  glanced at my x-ray and said simply, "That hip joint is utterly destroyed. The only possible treatment here is a total hip replacement."   I was placed on the waiting list.  Friends and family immediately ganged up on me again. My younger brother and sis-in-law work within the NHS and know its little ways. My Scots partner has always been one for striding to the front and insisting (politely but very firmly, in that brogue which the English often seem to find scary) on being heard. Then there were the members o...

This winter we've had one storm after another, each wilder than the last, and often combined with heavy rain (the Hollywood type where they throw buckets at windows so you can really see it on screen). But spring has arrived in Devon this week with trees everywhere bursting into pink and white blossoms in preparation for a summer of fruit. Blossom can be seen in its full glory at  National Trust properties  around the country, with several events planned to show the flowers at their best (see link for details). Even a walk through your local town might treat you to a show - or, on a windy day, maybe a shower? - of delicate petals from the trees in urban parks and gardens. Cherry blossom, in particular, is beautiful at this time of year, and is celebrated across Japan as Hanami  or "flower-viewing" - a long tradition dating back to the first century, when the emperor and his court would party under the flowering trees and write poetry as an aristocratic pastime. Hanami - M...

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. I love author interviews whether I conduct them (for an online magazine) or if I’m reading or listening to them. I always learn something of interest. I  find how writers go about producing their work: an endlessly fascinating topic as we all approach writing in different ways. I’m not averse to picking up good tips either! What is always encouraging is in finding out other writers also go through the rejection business. It is good to know you’re not alone on this. When I conduct interviews, I want to find out what has led to the book which is being launched or how the author is making progress since I last spoke to them.  I also like to ask for someone’s three top marketing tips because there is so much here, I don’t think any one writer can (a) know them all and (b) there is often common ground as to what works best for more than one author I’ve talked to. I see that as being good ground to follow myself!...

 Every so often you come across a book where what people are wearing is described in great detail. After a while it becomes annoying as you want to get on with the story, not the author’s attempt at visually fixing a character in your head with irrelevant detail. Their mannerisms, disabilities and speech patterns may be far more effective. So if you’re going to describe someone’s clothing, it must be important. My first example is from my children’s book The Divide , set in alternative world, where the different sorts of human-like mythical beings are distinguished by the colour of their clothing. "Tansy had never been to Tiratattle before, and Ramson was pretending to be more familiar with it than one school visit could possibly have made him. He refused point-blank to ask directions, and denied outright that they’d been past the chalice stall three times. The shops were full of candles and incense burners, their designs quite unlike anything Tansy had ever seen in Geddon. There ...

You may be in either camp or be a hybrid, as I am. In the course, though, of writing a novel we may all come to the same block: we know where to go  and exactly what to do there...but we can't seem to figure out how to get there smoothly and efficiently. I found myself on a roll with my WIP when the ending of the seventh chapter threw me for a loop. Consider: Chapter 7 ends with two of the three main characters--let's call them A and B--engaged in risky business in a small Arizona town. They've arranged for C to follow them days later on a different pretext, apparently looking for work. But, unknown to them, something has happened in Tucson. Chapter 8. Change of POV. Cut to character C, left behind in Tucson. Because of what's happened, he chooses to leave a day early though he can't reach A and B by phone. The challenge: getting him on the road and to his destination, while filling readers in on the Tucson tragedy. Road trip? Flashbacks? I tried a dozen different t...

  In high school I remember that the boys seemed interested in girls, but that what seemed important to them was that there was a girl, there, for them, but not so much which particular one, or the permanence of it. The girls I knew were certainly different from that. What mattered to my female friends, and to me too, was yes, there must be a boy, but it must be a specific one, and never changing. What often happened was that girls did things they weren’t very interested in doing, like watching college football, or waited around doing nothing, just in case the guy wanted to hang out. In that time and place, and under those differing expectations, I think that the boys were generally happier than the girls. And wasn't it the same in our homes? We all had what you would reasonably describe as good fathers, but, to a man, they went off on most weekends to do their men things with other men. Sons, of a certain age, could sometimes go too, but the daughters and wives were left at home. ...