Authors Electric

What does BBC Radio 4’s long-running, much-loved soap opera about Everyday Farming Folk have against Hallowe’en? BBC Radio 4's The Archers The Archers began on 1st January 1951, as a 15-minute daily serial intended to spread the word about new developments in farming. It centred on 3 or 4 farming families, most of whom were called Archer, with the addition of the Aldridges at the posh end of the scale, balanced by the Grundys and Horrobins at the other. The characters took off, and a wealth of other storylines got woven in, some for comic effect, some for their gripping dramatic pull, but most as vehicles for messages about Good Social Behaviour. No one is ever racist, for instance, except in a clumsy way, because unless one of the villagers says something objectionable (and, needless to say, quite out of character), how are we, the listeners, to grasp that a newcomer to the Ambridge village is from an ethnic minority? Halloween pumpkins... at least they're not plastic. Photo ...

                                                       Cover of my forthcoming novel; artwork by Cody Sexton. Since publishing my books, I have learned a lot. It’s fair to say that new writers are going to be unaware of all the pitfalls that may lie ahead. You can wait forever to secure a traditional contract, and even then, you most likely will have to do a lot of the marketing and promotion yourself. You can use a ‘hybrid’ model, which has worked out for me once, but I would be unlikely to do it again. You do have to be wary of being trapped in contracts that just aren’t that beneficial in the long game. Because the reality is, you will start by simply wanting to leave a ‘legacy’ behind, and then you will start to realise that your work is worth money that you are simply not getting. There are all sorts of publishing model...

This didn't happen at Hallowe'en. It happened at Christmas. But hey-ho, Hallowe'en, Christmas, they're both times for spooky stories. Especially if they're true. It was the Christmas when I was 15.  I usually shared a bedroom with my sister, but she was staying with relatives, so I had my bedroom to myself.  I was the last of the family to bed, and lay awake reading, my bedroom door closed.  Lying there, I heard my brother walk from his room to the bathroom. Then he walked from his room to the bathroom again – only without first returning to his bedroom.  After that he went up and down the stairs several times – sometimes without bothering to come back up before going down again.  Sometimes he started down the stairs without having walked across the landing to get there. At first I explained these gaps in the footsteps as my inattention, but soon I started to be annoyed.  Sometimes the footsteps started ...

 I have an October treat for you! I'm late in posting this due to a family emergency so apologies for the short notice. I'm taking part in the Smart Women Detectives Promo over on Bookfunnel. For the whole of October, there are lots of free short stories or novellas available for you to download via Bookfunnel. Click on this link to find out more  Smart Women Detectives (bookfunnel.com)   So, what do I have for you? Well, I wrote a short story that links Left For Dead with Rewind . I had planned to release it before Rewind 's publication but I didn't get the time. Although DI Bernie Noel is in it, it's more from LCI Leigh Roberts' point of view. Readers seemed to love Leigh and I wanted to explore her a bit more. I'm particularly proud of the cover because my daughter created it for me. Ready to catch the last bus home? Local Crime Investigator Leigh Roberts of Wiltshire Police has never given up hope of catching the Swindon bus attacker. Based on recent in...

Misnomers (i.e. a name incorrectly or unsuitably applied) can make me amused, creative, irritated or angry, depending on context. They often arise quite innocently because something was named long before its correct nature was known, or because an earlier form of something has since been replaced by something to which the name no longer really applies. Some historical misnomers of this type include  tinfoil  (now aluminium), pencil lead  (now graphite), and  MOT test  (the UK's Ministry of Transport no longer exists). Moving into the 21st century, we have the  smartphone -  not just a phone any more, and arguably only as smart as whoever is using it... until we get  Artificial Intelligence (AI),  of course, another potential misnomer since intelligence surely applies to organic brains and not to a vast store of digital knowledge programmed by soaking up everything those brains have produced? A smartphone these days is also a camera, satn...

 Alicia Sammons I worked as an editor for the better part of my too long professional career. Editing can be demanding, but I never thought of it as a particularly glamourous or creative calling. Over the years I climbed my way up from proofreader to senior editorial positions on magazine, major metropolitan newspapers, and editing for independent publisher.  I always felt in awe of writers and aspired to their magic with words, an assessment shared in popular culture. We see a lot of juicy movies about authors like The Hours and Midnight in Paris. On the other hand, editors can't get much respect even from their writers, including a few authors with whom I've worked.  Vladimir Nabokov  sneered at them as ‘pompous avuncular brutes.’  Robert Gottlieb edited books of  Joseph Heller ,  John Le Carré ,  John Cheever , and  Toni Morrison . The legendary Maxwell Perkins  edited and famously mentored Lost Generation icons F. Scott Fitzgerald ...

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. I love writing prompts. I use a wide variety ranging from the various random generators to story cubes to picking a proverb or phrase from books and then writing a tale around this saying. They are excellent as themes. I also use books of prompts and have contributed to some too. As I write a lot of flash fiction and short stories, I always need ways of coming up with ideas. I focus on getting the characters outlined because for me characters make or break a story. But I’ve found the prompts have been brilliant in giving me my themes (and these often trigger the ideas for the characters to service said themes well). I enter competitions regularly too. Some have open themes but the majority I go in for have a set theme. I’ve found writing to prompts is useful practice for writing to competition themes set by someone else.  I also like mixing up the prompts I use as this (a) keeps me on my creative toes and (b) me...

  The sheer beauty of the underwater world is amazing I taught myself to read in secret whilst sitting on the lavatory. The girl next door was six months older than me, and started school six months earlier. She lorded it over me, saying she could read but I wouldn’t be able to until I went to school, so I felt I wasn’t allowed to tackle books yet although I really wanted to. I would struggle through a sentence of Brer Rabbit until it made sense, and then the next time I locked myself away in the only room in which that was permitted I would read my practised sentence, and then struggle through the next one. Consequently, I could read before I went to school but I kept it very quiet. The very first book that I couldn’t stop reading was The Deep Sea Horse , by Primrose Cumming. I don’t know how old I was, probably about six or seven, but I remember my mother saying “Put that book down now Elizabeth, it’s tea time”, and my father (noticing how engrossed I was) shaking his head at her...

  Due to circumstances beyond my control, this is going to be a rather late and very short post. It may also be a salutary one for anyone who is self-publishing through KDP. “Vladimir the Vampire’s Cat,” is a picture book for kids, written by me and illustrated by Duncan Bourne. It’s a project we’ve been working on for over a year and since neither of us had ever done anything like this before it’s been somewhat of a learning curve. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Duncan’s wife, the wonderful Michelle then I don’t think we’d have ever got to this stage. I write and Duncan draws but she has the expertise in formatting, which is what we needed. A few of weeks ago, we spent an afternoon pooling our talents and produced what we thought was going to be the final version of our book.   It looked great and we were all pleased with the results so we scheduled publication day and then, almost as an afterthought sent away for proof copies. When they arrived it seemed, at first glan...

The author's eyewear collection. Congratulations on your membership in the exclusive worldwide club of those who are blessed to wear glasses.  Worldwide, the club's membership has over four billion people.  In the UK alone, 77% of women and 68% of men wear specs. In t he US those percentages are 50% and 42%. The club has a long history. Far longer than many might think. Some credit Salvino D'Armate with the invention of eyewear in 1317. Others find references to eyewear as far back as 1000 BC. The evolution continued for hundreds more years for reasons of function, not fashion: Ben Franklin's bifocals...monocles...pince-nez. But all iterations of 'glasses' expressed their own bifocal vision: those who wore them were weak physically and bookish. ( A recent study by the College of Optometrists confirms that today 33% of adults think those in glasses look more professional and 43% think they look smarter.) And no survey was needed to tell that a boy growing up in t...

I suppose if you've read posts by me here, or on my own blog, before, you know I am not fond of NaNoWriMo. First of all, the pressure! Second, the competition! Third, at least in the USA, the month! In the USA we're finishng our semesters; we're, if we're gig workers in a creative industry, often times closing down a job or a show; we're getting ready for the massive holiday extravaganza that is the USA from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day, and that kinda starts, now, before Halloween! MADNESS! It's a frenetic time when I never have enough time to myself, so much so that I often get really run down. Have you, in general, because life is just too busy, white-knuckled it through a holiday season? I have, and I think all of that torque I experience at that time of the year has often lead to family disagreements as well. Now... let me get a novel done too! SIDE NOTE: If the holidays are slanted from pleasure and connection into obligation and work for you, please...