Authors Electric

The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien  “Not everybody knows how I killed old Phillip Mathers, smashing his jaw in with my spade; but first it is better to speak of my friendship with John Divney because it was he who first knocked old Mathers down by giving him a great blow in the neck with a special bicycle-pump which he manufactured himself out of a hollow iron bar. Divney was a strong civil man but he was lazy and idle-minded. He was personally responsible for the whole idea in the first place. It was he who told me to bring my spade. He was the one who gave the orders on the occasion and also the explanations when they were called for. "I was born a long time ago…” That’s the opening of The Third Policeman,   and it contains a psychology of psychopathy. The cool, unemotional account of a violent murder. The ranking of murder as equal in importance to the manufacture of a bicycle-pump, and the instant shifting of blame. Flann O’ Brien is known as a ‘comic w...

My March offering is a return to the fantasy genre of my youth, in that it's huge (650+ pages) and has 'Dragon' in the title. I picked it up in a local charity shop as part of a five books for £1 bundle, so although I've not come across this author before it was worth the risk. The Dragon Republic Dragons are beloved of fantasy fiction, whether telepathic and beautiful like those of Anne McCaffrey's  Pern  books, or fearsome and monstrous like those of George RR Martin's  Game of Thrones.  Often they have dragon riders, who are vulnerable in that they form fierce bonds with their mounts and feel pain when those dragons are injured or die. However, the dragons of  The Dragon Republic turn out to be warlords rather than actual flying reptiles, and as a dragon fan I was slightly disappointed to find that none of these warlords ride any kind of fantasy creature. In fact, although there are a few references to wings, I am still not quite sure if any of the ...

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos When I started writing seriously many years ago, I read as many author interviews as possible. I still find them engaging and informative.   I love being on both sides of the questioning too as I sometimes appear on other writers’ blogs and regularly interview authors for an online magazine.   Inventing interesting questions to draw the author into conversation is a joy and challenge but this is where being a writer helps. I know what I would want to know and start my questioning from there.   I found it helpful years ago to work out how I would answer questions put to writers should the happy day come around when I became a published author. I found that paid because it helped me get used to the idea of talking about what I write. It does seem an odd thing to do when you start. How are you coming across? When you talk about your characters and stories, does it make sense to those listening? Certain que...

We find it relatively easy to write about what we see and what we hear – and smell and taste are important when it comes to food. C.S.Lewis was well aware that food is the way to a child’s heart before puberty strikes. But what about sensation? Touch, temperature, proprioception? When you're so numb you don't know where bits of your body are in relation to other bits? It’s very important as far as pleasure is concerned, and also pain if you’re writing a torture scene, but describing extreme heat and extreme cold need a bit of thought. How easy is it to remember what it felt like, when you’re sitting at your computer in a centrally-heated room? Jumping into a pool whilst on holiday somewhere hot brings immediate relief, along with cold drinks and ice cream. I’ve found it’s quicker to cool yourself down than it is to warm yourself up. Wrists and ankles are key – run your wrist under a cold tap and you can feel the cooler blood travel down your fingers. The fad for leg warmers in ...

  Say you're writing a novel that's whipping along when you find yourself at a narrative block: a small but critical section--maybe just five to ten pages--must take place in a small town that you have no way to get to. You can't believe your rotten luck. The town is just eighty miles away and though you don't drive yourself, surely you can there by train, city bus, Greyhound bus, Greyline Tour bus. No such luck. Alright, then, what about Uber or Lyft? Well, they charge $150 each way. And if you have to spend the night, when all you want is a day trip, throw in hotel and maybe pet-sitting fare.  I found myself in precisely the same situation as I reached the home stretch of my WIP. I'd done a ton of research on Tombstone, the setting for a short scene. And Alex Shaw, a good FB friend and a terrific thriller writer, has recommended Google Earth to get the layout of any place and picture streets and buildings. Another friend, Cathy Geha, send me a link for an airport ...

  Most people would say that the objects we own and the things that surround us are inanimate. They have no life of their own and have no sensitivity to atmosphere or emotion. Why is it, then that when you’re in a hurry things start to play up? Last week my husband had an appointment at the doctor’s. We were ready to leave when he discovered that the buckle of his Swatch watch wouldn’t fasten. This occasionally happens even when everything is the right way round when you take the watch off at night, the following morning the spoke that slips into the groove to hold the strap has turned itself round. Putting this right is not easy and much cursing and fury followed. The ability of a chain to knot itself into an almost impossible tangle is another example. You put it away neatly coiled to find it has wound itself up with all the other chains into a serpent nest of frustration. The simple explanation is human error or clumsiness but this does not explain the vagaries of the co...

  Ignoring Alva is a wonderful new novel by Emilie Khair.  While recovering from a mild stroke, Alva’s vivid dreams of daring exploits spark a restless desire to break free from the predictability of her quiet life. Her sister Millie—a practical yet spirited counterpart—is skeptical of Alva’s newfound boldness. But when Alva suggests an impulsive road trip, not even Millie can resist the call of adventure. What starts as a lighthearted escapade quickly spirals into a whirlwind of mischief, suspense, and unexpected heroics. As the journey unfolds, the siblings face long-buried secrets, stand up for the underdog, and confront dangerous foes with a fierceness they never knew they possessed. Through it all, Alva and Millie prove that courage, resilience, and the drive to rewrite your story aren’t confined by age—they’re only sharpened by experience. Witty, heartfelt, and brimming with surprises, Ignoring Alva is an unforgettable tale of sisterhood and reinvention. It proves that ...

Suffolk journalist Catherine Larner is planning a feature about Stars to Steer By  (to be published May 8 th 2025) and suggests the question ‘what have you taken away from the experience of writing it?’ I’m assuming that she doesn’t really want to hear what a slog the endnotes were or how frustrating it is to try to get permissions from publishing houses that were active 50 years ago but have since been taken over, amalgamated, gobbled up by the big multinationals who scarcely seem to know what companies they own, let alone what books might once have been on their list. She might like to know what a privilege it has been to receive help from absolute heroines of the sailing world -- Tracy Edwards, Naomi James, Nicolette Milnes-Walker, -- and generally from everyone, female or male, who I asked about the project. In my acknowledgements I say truthfully that I have never written such a collaborative book. Even some of the yacht clubs who have historically been thoroughly stuffy (i...

  I’m not long back from a few days’ break. Nothing too exciting, just a wee trip from Scotland to Yorkshire to spend a few days with my parents. The original idea was to take one of the kids with me and use up some of my annual leave before the end of the leave year. Due to various factors beyond my control, I ended up going on my own, and for five days did very little apart from eat, drink, and generally relax. No laptop, or anything like that – the plan was not to write for a few days and spend quality time with my folks. But a couple of things happened whilst I was down there – firstly, I met their cleaner, and it turns out she’s a writer, too. We had a very engaging chat about writing, and the wider process of publishing including book design, illustrations – she writes for small children – and so on. What occurred to me was, despite the fact we write in completely opposite genres, a lot of the considerations we had were the same, albeit sometimes arriving there ...

 At the moment I have a novel project well under way, so naturally I am prey to various other distractions, such as watching a tv series I like to think of as 'Climbing Amazingly Colossal Buildings', writing up the minutes for a meeting from a couple of weeks ago in time for the next meeting which has arrived more quickly than I expected, and setting up a new youth page on my local community centre website. So of course I've also volunteered to take part in a local event for International Women's Day. I didn't really intend to do this, but I talked myself into it because my suffragette great-aunt has been on my mind lately, which in turn is because her name has somehow got on to the shortlist to have a new school named after her. I had better not mention where the school is or what the exact circumstances have been, as her shortlisting has turned out to be somewhat contentious for various reasons.  When I volunteered, I suppose I had imagined giving a presentation...