Authors Electric

Three things to celebrate this month Firstly the pARTyLines Literary Caberet on Tues 8th Oct at The Old Joint Stock Pub & Theatre.   This was organised by Writing West Midlands as part of the Birmingham Literary Festival. The range of performances was tremendous and depth from performance poetry to prose and songs You will notice I am not in the photo…    There is a reason for that. Those who know me well may recall that this is the third occasion when I have been called upon for curtain calls and the cry of ‘she’s in the bar’ has gone up.  Its becoming something of a habit! It sounds bad – but hand on heart I had one drink all evening and happened to be at the bar buying it at that very moment.  In my defence if the nerve wobbling act of reading to a full house (standing room only) and little old me being sandwiched in the running order between two professional actors didn’t earn me a large G&T I don’t know what would. But hey – no big d...

I am reaching the end of the first draft of a new novel. It is a while since I've worked on anything entirely new and I had forgotten how much I love first drafts. It also always surprises me how fast I can write one. Two or three months at the most. My technique when writing a novel is first to plan and then to get the whole thing down on paper from beginning to end. The rule is that I'm not allowed to stop - no matter how bad it gets. The plot may cease to make sense, I may change all the characters names two or three times, a character may be born during the Second World War and then become a teenager during the 1980s - but still I keep going. This is what works for me. I know that other writers work in entirely different ways. But I need to see the whole book from beginning to end before I can progress. And the process is so exciting. You can write whatever you want. No need to think about subtly, nuance, detail, research, credibility. It is fine to write as...