Authors Electric

  How can you resist a writing blog that starts with a view like this? In case you're wondering, that is the Caribbean Sea, and that's me writing. Before you think I spent two weeks drinking cocktails whilst channeling my inner Hemingway, that wasn't quite the case. Let me backtrack. I was fortunate to receive a research grant from the Society of Authors in order to got to Antigua and research Nineteenth Century Naval History and Antigua in the Nineteenth Century. Therefore, I was actually out there doing research. Yes, I really was and what an amazing time it was. So, how does one go about doing research in another country? The perfect starting point is by realising that it's not going to flow as smoothly as it does in the UK. You really are on Caribbean time. Now, don't get me wrong, everyone is lovely and really keen to help and support, it just takes a little longer than when it does in the UK. The people in the archives were amazing, bringing out a microfiche a...

  I have now been an author for eight years and my journey has been full of surprises most of them of the delightful kind. Occasionally, one comes along which isn't quite so pleasant, and I have learnt to roll with the punches. I was taken by surprise today that it was actually the 16th of the month, the day I was due to put this blog up. As I'm knee deep in an editing project I couldn't muster up a single original thought to help my fellow authors. It was then I realised that this could make a great topic in itself. What do we, as authors, do when life takes us completely by surprise?  If the surprise is a joyful one, the first thing we do is celebrate and party our little socks off. Well, maybe not party like it's 1999 as we are still in the middle of a covid pandemic. However, marking it in some way seems appropriate. I've had a couple of lovely surprises over the past few months. Firstly, I was given a grant by The Society of Authors for a research trip to Antig...