Authors Electric

I was looking for something to repost this month - way too much real-life going on at the moment with both parents incapacitated in various ways and a big birthday (and party) coming up in the next couple of weeks. I first posted this blog below in December 2016 and it struck me how little really has changed. Plus  ça  change and all that, but 2026 is scarily close now in early 2024 ... 2016. A year of change. I wonder when they look back on 2016 in the years and decades to come, whether they will say that 2016 was the turning point, the pivotal moment when the world reached some kind of critical mass? I say they because I’ll be 53 in January and while I’m not planning on leaving anytime soon, this isn’t my world anymore – this world belongs to my daughter and her generation, to make the best of as they see fit with whatever legacy we’ve left them. Brexit and the US elections. Neither gave the result that was expected and both, I think, made people sit up and realise ...

Snail... a beautiful shell... Today (May 2022) I walked into the garden to survey the plants, and remove any visible slugs or snails. These go, with a bit of human help, over the back wall into the sports ground beyond: where they happily play cricket, rugby, or football, according to the season. A fantasy of course: in reality they land in the wild grassy bit, to continue their quiet, slimy lives chewing on dandelions or being caught and eaten by various birds and creatures who live there… Coming to write a blog, hunting inspiration, I discovered in my ‘blog ideas’ folder, this, labelled Written before ‘Brexit’ : here, it’s updated... but first...  *** So, writing in 2012... A couple of weeks back, I posted on Facebook photos of a walk we took at the weekend. It was a showy-off piece about the beauty of the natural world —  here is a lovely place, and I live so near it. Something we don’t often think about — our thankfulness for home. Inevitably, most of us live where th...

The good old 12 days of Christmas... remember those? *DISCLAIMER: The following post was written last week and scheduled ahead of time, so is now out of date due to the latest round of last-minute changes to our lives under the UK Government's emergency coronavirus rules. But I don't have the time or patience to write another blog now, and it wouldn't be a very entertaining one if I edited it down to just one day. So, without further apology, here is last week's version (the sentiment is pretty much the same). On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me a phone mast in a pine tree. On the second day of Christmas, my true love sent to me two socially-distanced doves, and a phone mast in a pine tree. On the third day of Christmas, my true love sent to me three quarantined hens, two socially-distanced doves, and a phone mast in a pine tree. On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me four silent birds, three quarantined hens, two socially-distanced d...

I've followed British politics for decades - often with mixed feelings and complex opinions. The House of Commons shenanigans seem to veer from comically farcical set-pieces (Prime Minister's Questions) to the momentously important ... dare I mention it ... Brexit. This is not the place to explore the rights and wrongs of any decisions. But I have, as a writer, been intrigued by the process - and what we can learn from it. We can think of it in terms of a traditional three-act structure: Act One: the decision to hold the referendum the campaign, with lies told and believed (by some) the crisis: the result and resignation of the Prime Minister resolution: we have a new Prime Minister Act Two: the triggers of Article 50, separation discussions begin the apparently insurmountable problem of the border with Ireland rears its head. (No one explains why this was not noticed at the campaign stage, even though 'ordinary people' had raised the issue) undeter...

  Christmas Day 2017. Joy to all women, children and men in this season of pantomimes and circuses. We seem to be living through a seven-ringed conflation of the two.  Ho, ho, ho ho.  Overseeing it all we have our very own grey Mother Goose and what a gigantic goose she is. Off she goes to church, the Vicar's daughter, in her Dolce and Gabbana shoes costing £600 while her government cheerfully cuts and delays benefits to the disabled and barely-managing across the land. Ho ho ho.   Behind her, the stage is filled with mugging, smirking, prat-falling clowns tumbling from Stage Right and, as ever, these clowns aren't remotely funny... But they are bigly sleazy, scary and sinister. You have to appreciate the sheer audacity of the humour. Shiny, smarmy 'Calm down, dear,' Clown Cameron completely misjudges his referendum, trips over it and falls smack on his face. But up he skips, to announce that he will see the negotiations with the EU throug...

Today is the winter solstice - the shortest day of the year for those of us who live the northern hemisphere - a time for reflection, fire ceremonies involving holly and mistletoe, and other pagan traditions now more commonly associated with Christmas. However you celebrate this time of year, it is also when newspapers start printing their 'best of year' lists. Not to be outdone, here is my author 'best of' 2016 (which might seem small and insignificant compared to everyone else's multi-book advances from major publishers, no. 1 best-selling supermarket titles, and research trips around the world on elephant-back, but then I am only 5' 4"). Empire of the Hare 1. Inspired by Brexit, I have republished my Library of Avalon Geoffrey Ashe Prize shortlisted story about Queen Boudicca's rebellion Empire of the Hare on my signature list for older readers. The publishing process took 12 hours rather than 12 months so if you're curious to know what B...

Like many writers I am not a natural games player; firstly because I have terrible trouble remembering the rules to anything and secondly because I seldom care whether I win or not, which rather removes the fun for those with competitive urges that need scratching. When I received an email out of the blue, however, asking if I would like to take part in a literary panel game called “Ex Libris” which would be recorded in front of a live audience at Blackwells in Oxford and then put out as a pod-cast, my interest was piqued. Ex Libris was invented by Oxford Games who also invented, among many others, Jenga, and has been available as a board game for some time. Quite why it hasn’t yet been snapped up by Radio 4 I can’t imagine. Anyhow, the BBC’s loss is Blackwells’ gain. The rules are simple. There are four contestants. One reads out a book title and author, with a very short plot synopsis. It could be anything from Blyton to Byron, Wodehouse to Wordsworth, Henry James to...

On Thursday, UK voters will be making a decision to REMAIN or LEAVE ("BREXIT") the European Union. I'm writing this post a little ahead of time, but already I have been bombarded by so many different 'facts' from both camps (mostly speculation and educated guesses, it seems) that I am becoming quite confused. So without trying to change your mind in any way at this late stage, I'm writing this post to try to decide what the referendum means for authors like me. 'Fact' 1: Authors are self-employed. This means we do not benefit from any kind of minimum wage, holiday or sick pay, workplace pension, or other employee sweeteners. So far I've heard that Brexit might cut wages by £38 per week , but also that Brexit could mean a rise in the wages of low-paid workers . Both of these headlines seem to be based on educated guesses working from Britain's  GDP (Gross Domestic Product) forecasts, and as far as I can work out neither outcome will direct...