Authors Electric

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.   Firstly, may I wish you a happy Christmas and New Year. Secondly, may I hope you receive many wonderful books as presents.   One of the joys of the post-Christmas and pre-New Year period is having more chances to curl up on the sofa with a good book. I make the most of this. My Christmas reading consists of books I receive on the big day (these always jump up my To Be Read pile) plus I catch up on writing magazines.    In the run up to Christmas I take in a number of related stories usually via film. To my mind, the best rendering of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is The Muppet Christmas Carol. Sir Michael Caine is superb in that. After that, comes the Patrick Stewart version.  Hogfather by the much missed Sir Terry Pratchett is the Discworld’s answer to Christmas and the story is a cracking thriller. Who is trying to get rid of the Hogfather and why and can Death, assisted by h...

Image Credits:- Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Photos of The Hayes, Swanwick were taken by me, Allison Symes.   I will still be at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School when this goes live. This event is my big writing event of the year. It is a joy to get together with other writers, enjoy a range of workshops, and convivial company. I come back inspired, refreshed, and tired! All that creative energy takes it out of me  but in a good way.  That made me wonder about holiday reading and writing. Do you read and/or write more or less during the summer? That answer may depend I suspect on whether you have school age children or other commitments. For me, the writing dips as I take much needed time off but the blessings of being a flash fiction writer is if I only write a couple of hundred words a day, I’ve probably completed a story in that word count. I also prepare and schedule blogs in advance including this one. I love scheduling! It means I can take ...

I mainly read books but split that between “proper” books and Kindle reading. I have a soft spot for audio books though.  My favourites are the Terry Pratchett Discworld series, which I think work well. (I go for the ones narrated by Sir Tony Robinson). When going on holiday to Scotland, a couple of those audio books will take my family and I from Hampshire to Sutherland, but we will have been entertained and had many a laugh on that trip. Then we have the joy of two more Pratchett audio books on the way home.   No matter how often I hear these, I always pick up on some new nuance I missed on previous hearings plus there is always the joy of re-hearing favourite lines.   Audio books are wonderful shared experiences too. Read a book, laugh out loud, and you’ll get some funny looks (or so I’ve been told, honest, guv).  Share an audio book and have two of you laugh out loud - not such a problem! Stories strong on dialogue work best for audio, I think. It is like e...