Authors Electric

As I type, the fearsome Beast from the East leaps from the sea, rises through the thermals (what thermals? The only thermals around here are my underwear) and tears at the window like Tove Jansson’s Groke, desperate for warmth and light and immediately blotting out any source of heat it encounters. In a few minutes I will venture out, take a brief walk along the cliff top (no danger of being blown over – only further inland) and hurry home to the sanctuary of my cosy flat. And yes, I’m aware of how fortunate I am – that there are rough sleepers out on the streets in these awful conditions, and yes, I’m ashamed to live in a country where this is allowed to happen. I’m also lucky to have the time and opportunity to write. And wow –   for some reason the muse has decided to pay me a few visits recently, after making herself scarce for quite a while. Having finally finished the second draft of a novel I’ve been working on for about two years, I seem to be inundated with new i...

Hello! I’m drafting this on November 1st and am currently up to my eyes in what can optimistically be described as ‘preparing for publication’. If you saw my office, you’d be more likely to think of the aftermath of a violent storm. Almost every writing manual and self-help book I own (and that’s a lot) lies open on my desk, or on the blanket chest next to my desk, or on the bunk beds behind it. In pride of place, I have to say, is Chris Longmuir’s Nuts & Bolts of Self-Publishing , which has so far proved invaluable in negotiating Microsoft Word-whatever-version-I-now-have – the one with the ribbon, anyway. Thank you enormously, Chris, for writing this and for going into so much helpful detail – enough, it seems, even for me. My computer desktop is cluttered too, with so many files open that I’ve lost count. Got into a panic yesterday when I discovered I had the same file open twice – which one contained my painstakingly added latest revisions and which didn’t? Major pani...