Authors Electric

Doors closed on originality? Photo by burcubyzt_85: https://www.pexels.com/ photo/vintage-wooden-door-with-distinctive- handles-36306962/ I learnt something new on X the other day. (And no, it wasn’t the latest cancellations, though there’s plenty of that going on).  I can’t remember how it came up, but both Lissa Evans (a writer I greatly admire) and I were intrigued to discover the origin of the term cliché. I am rather ashamed that I never bothered to look it up before. I’d always assumed it had something to do with the French for a door closing: a boring, hackneyed phrase shutting off originality. Goodness knows where I got that notion from because it’s definitely barking up the wrong tree (an idiom, by the way, not a cliché; a nice distinction I found going down rabbit holes online… oops, there goes another).  How to describe a beautiful sunset and bring it freshly to life. Instead, the verb clicher means ‘to click’. Its use as a noun goes back as far as 1825 and originat...

 My latest small book with Franklin Watts came out around ten days ago. It's the story of a dragon who's fooled by a princess into attacking his own reflection in a deep pool. He does this because he can't bear to accept that there may be another dragon who might be even better than himself at laying waste the countryside, barbecuing knights and capturing (preferable blonde and subservient) princesses, like the ones pictured in his reference book, to be his slaves. I first came up with this story for a Kingfisher anthology called: "Don't Kiss the Frog" - a more sophisticated version, so a much more grown-up presentation. Visually, I love both versions. Interesting to see that in both, the dragon has come out scarlet, maybe because he breathes out flames? I love the elegant typography in the older version, which I've shown here. And for the vegetarians among you, you'll be pleased to learn that the dragon was converted, and currently lives on his fi...

As I write this, just before Christmas, I'm feeling rather sorry for myself. I have a sore throat and a cough, which get much worse if I lie flat. I also have a painful back, which complains unless I spend every alternate hour or so lying flat on it! Sitting at a desk, even on my new super-dooper-bad-back-chair, is impossible for more than five minutes at a stretch. I have shopping, baking and cleaning to do, guests arriving for Christmas, a father up in Yorkshire who needs lots of help from me, his only daughter, and - urrgghhh, I won't go on... (Btw, I know, really, that I have many things to be thankful for and am much, much better off than some. But if you remind me of that, some nasty primitive reflex might be triggered and I might try to kick you, so please beware...) A kind Twitter friend just recommended that I try lying on my tummy in order to type on my laptop, placed on a stool at the end of my bed. It works, at least for a short time, and I'm very grateful for h...