Authors Electric

Is that idea you suddenly got in the supermarket a Ferrari, a Reliant Robin, or a penny-farthing? Knowing which form is the right one can make all the difference between staring at an empty screen until making a cup of coffee is the only constructive thing to do, or dashing downstairs first thing in the morning before anyone else is up to get onto your computer. Is it a doorstop trilogy, a standalone one off, a play, a short story, or a poem? And how do you decide? Of course, the vehicle you first choose may not be the right one. If we take a poem as being the likeliest form for a single idea, there are still a lot of forms to choose from. A limerick about the death of your first pet may not be such a good idea, and an ode to an ingrowing toenail may prove tougher than expected. There are always exceptions, of course, and I think blank verse is actually the hardest. This came from a single idea: cakes.                       ...

Jinx on the Drivide Pitcher Plant There have been many times that I’ve needed something for a particular purpose in a book, and when it’s something you can look at, touch, smell or rattle it makes a huge different to the way in which you write about it.      In the third book of the DivideTrilogy , I invented a malign magical object called a jinx box, which was a shape shifter. Once opened, it starts to cause mischief and it manifests itself in many different guises, simultaneously appearing to one person as one thing, and to another person as something else entirely. I did use photographs as well, but they were ones I’d taken myself, so I knew what the original was like. The jinx box first appears as a pitcher plant. When I was in Borneo I saw the largest one of all, Nepenthes rajah , if I remember correctly. As plants go, it’s pretty unpleasant. Most pitcher plants catch insects – I have one in my conservatory, Sarracenia purpurea , which attracts flie...