Authors Electric

The colour spreads for my next little book with Franklin Watts arrived by post this morning. I usually get to see these online, so receiving them like this was unexpected, but pleasing, as I can scan them in to share them with friends. It's been an exquisitely beautiful Autumnal day here in London, so this added to my pleasure. The illustrator, Inna Chernyak, lives in the Ukraine, and we've already collaborated on a picture book: "Quicker than a Princess", published by TopThat Publishing. What are your optimum conditions for creative writing? I am, and have always been, a silence freak - I cannot imagine working against a background of music. It would be an active competition between the world inside my head and sound of the music, and I can't do both. Many, many years ago, when I was writing and publishing short stories for women's magazines, we had an elderly next door neighbour (we lived in rented accomodation back then). She was a thin, bitter-faced wom...

I’ve written about a boy with a terminal illness (Felix, in  The Divide ) and I’ve written characters with psychological disabilities. I've also tried writing someone who was blind. But only now do I realise that I’ve never written about anyone who was physically disabled. This revelation came after an operation on my foot for Morton’s neuroma (a painful but benign inflammation of a nerve) which resulted in me being unable to use my left foot for a while. It was a revelation. I’ve been a faithful follower of Melanie Reid’s Spinal Column in the Times every Saturday, the diary of a someone rendered tetraplegic after a fall from a horse, and I try to be thoughtful and considerate to those I encounter with physical problems. But oh boy, is it different when it’s you! Writers know that personal experience is worth ten Wikipedias when you’re describing something subjective, and we hark back to painful episodes in our lives when we want to express the anguish that one of our ch...

When I was thirteen, I was off school with flu. I had quite a high temperature, but otherwise I didn’t feel too bad. I spent the time painting, and I did a picture of a cat which won a competition. (This one was done several decades later!) I'm firmly of the opinion that the fever had  interesting effects on my imagination, and I experimented with techniques that would not otherwise have occurred to me.             Unfortunately, not all illnesses are so productive, and although writing is one of the best professions to pursue under difficult circumstances the indispositions that fell you aren’t always the obvious ones. Writing is good because it doesn’t require the constitution of an ox in all weathers out of doors. You don’t need perfect hearing, or perfect sight. Terry Pratchett now dictates everything, as he can no longer see the screen properly. You don’t have to appear in public if you don’t want to, so disfigureme...