Authors Electric

It’s always useful to be able to see things from someone else’s point of view when you’re creating a character. I have tried to view the world from the standpoint of a devil hyena, a prehistoric bird and a flying carpet (not in the same book, mind you) and they’re easy because you’re starting from scratch. No one can tell you what priorities a phorusrhacos had, although like most predatory birds, it was probably food. And the feelings and priorities of a flying carpet are even more fun to imagine. This is an extract from Back to the Divide , in a carpet shop: “Let me introduce myself,” said the rug, its voice emanating from different bits of its surface. “I’m brand new, and I’m the very latest design. Top of the range. My name is Nimblenap; Nimby for short." Felix burst out laughing. The rug rippled with displeasure. “What’s wrong with Nimby?” “It’s an acronym,” said Felix. “Not In My Back Yard.” “I can land just about anywhere,” said the carpet, offended. “From the smalle...

Gone are the days when I could be so into writing a book that I’d be in front of the computer at 6am, eat all my meals there, and go to bed at midnight having written several thousand words. And I’d still be the same weight the following week, without having had any form of exercise whatsoever.  I wrote  The Divide   in three weeks, all 70,000 words of it. It needed editing, obviously, but not as substantially as you might think. I’m 71 now. My 70 th birthday really upset me, and I hated it. On one level I simply couldn’t believe it. I still can’t. I didn’t like 40, but 50 and 60 were fine. But 70? That’s old . So how has ageing affected the way I write? Far more substantially than I might have wished. I get up early, that’s no problem, but there always seem to be so many jobs to do before I can settle down in front of the computer. For an hour at most. Because then it’s time for breakfast and after that, The Walk. Wrist problems rule out a lot of other forms of physical...

   Cinnamon hummingbird I’ve recently returned from three weeks in central America. The first part was an organised tour of Nicaragua, with seven participants, including me, plus our guide, and the second part was staying with a friend in Costa Rica.      I’ve always used these holidays as material for stories, but this time I was intrigued by the differing reading habits of the others on the first trip. Most people brought books, not e-readers, much to my surprise. When you have a 20 kilo weight limit on an aircraft books take up quite a lot of it, so for me an e-reader has been a real bonus as I never run out of something to read.      What seems to happen is that people read the paperbacks they’ve brought, and then leave them somewhere for other people to read and use the resulting space to bring back souvenirs. It never seems to occur to them that authors get nothing when a book is passed on, or sent to a charity shop. ...