Authors Electric

There’s a pivotal scene in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall in which Cromwell, faced with yet another of King Henry’s frankly ludicrous demands, murmurs, ‘It will not be easy.’ To which the King replies, ‘Master Cromwell, this is not Mission Difficult. This is not even Mission Impossible. This is Mission Find Henry More Rumpy Pumpy and Fewer Interfering Popes and Reboot Religion As We Noe It. Mission Difficult should be a walk in the park for you.’ Actually I paraphrase (don’t have the book to hand) but it’s words to that effect. In fact Henry says (because actually I have a good verbal memory), ‘Do I retain you for what is easy? I retain you, Master Cromwell, because you are as cunning as a bag of serpents.’ Which I think you’ll agree is an even better line. Oddly the TV adaptation condensed ‘You are as cunning as a bag of serpents’ into ‘You are a serpent,’ probably because ‘You are as cunning as a bag of serpents’ sounds too much like something Blackadder would say (‘Master Cromwell,...

Recently my elder son Oscar got stuck on a piece of homework. He moaned, ‘Our teacher wants us to write out a list of homophones and I can only think of one.’ His mum went over to help him and found that he’d written, at the top of his sheet of paper, ‘Nigel Farage’. She frowned a moment before exploding into giggles. ‘No, darling,’ she explained, ‘he’s a homo phobe .’ True. Oscar has from time to time struggled with the demands of English lessons. I can’t say I’m entirely surprised, when they often involve the taxonomy of words into nouns and verbs and adverbs and adjectives, which even my wife (who is far better read than I am) admits to muddling up. But what has puzzled me is that Oscar has to date shown little or no interest in reading. We’re told that we must read to our children, that we must fill our houses with books and let children discover this wonderful world… mate, you’d sprain an ankle on all the books in my house, I have to be bullied and kicked into rememberin...

I’ll tell you what’s an eye-opening experience: editing someone else’s writing. As well as being a handy source of extra work on the side, it gives an invaluable insight into how the whole creative process operates. This process may be wildly different for different writers, but it’s those very differences which, when laid side by side, show you how a piece of fiction comes into being. My commissioning editor (I’ll call him my commissioning editor, though our relationship is both closer and less formal than that) recently got in touch with me to help out with a particular book. He’d had a submission from one of his regular authors, and was asking for my help with getting it right. Basically, he knows this author from long experience, knows his many qualities but also his limitations, and admits (his words) that ‘he’s never going to get this thing readable by himself’. Thankfully my editor knows me just as well, knows my rigorous approach to story structure, plotting, voice an...

Writing as a writer (is there any other way?) I sometimes feel an irksome dissatisfaction that I’m just not getting enough. Enough exposure, if you know what I mean. I feel I should be, well, putting it out there a bit more than I do. I made the mistake of reading some statistics online. Apparently, most people in my peer group are managing it around two to three times a week. Some even more. A few energetic, dedicated souls are getting down to it every single day, for far longer and with more satisfying results (you can tell by the number of comments they get). But I’m among the growing number who find that they’re just too tired at the end of the day, or too busy, or just too disillusioned with the working relationship, to bare our souls on the internet very often. No, once a month is about as often as I can manage to write a blog post. There you were talking about sex, I thought you were talking about holidays. WALKS! I mean walks. Blogging can be an uncomfortabl...

Psst! Come closer. No, closer than that. Hear my secret. WoOAH, that’s too close, are you insane? Back off, creep. STOP. There. Right there. Where you, but no-one else, can hear me. Now listen. Shall I tell you how to make big money from indie writing? I shall? Good-oh. Here’s my idea. I thought, there are zillions of new indie writers popping up every day. And what do indie writers want when they publish a new book? They want reviews. Lots of reviews, to attract more readers, in a lovely virtuous circle. But of course, these reviews have to be genuine, as we can all spot a glove-puppet review a mile off. They could just sit and wait, of course, but that’s not what real publishers do. No, real publishers send out review copies to everyone they can think of. Perhaps there’s a way to make this work in the indie ebook market? Well, of course there is. It’s the simplest business proposition. You set up a website and invite a large membership of book-lovers of all genres. That...

Doug Mildew Mr Adams! Come in, Mr Adams! Rick! Ricardo! Or how about, “the Richmeister”! ’Cos that’s what this book is gonna make you, my friend. Y’know, rich? Ah. Okay. You get it. You writers never miss a trick. Ritchie, have a cigar. Or maybe you’d prefer a carrot? Ha ha, just kidding. No, the other box. Those ones are kind of… mine. What can I say? You came to my rescue. “Animal stories!” I hear the market scream. “Won’t someone give us animal stories?!” And then along hops you , with your wonderful, genius, delightful, um, piece of… ah, here it is – ‘Watership Down’. And what do I find? It’s just busting with rabbits at the seams! You know what you are, Mr Richard Adams? A saviour. An honest-to-mercy lucky rabbit’s foot saviour. Because kids love bunnies, don’t they? Boy, do they love the cute fluffy bunnies. And you’ve got floppy ears coming out your… ears. I’ve got just one or two comments. Firstly. It’s a teensy bit long. You know, for this reading age gr...

How do you save the world when it’s already too late? Don’t ask Leo Lloyd-Jones. Ask him how to steal a car, or why he got excluded from every school in Salford, but don’t come to him for help. This whole thing must be a daft mistake – and if anyone finds out, he’s done for. Earth is on a deadly collision course that nothing can prevent. The only real hope is Project Firebird, deep inside a blast-proof bunker that shelters the brightest and bravest young people. Leo has got mixed up with the likes of Rhys Carnarvon, the celebrated teenage polar explorer, and other child prodigies chosen to keep the flame of civilisation. Among them is the streetwise Paige Harris, a girl Leo likes a lot (but not in that way). Paige is desperate to rescue her little sister from London before the catastrophe strikes. But no-one is crazy enough to try that. Almost no-one. Leo is about to find out why he’s here. PROJECT FIREBIRD is the first book in my new YA, SF, ABT  tril...

As anyone who’s ever bought a stereo system knows – who, after excavating it from several carapaces of polystyrene, and connecting red and black wires to tiny metal jaws, has in exhaustion simply set up the speakers in the corner of the living room, from where the sound is muffled and too far below ear height – there eventually comes a time when you have to make a stand. Boom! Boom! Ah, Independence Day. I remember when that film was released. A friend saw it with me and left the cinema raving that it was the best film he’d ever seen, except possibly for Dirty Harry. So he went to see it again, and came out wailing that it was the  worst  film he’d ever seen. That’s a neat trick for a director to pull off. I’m sure it takes real skill, to engineer enjoyment that is so  in the moment  that it simply cannot be recaptured. I think the Roman poet Catullus made a similar observation, after he went to see Jurassic Park (or it might have been about love or som...

Upon the moonlit doorstep sat a small girl selling pins.             ‘A penny, you say?’             ‘Please m’m. Penny a packet.’             The Lady dropped a shilling in the little girl’s lap. She took the wrap of paper in her glove and hurried home, where she tossed the pins into a drawer. Soon to bed, she lay awake a long while, troubled by a tingling in her fingers. Though she tried rubbing them, then warming her hand under the pillow, the tingling grew ever more fierce, till it was like pins and needles jabbing through her palm. After many fretful hours, the Lady slept.             Next evening the Lady passed that way again. The dark doorway seemed to be empty. Then a familiar voice piped up behind her.        ...

*****  i couldn,t put it down By nikcgreen The author strode purposefully into the living room, which was the main chamber of residence in the house in which his family lived. His family were in there. Boldly the author stood before them and folded his arms in brazen fashion. “My family,” he insisted. “I wish you to open multiple Amazon accounts and review my novel many times, giving it five stars. This way I will be able to sell many books and put food on the table for you, and also lord it over my so-called fiends in the IT department at work,” he explained curtly. His wife looked at him curiously, full of questions. “Why don’t you just let readers read the book and review it themselves?” She asked questioningly. “I may be soarly mistaken but isnt’ that how its supposed to work?” The writer laughed scornfully, giving a disdainful shake of his head, to let his wife know what he thought of this strategy. His scorn spoke for itself. “You don’t understand,”...

Doug Mildew Mr Blake! Come in, Mr Blake! Pull up a beanbag. Great to see you, William. Or Will.     Bill. Billy.    May I call you Billy? Doesn’t that just make you sound like a rock’n’roll star? Billy Bla–   Absolutely, Mr Blake, I understand. Just throwing it out there. What a sharp move to come and see me, Mr Blake. Your work? So exciting. That space thing you did, Blake’s Heaven, that was way ahead of its time. I wish more people would’ve taken notice.  Please, Willy, no false modesty! Your name’s on it, so be proud of it. Anyhoo, that’s in the past. You want to talk about your new children’s book, am I right? Let’s see. Songs Of Innocence And Of Experience . Well, I love it. We can work on the title later. But your rhymes! Love the rhymes.  Especially the animal ones. Almost as good as what’s-his-name, Raoul Dale. The kids, they love their animal rhymes.   The Lamb, The Tiger – don’t you worry, we have proo...