Authors Electric

  So last month I wrote about extreme cold, when the temperature in Finland was -34.5⁰. Last week I went to the Gambia, where it was over 40⁰. I am sitting here in Surrey writing this covered with insect bites, and really feeling the cold even though it isn’t cold at all. It’s just the contrast. Contrast is so important when you’re writing. When you shift from one setting to another you have to think about all the senses that make it come alive, and how things differ from your previous location. Visually: bright or dull? Busy or quiet? Sound: Voices? Traffic? Birdsong? Music? Silence? Smell: Foliage, flowers, cooking, wet dogs, drains? Taste: bland or exotic? Sweet or savoury? Familiar or unfamiliar? And finally, touch. That’s when you really notice the heat. Can you walk across a tiled floor by a swimming pool without burning your feet? Does picking up a glass of cold beer/Coke/Wonjo juice feel like heaven? Are you just as hot as night? What do you wear, and how well do you sleep?...

As I seem to be stuck for ideas this month, I thought I'd post some photos I've taken of places I've been and things I've seen, and link them to particular books I've written. I'm quite a visual person, having gone to art school, and pictures do tend to evoke memories for me, and one idea leads to another... This is the photograph of a feisty eleven-year-old in Mongolia, the best rider I have ever seen, herding her goats. She was the inspiration for a reluctant reader story called Lost in the Desert , about a boot camp for difficult kids. This is the foot of a phorosrachus, an extinct bird that features heavily in Ice Feathers , a book set in prehistoric Antarctica. I saw this in the Tring site of the Natural History Museum. This is the ballroom of a castle in Prague. During the depradations of the Mongols, they took it over and rode their horses in there for war conferences. I mention it in Beware of Men with Moustaches , a story about a poetry group who are in...