Authors Electric

Until recently I thought I was the laziest writer alive. I know I'm not really, because there's a bookshelf lined with books to prove otherwise, but when I'm idling at my desk - or doing something else altogether to avoid facing the screen - I feel  incredibly lazy. There are writers who turn out three thousand words a day, or write tirelessly for hours on end. I just can't do that. Sometimes, especially at the start of a project, I have to cajole, bully and threaten myself in order to get anything done at all. Fortunately it's not always like that, or why would I do it? A book usually takes off for me when I'm about a third of the way in. And I love revising. When I was revising THE DAMAGE DONE for its Kindle edition, I found myself working at all hours, reluctant to stop. Revising is so much easier than first-stage writing. It's come as a surprise, this last month, to find that writing non-fiction feels so very different. I'm co-writing a commiss...

"I work all day on a screen; I don't want to look at a screen for relaxation, too." "I like the feel and smell of books." "How can a piece of technology replace such a perfect design?" A friend made all these remarks last week, and it was an echo of the objections I was making this time last year. I live with Gadget Man, and it's made me a bit resistant to devices of various kinds (to venture into his study is to be plunged into an archive of redundant technology - items no one wants, needs or can find ways to recycle). He, of course, bought a Kindle fairly soon after they became available. I was sceptical, but two things happened to make me change my mind and have a go. The spur came at a talk given by Sue Price and Katherine Roberts at the summer gathering of the Scattered Authors' Society. They were messianic about the advantages of Kindle self-publishing, speaking of the control and independence, the ease of publishing, and the attractions ...

As soon as I knew there would be horses in THE DAMAGE DONE, I saw the risk of putting off readers who might take it for a Horse Book. That's partly why I was so insistent that the cover on first publication shouldn't show a horse. But, as I said in my previous post, I don't think the Anne Magill painting, highly accomplished though it is, captures the atmosphere of the story. The new cover I think does better, and this time there are horses, though not in the foreground. As a child, I was addicted to horse and pony stories to the point where my parents once tried to ban me from reading any more. I devoured everything by the Pullein-Thompson sisters, Josephine, Christine and Diana, and also the less Pony-Club-and-competition-oriented stories by Monica Edwards. Later there was the marvellous K M Peyton. From the Pullein-Thompsons, in particular, I absorbed all sorts of information about eggbutt snaffles, impulsion and double oxers. If only I could have learned the Periodic Ta...

I wonder how other authors feel when their books are finished? For me, each time a book is submitted to the publisher after the final revisions, I have a sense of parting with it, knowing that I’ll never again “live” in that book as I did while writing it. Reading the published book isn’t the same at all; in fact, if I do so at all, it's with trepidation, fearing the discovery of some toe-curling mistake, or at the very least something I want to change. Preparing The Damage Done for its e-edition gave me the rare chance to live in a book again, and one of my favourites. I revised it for things that have become outdated (Kirsty listening to her Walkman; people smoking in a pub or waiting for dial-up internet connections) but also made numerous small tweaks, taking a word out here, adding a few there, all so surreptitious that probably no one but me will ever notice. Doing this, I experienced the enjoyment of writing all over again. Especially, I had fun with Kirsty’s father, G...