Authors Electric

What is your personal mask policy this summer? The official advice keeps changing, and will probably have changed again by the time you read this, but at the moment masks seem to be compulsory on public transport in England, and also in some shops, cafes and bars should you choose to get a bit closer to people - although you can presumably take yours off to order drinks, devour a quick sandwich and catch up on gossip with the friends you haven't seen since March, or how will anyone ever do what they went to the cafe or pub or shop to do in the first place? And how will you survive a long train journey sitting next to a (masked) stranger? Forget snacks or drinks. Or actual conversation. In fact, why not spend the entire journey staring at covid statistics your phone? I live in a seaside town and up to now haven't seen many masked people around - let's face it, a mask on the beach would leave you with a serious suntan line. But I have noticed a few older people wearing the...

For my first blog with the esteemed writers of Authors Electric, I’d like to share something about myself as a writer. I won’t bore you with my personal history, my likes and dislikes, shoe size, etc. Almost anything you want to know about me is on my website if you’re curious enough (except maybe the shoe size). I’ll address something that is not always evident about most writers, and that is … are they plotters or pantsers? Let me explain the difference. A plotter researches a book before writing it, laying out an overview with major plot points. Plotters know what will happen at the beginning, middle, and end of the book. Character sketches are usually part of the outline. R.L. Stine:   “If you do enough planning before you start to write, there's no way you can have writer's block. I do a complete chapter by chapter outline.” John Grisham:   “I've learned that the more time I spend on the outline the easier the book is to write. And if I cheat on ...

Amazon has just suggested my next read should be The Handmaid’s Tale . I feel like a recalcitrant schoolchild, who’s up till now avoided reading the class book and been found out. Nothing in my buying history – Walter Kempowski’s All For Nothing , Susan Cooper’s King of Shadows  - can have pointed Amazon to this. No. It’s as if the super giant just knows what I’ve been up to and is holding me to account.      Or not up to. Because I haven’t watched a single episode of the TV version and have no intention of reading the widely widely widely publicised sequel, The Testaments . In other words, I am a complete Handmaid’s Tale refusenik. I can already see myself in the Bateman cartoon of The Woman in Waterstones Who Does Not Know The Handmaid’s Tale.    Except that I feel I do know it. Inside out, back to front, top to bottom, from here to eternity. Pretty hard not to when discussions of it fill every magazine, newspaper, even becoming, good grie...

This month, I bought a car for the first time in ages, trading my faithful 13 year old Renault Clio in part exchange for an eco-friendly zero road tax three year old Peugeot 107. The whole process has in the meantime moved online, so there is no signing and posting off various coloured parts of the V5 logbook, no queuing at the Post Office clutching your MOT and insurance documents to buy a pretty paper tax disc to display on your windscreen, no real MOT certificate even, although you do still get a printed confirmation from the test station. You don't need any of the paper documents any more. It's all there on a computer somewhere in the vaults of the DVLA, and changes are done instantly online. You can even check the tax and MOT status of any car you fancy on the DVLA website by entering the registration and make... which could become quite a hobby if you live on the kind of road I do, with all sorts of vehicles passing up and down at every hour of the day and night. It...