Authors Electric

Another distraction - view from my window as I type When I’m not writing my own books or not-very-successfully trying to promote them, my chief occupation is being an editor, proofreader and appraiser of other people’s work, and I must admit I love these things almost as much as I love doing my own writing. The processes are very different, however, and seem to use entirely different bits of my brain. It would be lovely to be able to do my own work in the mornings, for example, and work on other people’s books in the afternoons. I know some editors who do this, but for me it simply doesn’t work. It was the same with lecturing and research, in the days when I did those things. In UK universities, lecturers are expected to fit their original research into the gaps between all their various teaching commitments and administrative functions. There are exceptions in a few places, I believe, and perhaps for some who’ve achieved the dizzy heights of academic stardom, but on the who...

Characters are the soul of fiction. They are the first movers of story. Imagine any story you've ever read, then take out the characters. What you have left is essentially a lunatic's National Geographic article: a description of a fantastic landscape or a discussion of a particular group or species daily habits. Without characters, The Hobbit , for instance, would read something like this: Chapter 1: Hobbits live relatively peaceful lives, reside in modestly decorated holes in hills, and like to eat. Like a lot. They have seven meals a day, and do not like to be surpised by unexpected visitors. Chapter 2: Trolls will eat anything and turn to stone in the sunlight. Chapter 3: Elves are wise, and kind of pompous assholes. Chapter 4: Goblins are just assholes. Chapter 5: Caves are dark and scary, and sometimes people lose jewelry there. Chapter 6: Wolves and Goblins are friends and often team up to terrorize villages, but giant eagles will sometimes put a sto...

Last month I started to count down my top ten books or series that have "stayed" with me (whatever that means) throughout my life . I may have bitten off more than I could reasonably swallow. It was a bit of an undertaking, and I only got through the first two. These books aren't going to read themselves, so let's cut the introductory fluff and get right to it then: 8. The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien As far as I'm concerned, these are the best covers ever bound. As a kid, I loved the Rankin/Bass cartoon version of The Hobbit . I watched it every time it came on television. This was so long before DVD's, mind you, that we didn't even have VHS yet. This is how we DVR'ed back when the world was young and dinosaurs ruled the earth. This meant that I could only watch it once a year if I were lucky, so for the weeks before it aired, I was the best behaved kid you ever saw. I'd eat all my vegetables and possibly ...

Six Eyes, Eight Legs, One Sword Mirkwood was murky as murky could be Murk lurked in each glade and each glum shrubbery With cobwebs and shlob-webs that swagged every tree In loomings and gloomings of dark sorcery. No sunbeam could slip through those corpsickly pines No glow could untangle the strangulous vines There wasn’t a glimmer! There wasn’t a glim! Oh, never had Bilbo seen forest so dim. The dwarves all were grumbly with rumbling tums For most of their food was now chowed down to crumbs. The hobbit was famished with ravenous fam Their poultry was paltry, they’d finished the ham. They tried shooting squirrels as black as coal tar But which tasted the same, and one doesn’t go far. Those thirteen-plus-one had no lunch, not the least – When suddenly – wondrously! – there lay a feast! A shizzling of torches blazed out of the wood Which moments ago had been black, and a good Smell of cooking, and singing! came winging this way And “We’ll...

Books do so many jobs - they educate, entertain, inspire, or offer you a place to escape to when you need it.  They can also be incredibly evocative: pick any title I've read, and it summons up in my mind's eye the time and place when I first read it: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: I'm behind the sofa in my great uncle's house in Belfast. It's dim and dusty there, but it's the only private place I can find to read in, where no-one can see me sobbing over Aslan's death. My Friend Flicka: In my bunk bed, reading (after I was supposed to be asleep) by the dim light filtering in through the glass panel over the top of the bedroom door. The Hobbit: Sprawled on my stomach on the dining room floor of my grandparents house on a blisteringly hot summer day, and trying to ignore the constant interruptions asking if I wouldn't rather go outside to play. (No! Of course not! Bilbo's trying to beat Gollum at riddles. Go away!) The Dark is R...