Authors Electric

                            Peacock Butterflies Contemplate Love on White                             Buddliea   (author's photo)            Writing is a process. That’s kind of obvious: but the interesting thing about writing, (or any creative process), is the inevitable interaction between the work, and us, the creatives, as we move through that process.      Here’s a blog based on one I wrote earlier (in 2013). Paragraph 2 began: Yesterday, I completed my second editing of the draft of Baby, Baby’s follow-up: a sequel which takes Max and Jenny into the stormy waters of modern marriage, parenthood, and professional careers. I had one last scene to write, and I knew I’d been putting it off. Well, yesterday was the day ...

We are in the process of major renovation/remodelling works to our home. They have been a very long time coming. We bought this ‘dream house’ twelve years ago, and very soon realised that although it occupied a dream position, with stunning sea views all around, the fabric of the house was far more nightmare than dream. I used to joke that I would live in a shed on our plot; but as the years have gone on, and we have not got any younger, the need to do something drastic to avoid that very scenario has become finally necessary. So what’s that got to do with writing you may well ask? Well, it has definitely had an affect on mine. Living in temporary accommodation for four months, and now back home with the renovations going on around us, I have found it difficult to concentrate for long periods of time. Or indeed find the space, physically or mentally, to continue work on my second full-length book. I have satisfied the writing urge with short stories, flash fiction pieces, and blog post...

Writing books is one of the most enjoyable and rewarding ways to earn a living and I can’t imagine ever doing anything else. That does not mean, however, that every part of the operation is a joy. As with any large scale endeavour, from creating a garden to running a marathon, from being a rock star to being a prince of the realm, there are times where the effort and the monotony of the job feel crushing. The blues usually strike me about half way through the writing process. All too often, I believe, the books which the market has traditionally demanded are longer than their subject matter merits. If you write tightly and edit well as you go along you can often tell a story very effectively in thirty to fifty thousand words. (“The Turn of the Screw”, “Animal Farm”, “Of Mice and Men”, “The Great Gatsby”, “Death in Venice”, “Heart of Darkness”, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” … I could go on). Publishers and readers, however, have been accustomed for many years to books that are eig...

Definitely NOT the author I recently came across a set of answers I gave to an interviewer several years ago and was relieved to see that they still describe my approach to this writing business. (So maybe I was actually telling the truth.) Here’s how they went. 1) In order to meet a writing goal, do you write down the date you wish to have your manuscript completed? No. Even though the word ‘deadline’ suggests a finite point (which may well be the case for some publishers or academic examiners, etc.), it’s really notional. Not notional to the extent that you can make it spread over a year or so, but in that it indicates a period towards the end of a month, say, by which you should have got the job done. Much more compelling is the impetus of the work itself. If anything provides the push to get the thing done, it’s the novel’s internal drive. Your characters insist on moving towards the resolution and, when the end is near, the euphoria of knowing that you’re about to s...

I recently read this very interesting post by Lauren Sapala, in which she argued – very convincingly, to my mind – that writers, by pressuring themselves to achieve goals, can actually hinder their progress. In the post, she made a very simple but, to me, quite startling point, which in turn provoked one of those “lightbulb” moments, when I thought, “Ah-ha! So that’s where I’ve been going wrong all this time!” She says: Our culture tends to think of time as linear. It moves forward in a straight line. So if you want to get anything done, you need to move forward in a straight line as well. And the most popular method used in our culture to conquer this straight line is to push ourselves. This push is commonly referred to as "drive" or "motivation". Of course, very often writers have their own particular set of motivations. They want to get their novel finished, and preferably by a certain date. They plan to submit it to publishers, or upload it as...