Authors Electric

2020—It started with so much promise. January 23rd, I wrote my first blog for Authors Electric, celebrated Chinese New Year with my family a few days later, and left for a two-week holiday with a girlfriend to Cuba shortly thereafter.  Life was good.  No … I take that back.  Life was great.   Fast forward eleven months, and here we are.  I don’t need to tell you how 2020 has devastated the lives of so many all over the world. Life with Covid is not coming to an end any time soon even though we have a vaccine. Each day brings an increasing number of cases, further lockdowns, and a new strain of Covid-19 is now upon us, just in time for Christmas. It’s not good, but I choose to remain optimistic, so I don’t want to talk about Covid. Let’s talk turkey instead—three turkeys to be exact.  Early November, I thought I’d get a head start on the holidays by purchasing a few Christmas food items. I don’t go out to buy groceries. I order online and drive to the superm...

I sometimes feel that I'm not very helpful in this blog. Some posts by other people are full of information and suggestions, more likely to be to do with how and what to write than baking scones. I don't know if I'm meant to dispense handy tips from whatever imagined reservoir of expertise I might be supposed to have (non-clumsy sentences being at the end of that list, judging from that one!) But a couple of nights ago I had a revelation, and I'm going to share it with you. Pin back your lug’oles! Trying to look serious for once I was sitting in my bed (one of my favourite writing stations) flipping through the Kindle notes I have made on a textbook I've been working from. I made the notes as they occurred to me, and they're all germane to a novel that I have in hand. I knew the novel had several specific points I needed to research more, or to polish up, and as I read the textbook over days and weeks I put in a Kindle bookmark at any point that struck ...

A large part of my reading now is of Indie books, with those from Electric Authors at the top of the list. But I do often revert to the old ways. The Luminaries awaits: quite apart from its obvious huge qualities, it's set in the town Kay grew up in. But I've just read a book which really stopped me in my tracks. We were in Turkey in November and had a brilliant time. We were on a tour of the south west, starting in Antalya and taking us round all the great sights - St Nicholas's own cathedral, Ephesus, Aphrodisias, the rock tombs at Kaunos, the white terraces of Pamukkale. Staggering, all of it. Never to be forgotten. Celsus Library, Ephesus One day at a lunch stop, we went into an ordinary tourist shop to look round.  There were a few books there, mainly Turkish. But one, prominently displayed cover-out, took my eye. It was the only copy. What was it doing here? Waiting for me? I'm quite fond of de Bernieres. Captain Corelli was very enjoyable, tho...