Authors Electric

I don’t usually talk about work in progress. The ideas that make stories are such delicate gifts, potentially so fleeting. They must be nurtured in secret and over time. I don’t usually talk about relationships either, not the ones that matter. So how stupid have I been, I wonder, to publish insights from my mother’s recent life – and mine – when our stories are still a work in progress and what is true today may be fool's gold by tomorrow? Relationships change as people change -- well, we all know that -- but there's something about a close relationship with someone who is living with dementia that feels quite frighteningly unstable. You discover how the faculty of memory ballasts the most everyday interactions. You both know, you assume , that the reason you’re both rather achy and therefore grumpy is that you’ve just returned from walking too long in the sun. But, if the fact of the walk has vanished from one mind, only the grumpiness remains and that can be disconce...

Last New Year I was in Sydney - apocalyptic fireworks! HAPPY NEW YEAR! This post should go live at midnight, some time after which my boyfriend and I will be heading back from our friends’ house party. When we arrive home we shall deploy the motley collection of objects I shall take with us or previously place near the front door step: a box of matches/lighter, a bottle of drink (usually whisky but could be wine or juice), some salt, a piece of wood/coal, and bread/something edible. We will make sure he goes into the house first, for he will be the 'first foot' through the door in 2015, carrying these objects representing fire, fuel, food and drink, with the hope that the whole year to come will see us well supplied with these essentials and therefore Good Luck. First-footing Kit - salt, coal, whisky and bread, aka the basics. When I was a bairn in the north east of England, New Year’s Eve was celebrated as much as it is in Scotland under the name of Hogmanay, t...

For this post, I've been tagged by Valerie Laws to explain my writing process. We all tackle the job differently, don't we? There are one or two things we agree on, such as editing a lot and reading work aloud to spot the clunky bits, but there's no right and wrong way. It took me a while to find that out! Valerie Laws ( www.valerielaws.com ) is a crime novelist, poet, playwright and sci-art installation specialist. Of her thirteen published books, 4 are currently available as ebooks. A mathematics/physics graduate, she devises new poetic forms and science-themed poetry installations and commissions including the infamous Arts Council–funded   Quantum Sheep,   spray-painting haiku onto live sheep to celebrate quantum theory.   Much of her recent work arises from funded residencies with pathologists, neuroscientists, human specimens and dissections. Another quantum haiku on inflated beachballs in Hackney Lido featured in BBC2’...

'RABBITS, RABBITS, RABBITS, it's the 1st of August!' I've been tagged to take part in the #HowIwrite blog hop challenge. As it's the 1st of the month, when traditionally we say 'Rabbits, rabbits, rabbits' before saying owt else, a hop seems appropriate. At Crimefest Bristol Who tagged me: Julia Jones. I met Julia ‘ IRL’ as they say, recently at Crimefest Bristol, though I felt I already knew her through Authors Electric and conversations on Facebook. When I joined AE I was deeply impressed to learn that one of my new colleagues was connected to Arthur Ransome, who figured largely in my childrens’ lives in the form of the Swallows and Amazons series, still my ‘comfort reads’ when laid low by illness. She actually owns and sails Peter Duck, Ransome’s ACTUAL boat. She also writes excellent YA novels about sailing, with Ransomian connections too but the contemporary characters have very modern issues and problems - Nancy Blackett, Terror of the Se...

Photographs of John AA Logan don't exactly litter the internet I'm surprised to find myself having a go at this 'blog hop' challenge – but I was even more surprised (and rather delighted) when John AA Logan invited me to try. John's a fellow Authors Electric member but I've never met him and I don't feel that I really 'know' him in the social media world. There are some AE members (and Facebook friends) who I forget that I haven't physically met. They're so much part of my on-line life that I assume that we would instantly get chatting about 1001 things if we should discover ourselves sharing a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. But not John.  That's merely a recording of my impression: it's not a criticism or a judgement. Agatha Christie once said about Margery Allingham "If I say I don't at all know what she was like that is the truth and that makes her interesting to me." My impression is that (in the hackne...

'A terrific book. Laws has crafted a very creepy, very haunting mystery tale. THE OPERATOR does for going to the doctor, what JAWS did for going to the beach. Trust me, you’ll never feel the same way about disrobing and lying on an examination table. You’re warned!' Phoef Sutton  My new crime novel and twelfth book, THE OPERATOR, the second Erica Bruce and DI Will Bennett thriller, is launching in paperback this month, (LAUNCH DETAILS below) having been available on Kindle since Autumn 2013, and this is the front cover, with one addition. I’m thrilled to have been able to add to the fab comment from Ann Cleeves (new 'Vera' novel HARBOUR STREET ), an extract from the above quote by Where everybody knows your 'Norm!' Phoef Sutton - not only did he write/produce the brilliant TV comedy CHEERS (and Boston Legal et al) but he's a great thriller writer too (check out FIFTEEN MINUTES TO LIVE ). He’s just signed a major publish...

Our previous joint blog (under the same name) went down so well that another three members of the team (Kathleen Jones, Susan Price and Valerie Laws) have decided to share where they work as well. Kathleen Jones - visit website          When I moved in with my partner there was nowhere for me to write.  It was an old industrial building adapted to the needs of a sculptor who sloshed plaster and clay about and who needed large, draughty spaces to mix toxic chemicals for casting. The living space was basic and cramped.  I wanted a quiet room to crawl into with space to think and spread papers around, enough light to read books and sometimes write them. It was quite a problem.  But the man wanted me to stay and so he decided to fix up something to tempt me.             Up in the rafters, on the top floor of the mill, he made a platform under two big skylights, bu...