Authors Electric

As the untrammelled lunacy of our times shows no sign of abating, I'm using this post to retreat to an age when communications were concerned with higher, more aesthetically challenging topics. A priceless recording has been discovered in the archives of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Far from suffering from the distortions of the earliest Phonautograph waxings and the strangulated yells of Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, it has a clarity which has enabled the famous French scholar Jacques Frère to decipher every word. More remarkably still, it is the earliest example of a recorded interview. It dates from 1890 and the interviewer was a renowned contemporary art critic. His female interviewee is not identified by name but her role and historical importance are revealed in her answers. My translation of the transcript attempts to replicate her Parisian vernacular. Paul Cézanne via Wikimedia Commons CRITIC:         ...

The idea of making money from writing gets a mixed reception. Those who regard themselves as professional writers see no problem with this. In fact they expect to make money because of their professional status. Then there are the hobbyists who write solely for the love of creating something. They are quite happy to distribute their writing, whether that is poetry, stories or novels, for no payment. They get their reward from knowing their work has been read. But among the hobbyists are some writers who are developing their work and themselves into semi-professional status. These are the writers who are happy to charge for their writing in order to acquire a bit of extra income, although many of them do not make a profit. In among these groupings there are some who believe that writers should not be paid for their work. They should supply everything free to their followers and readers. While this is a noble concept it is not a realistic one. It is easy to say money is u...

            Do your squirm in your chair at the prospect? You should.  The APE’s a beast made up of three horrific parts. Each in undiluted form is toxic—even lethal—so let’s give thanks we seldom encounter them as concentrates. Most toxic of all: the ACCOUNTANT. In the pure state the Accountant would prefer to peddle widgets than slave over troublesome word-things; he’d rather have his teeth pulled through his dick than sit and write*. He’ll sit at his computer screen and monitor his sales all day, comparing his numbers with those of his foes. At night he dreams of oracles who tell him better ways to move the units he produces.             Only a little less toxic: the PRIEST , a beast who’s obsessed with perfection. He dreams of writing books that readers must put down repeatedly—to gather a tan in the sun of his style or savor a tryst with a fo...

I had something else lined up for this month, written and ready to go, but some inner compulsion told me to post up this instead, and as I’ve based much of my writing life around inner compulsions, here goes. I’ll begin with a story - something that happened a few weeks ago. I was writing at my desk one day when a fight broke out outside my window [my office overlooks a public passageway].  I hoped it would go away, but it doubled in ferocity so I did what's known in my family as my mum-in-old-bat-mode thing and charged out brandishing my phone, threatening to call the police – only to find myself staring into the lens of a camera. One of my neighbours was making a film. Not in Hollywood or London, but in downtown Shrewsbury. It involved zombies, steampunk and intergalactic Nazis. I swapped a few friendly words with the actors, whose take I’d ruined, and retreated indoors.   A few nights ago, one of that film crew came knocking on my doo...

Andrew's cover for 'Christopher Uptake'        One of the problems of self-publishing is: What about the cover?  (As Mark Chisnell was saying only the other day...)      Some writers are talented enough to do their own; or ask past publishers for permission to use the covers from their published editions.      I wasn’t talented enough, and didn’t want to go cap-in-hand to publishers.  Anyway, if I'm honest, I didn’t like many of my old covers.       Luckily, both my brothers are artists, and as my Twitter name is @priceclan, you might guess that I’m all for keeping things in the family.       Let me introduce the older of my brothers, Andrew.  I have eight self-published books on sale so far, and he has done the covers for them all.  So I asked him to tell us about how he learned his art. Andrew at the Price Clan Christmas Do  ...