Authors Electric

This will be my last post on Authors Electric for a while. Life has got busy recently - busy in some very happy ways. My grandson Sam Zachary was born on November 9th - a little brother for Daisy, whom some of you may remember from my previous posts about her linguistic progress. This is Sam! First smile from Sam   So far, his literary accomplishments include gazing with deep interest at a book of black and white patterns. Good going for only three weeks old! He is also very keen on the horizontal grey and white stripes on the living room wall. (Daisy, at that age, was fascinated by a wardrobe.) I can't help wondering whether it's all the edge-detecting neurons in his visual cortex getting to work. Whatever it is, he gets engrossed, and he's also, like most babies, intrigued by faces. When I pick him up he frowns ever so slightly, as though he's thinking, Now, let's see, who are you? Ah, yes, Nana... I remember. Now, could you please ask Mummy or Daddy to ...

As I strolled along the beach yesterday, paddling in rockpools and generally being the four-year-old I still am at heart, an idea 'happened' in my head. From nowhere, apparently, it burst upon me and grew into a plan for the sequel to Charity's Child. Not the sequel I've been planning for about two years, which has continually failed to materialise, but a wholly new 'take' on following up the lives of the characters I created in that earlier book. It may have been something to do with the appearance of the rocks at low tide (there is such a scene in Charity's Child , where a big decision is made), or perhaps it was just that I finally relaxed enough for my creative side to wriggle free of all its constraints and start to play again. Anyway, here's hoping. It's always dangerous to say too much too soon, and I'm certainly not going to tell you anything about the new book. But it's good to be reminded of the way these things work. Fiction...

          I have recently become a grandmother for the first time, and it’s just as thrilling as people said it would be.  All the fun and none of the responsibility.  And lots to look forward to.           In particular, storytelling.  When I was a mother of very young children, the best bit by far and away was reading aloud, or making up stories, having a soft, warm body snuggling up on my lap, waiting expectantly to be entertained.  My older daughter loved books with flaps you opened to see the pictures – so much so, she wouldn’t look at any others.  So I had to ‘fix’ her other books by sticking home-made flaps in strategic places.  My younger daughter was one of those readers who had favourite books that she requested over and over again.  Even I got fed up, so I decided to take her to our local library to borrow some new books.  She was madly exc...