Authors Electric

  I’m not long back from a few days’ break. Nothing too exciting, just a wee trip from Scotland to Yorkshire to spend a few days with my parents. The original idea was to take one of the kids with me and use up some of my annual leave before the end of the leave year. Due to various factors beyond my control, I ended up going on my own, and for five days did very little apart from eat, drink, and generally relax. No laptop, or anything like that – the plan was not to write for a few days and spend quality time with my folks. But a couple of things happened whilst I was down there – firstly, I met their cleaner, and it turns out she’s a writer, too. We had a very engaging chat about writing, and the wider process of publishing including book design, illustrations – she writes for small children – and so on. What occurred to me was, despite the fact we write in completely opposite genres, a lot of the considerations we had were the same, albeit sometimes arriving there ...

Jenny Alexander As a new self-published author I’m always interested to hear of others’ experiences and when I found out  Jenny Alexander  was looking for a guest blog spot, I jumped at the chance to learn from hers. Particularly when I found out the book she’s launching this week is on a subject that links well with my own books and is clearly close to my heart. Earlier in the summer, when invited to talk to two Year 6 classes in Barnard Castle (when presenting them with copies of my book donated by a local community group: see  the-best-laid-plans-by-alex-marchant ), it struck me that  The Order of the White Boar  wasn’t just about King Richard III, but also about the transition from primary to senior school. In this case, the transition from York Minster song school to ‘page school’ at Middleham Castle, but it’s effectively the same. And my other two books (neither historical fiction) are also about the same subject – and all three tackle the issu...

Let's start off with hair, since we all love our hair though we're often driven nuts by it. From (t)hair we can move on to killing our mates when they hate the books we love or don't share our craving for pasta. Luck allowing, we'll have time to share a few thoughts about ebooks. Okay! You have four basic choices for cutting your hair: 1) You can cut it yourself. 2) You can go to the cheapest spot in town. 3) You can go to an old school-style barber who's mastered all the basic cuts and charges only a few dollars more. 4) You can go to a salon and pay designer prices for a more individual and expressive look. You can shave have your pate or mow your hair down to a passable buzz cut. For anything else, though, you really should pay....top dollar to get what is best for your hair. Good, we're making progress here. And, because you're all clever, I know you'll have guessed that the same four options apply to the killing of spouses. ...