Authors Electric

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending a book launch in Glasgow. The author, Irene Howat,  is a writing buddy of mine and I like and admire her and her writing. She has been a prolific writer: biographies, poems, books for children and for adults. Her latest book, The  Crackit  Cup,  just thirty-two pages long, is something quite special, if not unique. It is written in both Scots and English simultaneously, with Scots on the left page and its English translation on the right. The story is told in verse, in the style of the great epics and sagas. But  Tumheidit Tam  (Empty-headed Tam) ,  the ‘simple’  central  character, would be amazed at being compared with anything so grand.  It is set during the First World War: all the young men in Tam’s village are enthusiastically enlisting; but Tam is rejected (due to his mental disability). ‘The King had nothing I could do for him.’ As the village gradually los...

For novel writers, characters are very important, and so too are settings. In two of my four novels, I was very conscious, while writing, that the place itself was as much a character as the protagonist. One is set in St Andrews in Scotland, home of golf and of the third oldest university in Britain, steeped in history and horror stories (e.g. Reformation martyrs burnt at the stake at the entrance to Quad. The other is set in the Hebrides and revolves around a lighthouse family.  The bleak but beautiful landscape, the wild and wilful sea: both are fully paid-up members of the  dramatic personae.   Weather too can be so central to the tale as to assume character status. Heavy skies, scudding clouds and sheeting rain can have as much effect on the action and atmosphere as a human character.  Or stifling heat, gentle, warm breezes ... If they happen once, they are just details; but, if they are frequent and integral, they...

Tomorrow I am heading up to Stonehaven, a wee town just south of Aberdeen. Wendy Jones - a keen AE member and blogger (as well as successful crime writer) does a monthly radio show on the local station, called BookBuzz. She has invited me to be this month's guest author. So I am feeling quite energised and ready to rock 'em in the aisles. I actually love radio as a medium and have been a listener since the 'tranny' days of my misspent youth. I even worked briefly for a local radio station and chaired an advisory panel for another. That was a great wheeze since it involved going to twice yearly to the IBA HQ in London for meetings. Their offices were directly opposite Harrods. My children were quite the envy of their friends as I shopped there for those little 'bring-you-back-a' presents, with which we parents assuage our guilt when we dare to have a life of our own and leave them - albeit perfectly well cared for - even for a short time. I also love radio b...

They do say that there is no such thing as bad publicity: ergo, the only bad publicity would be that which is ineffective. But how to judge effectiveness? Is it the number of Amazon reviews we get? Or the number of books we sell? Or the best margin of profit we can get on each sale? Or might it be that delighted smile on the face of one old lady who clutches your arm and whispers, 'I couldn't put it down', shamefacedly, as if she has been very naughty reading such lightweight stuff. Novels! Shocking! Mrs Gaskell, eat your heart out. My third novel,  Eleanor's Journey,  is decidedly a woman's book, about five friends and their families and shenanigans. It is head-and-shoulders-above my other three in the spiciness stakes. I have had several shamefaced ladies of varying ages (I think the oldest was 89) confiding that they like it best. And hastily adding, 'Don't tell anyone.' We giggle together and I feel - strangely - effective. Of course, if she is...

When actors are not acting, they are 'resting'. In fact, they are probably working harder than ever, earning a crust in some low-paid job whilst trying to chase after as many acting opps as possible. And the longer they are 'resting', the harder it becomes for them to believe in themselves as actors. There probably comes upon them a growing, insidious fear that they will not actually be able to do it again - to get out there and produce the goods.   So it is for us writers, especially novelists. We have, perforce, to spend time and energy on the editing/re-writing/publishing stage; then even more time/energy on the publicity/marketing stage. It can take months and months, even years. All our creative juices are being used up in blogging, facebooking, twittering, etc to bolster our 'internet platform; our time is used up travelling to events and likely outlet places; if our marketing efforts bear fruit, still more time goes on signings and talking to book group...

This week, I am on holiday in our extended family house on the Hebridean Isle of Iona. There are seven of us and we are having lots of laughter and big, jolly meals round the kitchen table, which has an incomparable view of the Sound (strip of water) between Iona and the much larger Isle of Mull. Portentous clouds, the wee fire station and our house peeping in on the left  This our 21st year here and, over those years, we have brought 57 individual friends/family members to share in the delights of this beautiful place with us. Often it is simply people that we love to spend time with; but often too, one or two people who we feel need Iona. Perhaps it has been a tough time for them of late - health, worries, relationship upsets, financial problems, recent bereavement, whatever - but we just know that a week on Iona will calm their souls and feed their spirits. It is not that we do anything special beyond ensuring there is plenty of food/wine, comfortable beds, hot showers...

If someone had ever asked me what my dream job would be, I would have said sitting in a peaceful place making up stories. And that is exactly what my writing life was like when I took my first tentative steps ten years ago. I had this elderly laptop that didn't do the internet: no interruptions ( you've got mail!);  no temptations to google, youtube, pinterest, facebook, twitter or any other irresistible time-waster. I dazzled myself with the number of words I could write. I marvelled at how characters developed and drove the dialogue and plot. I spontaneously woke up every morning, bright as a button, at about 5.00 am, made myself a huge mug of coffee and settled down to write, write, write. It was bliss. I wrote two novels in two years, sent them off to some publishers and waited for global recognition. It may have been bliss but it was also a fool's paradise. Global recognition played remarkably coy and hard-to-get. I carried on writing because it had become a part ...

Several years ago, I did a 'Fiction Workshop' course. We had a writing exercise each week and it was enormously beneficial. One exercise, which involved drawing up a detailed character study of an interesting person we knew, was the genesis of my third novel, 'Eleanor's Journey.' We studied plot arcs, point of view (PoV), dialogue, character development, use of tense, writing in the first, second and third persons and - my favourite - writing from the PoV of an inanimate object.   Plundering my files for an idea for this blog, I came across some of the writing done during that course. Can you guess the inanimate object which is speaking in each of these pieces? 1.'She handles me reverently as befits my patrician pedigree. I have been  el supremo for as long as anyone can remember. There have been copies, of course, nasty cheap things in a range of offensive colours. They don’t count. She fondles me loving...