Authors Electric

scene from 'I, Robot'  © 2004 Twentieth Century Fox. One of humanity's greatest fears is that intelligent machines will take over the world and enslave us as human beings. Science fiction has already been there, done that and got the robo-t-shirt. In the Terminator films, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a cyborg assassin sent back through time to kill the one human who might be able to stop the machines. Whereas in  I, Robot,  based on a collection of short stories by Isaac Asimov, every robot is programmed with three basic laws designed to keep it subservient to humans: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or (through inaction) allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.   We might not (yet) have rampaging Terminator-style machines tearing up ...

  All of my books are historical fiction, and they are fiction based on fact, as all good historical fiction is (in my view anyway!) Some historical fiction is based on real events, or on real people. Facts that, however loosely, can be woven into the fiction, to give the piece authenticity. For me those facts aren’t events or people, rather places. Actual places that existed in the 13 th Century, and the remains of which still exist today. Abbey ruins, castle ruins, holy sites and shrines. The legacy of the Normans and the Romans, the Celtic Christians and the Cistercians, these are what inspired me to write. Both of my novels and my novella have been published since Covid disrupted life as we knew it. When I began to write I knew some of the places I was writing about well enough to describe them accurately. I had visited them often, taken photos, done my research. I soon discovered however, that I was having to write about places that I hadn’t visited, or not for a long tim...

I had a dream... No, not a Martin Luther King sort of dream (sadly), just an ordinary sort of one, a few nights ago. But it set me thinking on a subject I’ve thought about a few times before. The connection between dreams and the imagination of a writer. A couple of months ago one of the questions put to me in an  interview  about my writing asked, ‘Do you rely more on dreams, imagination, or planning?’ That was something of a surprise to me – that ‘dreams’ appeared in that list, let alone at the start. My answer was that I wouldn’t say I rely on them, but dreams have fed in to my writing at important times. Particularly those ‘between sleeping and waking’ types of dreams (one of which was responsible for my short story ‘The Beast of Middleham Moor’ that led to the charity anthology  Grant Me the Carving of My Name ). On this occasion, the other day, just before falling asleep I had been reading through some of the submissions for  Right Trusty ...

Been spending a lot of time with this lady! There has been a great deal in the news recently about something called ‘aphantasia’ or the inability to conjure up images inside your head. You can read all about it on the BBC Website here . There is a whole spectrum of abilities, and people at one end of it can’t do it at all. I was intrigued to note that the late great Oliver Sachs was ‘face blind’ so that when shown, for example, a photograph of Oprah Winfrey, he had no idea who she was. Well, maybe not everyone does know who she is, but this was not a one off. A series of well known faces provoked a shrug and a shake of the head. There’s a whole section of the population who lead perfectly normal lives without being able to visualise things inside their heads. They know, they just can’t visually imagine. It got me thinking, especially because I had just finished a draft of a rather complicated historical novel, so I was very much in creative writing mode. Most writers of fic...

If I had to guess, I would say that the most common question an author gets asked is "Where do you get your ideas from?" This question is also, coincidentally, the most impossible to answer. Except for this guy. His most commonly asked question is "What if you die before you finish the last two volumes of   A Song of Ice and Fire ?" His answer is pretty concise. It's a question that almost every author from John Irving to Stephen King, from Neil Gaiman to me dreads. And it is the most understandable question. Think about it. How often have you watched a movie or television show or read a book or comic or play and thought, "That story story seemed so simple and clear. I could write something like that if only I had that idea first. How can I have that idea first?" The thing is, though, that we can't share where our ideas come from any more than we can teach someone to have a sense of humor. Sure I can tell you that the idea for Guns of the...

How's your imagination?   We all know the story of the ugly duckling that turned into a beautiful swan Are you always thinking up new plots and story-lines? Can you conjure up new characters at the drop of a hat? Or, like me, do you sometimes feel you haven't a creative bone in your body. Well perhaps because I've been doing quite a few school visits recently and been asking the children where they get their ideas from, I've realised that 'from our imagination' is just one point of reference.  And because I've called this blog   'Flights of Fancy ' I thought I'd illustrate it with some photos of birds! I can't help thinking that the main source of ideas comes from our everyday life.  Just take a trip to Tesco or a walk around town and you'll find a multitude of possible characters. Unaware that they could be at the heart of the next best seller, these individuals go parading by, allowing us to observe, listen to and pic...

T'was the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse..... Pic courtesy of office.microsoft.com Yes, I know Christmas is behind us now, but this old poem by Clement Clarke Moore was probably the poem that first made me want to write – and that was donkey's years ago. I remember how those words fired my imagination. I pictured a Victorian household, with snow on the ground, stockings hanging from the mantle-piece, and the delicious aroma of Christmas pudding and mince pies wafting through the house etc etc. As a child I remember wondering how I could get that imaginary world in my head actually down on paper. Well the writing didn't really start until years later. But whenever I hear that poem it reminds me of how it inspired me to want to write - and how wonderful the imagination is. Pic courtesy of office.microsoft.com Only, last night, the line: not a creature was stirring, not even a mo...