Authors Electric

 " ... The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) which we do not suspect. And as for that object, it depends on chance whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die."   -- Marcel Proust, Swann's Way    From Stepanie Heuet's 2019 graphic novel adaptation It's been twenty five years since I last dove into Proust. I was living in San Francisco. The Millennium was still a couple of years off. I had my first cell phone, a nifty flip device. Looking back, I see that I was living  in two worlds - at least. I stretched myself between a demanding Silicon Valley start-up job and being an over-age, doting, divorced dad to a precocious, late-in-life eight-year old.  It was no more harried a lifestyle than that of many single parents, mostly moms, but that didn't make it any easier. I had zero time for much of anything reflective, enlight...

First there must be cake. Launching a novel set in the 1940s a vintage theme seemed appropriate. Fairy cakes, decorated with hundreds and thousands would be perfect. Never having baked them before, I prefer muffins, I was a little nervous, but the recipe appeared to work for both. The book said to use butter icing, but I wanted that old fashioned look and went with water-icing. Covered in a fine sweet mist of sugar, I sifted and stirred and spread, then held my breath and waited… In the past I have watched as slowly, relentlessly, unstoppably icing has slid from the surface of my baking and onto the work top. This time, however, it held and there was time to decorate with a swift pinch of coloured sprinkles before it began to set. Cakes, baked, decorated it was time to turn the attention to costumes.  A land-girl’s outfit was purchased and I rooted through my wardrobe to find anything that was suggestive of the period. A hat from a long ago wedding, a blouse with pad...

Some few weeks ago I purchased a copy of Writing Magazine and in the market section there were some writing opportunities for non-fiction writers. I popped off some emails and received some responses. One was from a publisher interested in me writing for them. They sent me a draft contract, which I immediately sent to the Society of Authors for checking. As per usual they did a fantastic job at highlighting clauses I should be aware of before I signed and the consequences of agreeing to them. These clauses included: Sourcing illustrations and ensuring all written permissions were obtained  Creating an index   Writing the blurb for the back cover Write some promotional material for marketing materials, including social media When I first started to write professionally some twenty years ago this was done by the publisher. So I began to wonder what I'd be gaining from signing such a contract. The reasons I came up with were: An advance They'd format and design the ...

Today is traditionally 'Bonfire Night', or 'Guy Fawkes Day', when there are bonfires in fields and back gardens and we let off fireworks and bake potatoes in the embers.  I have lovely childhood memories of family parties on the farm.  My father would kill a chicken and my mother would cook up a big roast dinner.  We saved up for weeks to buy fireworks from the village shop - Bangers and Silver Fountains, Roman Candles, Rockets in milk bottles, and Catherine Wheels that we nailed to the fence. My brother liked the Jumping Jacks that sprang about with a bang and a snap - that is until one of them landed in the biscuit tin he'd kept his fireworks in and they all lit up and went off at once. I remember running from  a rocket that had a horizontal trajectory across the stack-yard, and my father had to pour a bucket of water on another Jumper that landed in the hay. We had no sense of danger in those days.  The only thing that made me feel uncomfortable was the Guy....

Authors Electric guest poster, |Seb Kirby Despite the widely held opinion that male authors don't create convincing central female characters, there are some notable exceptions in literary fiction: Daniel Defoe - Moll Flanders , Thomas Hardy - Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary , Truman Capote - Breakfast At Tiffany's , Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go , Ian McEwan - Atonement. Proving that it can be done and done well. But when it comes to male authored crime/thriller fiction, women protagonists are in more short supply. Of course, there are a great many very good and highly successful crime/thriller novels with female protagonists that are written by women (a list too long to mention). And there is a large number of male authored thrillers with strong female characters. A good example is Lisbeth Salander in Steig Larrson's Millennium series. But where are the male authors in this genre when it comes to internalising a view of the wor...

That's me! Beaming when my paperbacks arrived It's always a tad intimidating being the "new kid" in any scenario. But this year has already brought me a lot of new and first situations, and thankfully it's not beginning to feel so daunting any more. I have been welcomed into the Authors Electric's small but perfectly formed group and this is my first post on the website. So, I'd really just like to take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about me. I am 30 years old, a single mother and indie author. So far this year I have released my debut solo novel, In the Shadows, co-authored a novella called Web of Deceit and am currently in the process of co-writing a new crime series (the first book, The Caller, is available for pre-order on Amazon). My love of reading books and writing stories stems way back to when I was a little girl. I carried a small hardback book with me to write me tales in. At some point my poor mother was given it as a bir...

My partner keeps his brain alive - his expression - by playing Scrabble.      He's only been playing the game for about a year, but he took to it ferociously and now plays every chance he gets. He even plays against himself.       He joined his local U3A and their unsuspecting Scrabble-arm made him welcome - since then he's beaten them all, even their best player, monotonously, like gongs. And by 'beaten', I mean by over 300 points.      In self-defense, they brought in rules such as: No cheating by using the official Scrabble dictionary instead of an old Concise Collins without a cover, published in the 1940s. And then: No looking things up in dictionaries.      It did them no good. He's simply memorised all the allowable two and three letter words, and all the allowable words containing 'U', such as: usufruct : the right to enjoy the use of another's property, so long as it's not damaged or destroyed, and ...

Cross-channel confusion Last autumn I had a disturbing experience. Well it wasn’t too bad because I was only sitting in front of the telly and no blood was spilled, and you know how it is when a character appears and your immediate reaction is ‘oh that’s so-and-so from what’s it’s name,’ because with any actor worth their salt you’re bound to think of them as their most recent persona.  But this time it got out of hand.  I was watching the dramatisation of Capital by John Lanchester  and couldn’t miss the fact that city financier Roger Yount was actor Toby Jones aka Lance from cult BBC4 comedy The Detectorists . But then Roger’s wife Arabella turned out to be Rachel Stirling who happens to be the wife of the other guy in The Detectorists , Lance’s mate Andy. Confused? No, not exactly, but it didn’t help with my suspension of disbelief. Then there was Nicola Walker (great actress, loved her feisty farmer in Last Tango in Halifax ) playing two different d...

With my article writing hat on, this month I've written a piece on Beatrix Potter, seeing as 2016 marks the 150 th anniversary of her birth. Doing the research it surprised me to discover that she was an indie author herself at the start of her writing career – apologies if everyone except me knew this already!! But for those of you who don't know her story, Beatrix loved wildlife and exploring the countryside and made pets out of all kinds of wild creatures such as rabbits, frogs, mice and the like. These little animals and birds were the inspiration for her stories in later life along with farm animals when Beatrix took up sheep farming in the Lake District. In 1893, Beatrix was on holiday in Eastwood, Dunkeld when she decided to write a letter to Noel Moore who was the five year old son of a former nanny, who was poorly. She wrote: “ My dear Noel, I don’t know what to write to you, so I shall tell you a story about four little rabbits… That let...

Here I go again, doing what I'm told you absolutely should not do - Foiling The Dragon by Susan Price that is, talking back to your critics. I did it here, when people said my villain in the Sterkarm books, James Windsor, was not believable - and now I'm going to defend my poetry-loving dragon in Foiling The Dragon. I recently put Foiling The Dragon. out as a paperback and e-book. It is, as the strapline informs you, 'A light-hearted fantasy of poets, sorceresses, dragons — and wrapping paper.' It's not epic fantasy. It's meant to amuse for a few hours, and maybe make you smile. On Amazon it's collected some positive reviews. J. Mathews says,  ' I enjoyed this book as a child, and have just read it again. I found it equally enjoyable.' Thank you, J. Mathews. I don't know who you are, but I greatly appreciate your taking the time and trouble to post a positive review. The Sterkarm Handshake by Susan Price D. Lamb says: ...