Authors Electric

  Recently someone asked what books I would recommend to someone intending to write fiction. I am a little ashamed to confess that I never read anything about writing before I started writing - it never occurred to me to do so. Looking back that seems both stupid and perverse and also entirely in character.  There is an awful lot to be said for standing on the shoulders of giants, but all my life I have specialised in grubbing around in the shadows at their feet  messing up and making do, attempting to reinvent the wheel by trial and error. I know this isn't an intelligent approach. I've never learned to cook either in spite of the fact that I do a lot of it. I hate following recipes so my cooking is hit or miss and not infrequently a bit of both in a curate's egg kind of way. I am at a loss to explain this idiocy even to myself. I could have saved so much time and my family so many terrible culinary experiences if only I'd taken the time to master a couple of basic tec...

I had the pleasure of visiting my young granddaughter Daisy last weekend – and of seeing how much she has developed and changed since starting school in September. She can now write most of her letters, forming them with great care and precision, while reciting little verses to guide her. She can also put letters together to make simple words, and can spell out some unfamiliar words letter by letter and then read the whole word ‘F – O – G… fog!’ But what struck me most was the sheer joy of accomplishment on her face when she correctly read or spelled a word. And the way that she has started seeing words everywhere she goes – in shops, on signs – and her delight in recognising them and saying them out loud. Suddenly her familiar and well-thumbed books have become treasure troves, not just of pictures but of these wonderful new things called words – and wow, is she excited? Daisy is lucky – she is part of a family where books are loved and the house is full of them. She’s ...

Before I begin I'll admit I feel a bit of a fraud as I've still not managed to publish a book on Kindle. This time last month I was all set to launch my new book. However things never go to plan and I am in the process of totally re-structuring the book before it goes to my proofreader. In the middle of restructuring the book I remembered I had two magazines features to write, some one-to-one coaching to do and a front cover to design. Obviously when having a book traditionally published the publisher or packagers take care of cover design. I may get a chance to see a few mock-ups, perhaps ever say which cover I prefer but I've never had to design one. I have taught kitchen and produce design but with cover design I was working outside of my comfort zone. I therefore started where I would suggest my student's start, by researching covers with similar titles. I'll be honest that wasn't much help. They either looked dated, I knew there was no way I could achiev...