Authors Electric

So I’ve been conspicuously absent from this blog – and life in general for a few months. If 2023 was the year of health and getting my teeth done, then 2024 has so far been the year of death and the major life-changes that death brings to those of us left behind.  In January I lost my dad after a long, and slow decline into dementia. He’d been existing (I don’t use the term living, because he really wasn’t) for 18 months in a lovely care home, but passed away quietly in his sleep one night – a week before my 60th birthday and the party I’d planned.  My mum was in hospital at the time – she’d been admitted after some blood tests – and we didn’t realise then that she’d never live on her own again. After a terminal cancer diagnosis, she was in and out of hospital, respite care, her own home with carers 3 times a day (and me living with her on and off) and then she declined rapidly over a period of days and was suddenly gone. Overnight. No real goodbyes. My adult daughter and I sp...

Image Credit: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. I love reading books of letters and diaries. I was a fan of Adrian Mole and the letters of P.G. Wodehouse are an interesting and often humorous read (as you’d expect). One of my favourite quotes comes from a Wodehouse letter.   “God may have forgiven Herbert Jenkins Limited for the jacket of Meet Mr Mulliner but I never shall!” Dodgy book covers are nothing new then! I also have a fascinating collection of letters between Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford. Reading this is like peeping in on a private world, which is a great reason to read books of letters and diaries! Have you written in letter and/or diary format? I’ve done both though for flash fiction I have needed to use close to the upper limit of 1000 words for these. They are an interesting challenge and I find they make a nice change from “straight prose”.  Having said that, I wouldn’t want to always use these formats. It can look gimmicky. Besides the...