Authors Electric

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that I became a full time writer on 1 st January this year. It was terrifying and wonderful all at once. The minute I did it, my biggest client had an internal change around and stopped sending me work. “Never fear!” said I, looking for new and creative ways to encourage a few pennies to roll into my account. “I shall diversify!” Ten and a half months since I took my leap, I’ve got a whole new selection of writing services to offer. I critique and polish other writers’ MSs. I give informal one to one workshops on marketing and social media (more formal workshops planned for next year). I have booked myself into craft fairs and events all over Suffolk, beginning in Kesgrave in March where I learned that people don’t necessarily realise that the person selling the books is the one that wrote them and ending with a mini Christmas market in my own village on 17 th December. Since I started, I’ve sold 126 books, added to my following on all t...

I've been reading with interest some of the reports and social media jokes about home schooling during the pandemic. My sympathy goes out to parents who have been suddenly forced into this situation, although I think in many cases they and their offspring will benefit from spending more time together. Two of my work colleagues are finding it a struggle to work from home, as we are all supposed to do, with children around all the time, and I feel for them particularly. When we were plunged into home education, as it is more often known here by people who choose it rather than having it foisted on them, the circumstances were rather different, partly because it was forced on me not because of an unexpected and sudden government decision but because I had a child who voted with his feet not to go to school. I mean that more or less literally - it was even possible to drive him to school and then have him refuse to walk the thirty metres or so to the door. If we ever did get ...

We all have comfort zones and they expand and contract at different times in our lives. Way back in the when, I used to thrive on conflict and it was all part of the day job. If we didn’t have at least one letter of complaint each week, the boss would say we weren’t doing our jobs properly, and arresting people for drug-smuggling was never going to be a calm and peaceful day in the office. Those who know me may say I still love an argument and that’s probably true, but in reality I’m way more conservative than I used to be. I think as a writer, it’s necessary – indeed vital – to enjoy your own company, to wander off inside your head with an imaginary gang of friends. But in the increasingly-media-centric world, it’s also necessary – and quite possibly vital – to be able to step outside into the real world and engage with people. Even traditionally-published authors are expected to walk the media-walk these days. It was with this in mind that I answered a call on facebook a fe...

I've been too busy this month to come up with a blog, so here's The badge of the RLF some notes on what I've been up to. I've mentioned before how I trained with the Royal Literary Fund to become one of their accredited consultants. Well, I decided that I'd better do something with the accreditation. Long ago, when I first started earning a living as a writer, I made more money by going into schools and talking about what I did, than I did from actually selling my writing. I've continued to make part of my income from school visits ever since, but gradually the writing income overtook the school income... but since the recession both have fallen off sharply. As, I think, almost everyone posting here has found too. I decided to do something about this. I needed income but, obviously, it was no longer sufficient to wait for schools to seek me out. I had to go out and grab them by the lapels, even if only metaphorically. Sprint Education So I gri...

  RLF Consultant Fellows The  Royal Literary Fund Register of Consultant Fellows           Here we are, then.            This is the reason I've been pleading that I'm too busy, for the past year. I've been an RLF guinea-pig on their latest project, the Register of Consultant Fellows, the aim of which Dr Trevor Day was to turn twenty writers into people capable of 'operating with appropriate training and to high standards of professional and ethical practice, to facilitate writing-related activities with groups of students or staff.' This is a quote from Trevor Day , the highly qualified educator and writer (and marine-biologist who swims with sharks) who devised and led the training-course.  (Trevor has modestly asked me to add that the course wouldn't have been the same without the 'considerable input' of  Marina Benjamin and Tina Pepler who 'helped design ...

          The other day the Mighty Zon delivered the proof copy of the first actual, physical, self-published paper book of mine that I've done. Here it is: The Wolf's Footprint.             It's already been published, by Hodder, and is available on Kindle , but it was quite a thrill to open the parcel and see my own publication, under the PriceClan imprint.           Somehow - much as I love my Kindle and even prefer reading on it - a paper book that you can stand a coffee cup on, wedge under a wobbly table or force into an overcrowded bookcase, seems more of an achievement than successfully publishing an e-book.          Perhaps I felt this way simply because I've mostly forgotten how difficult I found e-publishing at first, and the struggles with Createspace are fresher in my mind. Indeed, I'm still struggling, a...