Authors Electric

One of my Facebook friends is sharing her childhood diary with us, with comments from an adult perspective on the life of a ten year old. It’s fascinating stuff.  I started keeping a diary from the start of 1977, when I was almost 13 (my birthday is in January). I wrote pretty much daily until the end of 1985, by which time I’d left university and home and gone to work in my first job in London. Clearly real life was more exciting then as the entries tail off. My last entry was 1988 as I was about to get engaged to Andy – by husband now of over 30 years!  So 6th April 2021. What was I doing on this day over the years of my childhood …  1977   Went to the cinema today and saw 101 Dalmatians , also saw Ride a Wild Pony . It was ace. The pony was called Taff and was a palomino. I was 13 and in the typical teenage girl pony phase. I can't remember what age I started riding lessons but most of these years were spent obsessing about ponies, reading pony stories and despera...

by Sheridan Winn ‘What’s it like being a writer?’ ‘Are you disciplined and start at the same time each day?’ ‘Do you listen to music when you write?’ ‘How many words do you write in a day?’ ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ It’s wonderful and awful; no; absolutely not (words have their own rhythm and music interrupts the flow); anything between 50 and 5000; and, I have no idea, they’re just there when I need them, I reply. How does one explain that writing is as excruciating as it is exhilarating? Sometimes, you explain, the words creep along the page, sometimes they tumble out and, sometimes, if you’re really lucky and get ‘in the zone’, they will fly. ‘So what’s your typical day?’ they ask. This is how it often is. 10.00am. Coffee, strong and black, or a large pot of gunpowder and mint tea with some honey; either will guarantee I will need to go to the loo umpteen times in the next hour or so. Necessary preparation Ready to roll...