Authors Electric

No, I don’t mean those times when you hear a recording of yourself speaking and shudder with humiliation and embarrassment, though I’ve experienced that too. (Where did that flat-vowelled squeaky-voiced twelve-year-old with a frog in her throat spring from?) And no, I’m not at all ashamed of my Yorkshire accent – just amazed that it still survives after all these years of living in many different places.       Anyway, the subject under discussion is not my speaking but my writing voice. Anyone else get those times when you can’t write ten words in succession without recoiling in disgust? You may have an exciting new novel buzzing in your head, a bunch of characters all ready to express themselves and a plot worked out, if not down to the last detail then at least with some idea of what’s happening and when. But the actual words and sentences... it’s not so much that they won’t come as that when they do they make you want to rip up the page or clobber yo...

                                     Imagine this: you've spent years developing your particular brand as a writer, from a series of books...to their singular hook (e.g. Southern Scotch)...to the template for your covers. Now, just as you're gaining some traction, the devil whispers in your ear. And you want to try something different. You see a spin-off series. In fact, you've started writing it and it's coming along wonderfully. Still, each day you feel a pressing need to get down and dirty, grappling with marketing hurdles. It's time now for the dirty word. You know the one:                                    Strategy Now, I have no trouble imagining this. I'd written four Boss MacTavin mysteries--all starring that Southern Scot and sporting cool Tartan covers--when I chose to try someth...