Authors Electric

All good things come to an end, but endings can be hard to bear. Turning over the last page of a favourite novel can tear your heart in two, particularly if you have invested so much time getting to know the characters. Maybe that is why sequels are so popular, you can pick up where you left off and continue the story, with a new adventure, because let’s face it no one’s story really ends. Even when some people die, they can leave behind a legacy and the circle of life continues. I’ve just started reading a Dr Ruth Galloway book. The Locked Room is, I think, the penultimate one in the series. I could have devoured them all in one go, but I’ve spaced them out through the years. Elly Griffiths’ writing has kept me coming back for more but even she has now moved on. I must read her Brighton series and the Harbinder Kaur books before I investigate her brand-new series. There is so much I have to look forward to. The joy of new books – shiny with uncracked spines, unread but just wa...

Speckled Wood “As writers, as a group, readers of this blog take words and their meanings seriously." Life in the world beyond books, blogs, and articles, however, demonstrates that large numbers of people don’t. Take the heading ‘NATURE RESERVE’ on a notice: is this a place set aside to provide a safe and suitable habitat for wildlife, native plants, trees, maybe a wetland area?   A location where a handful of rare species have been seen to hang out? Even the slow worms in our 7-hectare local nature reserve are counted to make sure they are doing okay.   Or is it, as a runner recently put it, ‘just a place for everyone, and dog-walking…’ As fiction writers, we’re in the business of creating both environment and inhabitants, which will include inhabitants who don’t think like ourselves, and environments we’d find strange, hostile, uncanny, as well as beautiful, welcoming, or exciting. Possibly more often than not these environments will indeed be in the negative, at least for...

 Is it too early to stick my neck out and predict the word of 2022? I’m not sure what odds I’d get but the word WORDLE would have to be a strong contender. As I type this, I can say with utter certainty that I have a 25 day winning streak, I can’t believe I’ve been playing it for over three   whole weeks. It's crazy , perhaps I am addicted, but a quick scroll through my twitter timeline shows I am not alone . I’m sure I don’t need to spell out what it is but in case you have somehow missed it, WORDLE is a word game where you quite simply have to guess a new five letter word each day. You get six attempts and after each guess your letters change colour, (or even color as WORDLE uses US spelling!) green if you have put the right letter is in the right place , yellow means a letter is in the word but in the wrong place and grey if the letter is not in the word at all. As many people have remarked it’s very like the old board game of Mastermind – if you...

  As I am merely one of the contributors to, rather than the owner of, this blog, I don't usually use my own image or that of my books as the main photo. I always think that would be rather presumptuous of me. However, I thought it was appropriate for this particular post and I am hoping the admins and you, as readers of this blog, will forgive me. There is a good reason for me using this today. Often, as authors, we only display a very public persona and what people know of us is what can be seen in the images we choose. These are most often chosen to show us in our best light. Of course, that makes sense as we want readers to invest in our books. From the image above you would see me as a confident prolific author, with numerous books to her name, across a range of age groups. I have also been published in, edited and compiled numerous anthologies which are not seen in the above image. Why are you telling me this, I hear you ask. The answer - you may think that words just flow fr...

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about writing of late, more thinking than writing, especially late at night. This makes me want to beat myself up mentally sometimes, makes me wonder why I can't sleep.  In the past, when want-to-be writers wanted to chat about writing, I obliged but with some trepidation. I don’t do small talk, and to wax poetic on the craft of writing seemed meaningless unless there was real life application. Were we writing a book together? If not, then what I had to contribute would probably be of little help. I’m not an academic, and theorizing about writing can never take the place of the act of writing itself. It’s a discipline that's learned while putting it in practice.  Writing is also a solitary endeavour, not a group effort. I say this even though I write with a partner every month. Bill Kirton (who also contributes to this site) and I compose stories together , but our individual pieces are written without prior discussion, so the act of writing ...

  As you read this it is pancake day or Shrove Tuesday which means it's almost Lent (yes I know this is a writing blog, bear with me). Every year I give up sugar, however, for the past few years I have also done a writing challenge. Before you get to be overwhelmed by my dedication to the craft of writing I should point out I failed miserably every year. What was the challenge? It was a 40 day writing prompt and you are supposed to write a piece of prose, short story, flash fiction, a blog post or even a poem every day. I think this was where I fell down - the thought of all those different pieces of writing froze my brain.  Those of you who know me well know that I would never in all my days call myself a poet. Yes, I write rhyming picture books but those appeal to the average 3-7 year old. Not really what I'd call poetry. I was thinking of giving you an example of my poetry but decided you were already suffering enough during a worldwide pandemic. Why would I make your eyes ...

The Amazon Kindle, possibly so named in the hope it would encourage ( kindle a lasting interest in) reading, is not the real subject of this piece.   Words and language are a lead-in. Everyone who is a writer will recognise how familiar words and phrases can so easily become cliched or overused, oddly especially those used by (some) writers writing about writing! “As a writer”, someone states, kicking off an opinion paragraph. “I love words”, “she has a way with words”, two phrases which, well, make our relationship with our communication tools sound all too creepy. I am probably very picky, but those cliches, set in a blog about writing, can be really annoying. Like, “If you love words, then couldn’t you dress up that thought into more imaginative clothing?”. Words, are, after all, the bare bones, or basic bricks, of any piece of writing. It’s the choice, the use, the combination, which makes for a captivating piece. The new metaphor, the astounding simile. Think of Shake...

I love big skies - I now live in a top floor flat with a view across rooftops to the distant hills. And above - magnificent skies. And I love words. I love the way they come out to play and surprise me. I love the way they creep up on me when I'm not looking. I'm a wordsmith - teasing away at a sentence until it does exactly what I need it to do gives me great pleasure. But I run out of words when it comes to my skies. Which troubles me - I'd like to be able to use the stories in skies as metaphors. I'd like to use more adventurous words than lowering, or shimmering, or azure. And so I'm going to do something I rarely do on this blog - give you pictures. Pictures without words. These are all taken from exactly the same place on my balcony. Please - can you find original ways to describe them? Believe it or not, I do, occasionally, stop looking at my skies and do some writing. You can find out more at jomcarroll.co.uk

The power of words, eh? I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately, partly because of Jo Bell’s ’52 poems’ challenge (I promise to stop banging on about it in about six months). There’s been a lot of struggling to find the most precise and satisfying way to express my response to each challenge – first things, weather, a celebration, a letter, a famous person, and so on. I was moderately happy as I wrote each one, but looking back over them has put a big dent in that. I am managing to say what I want to, but it doesn’t come near the poetry I admire. If poets are born and not made, I’m genetically deficient, but as I’m pig-headed (unofficial motto of Sussex: I wunt be druv) and I also believe that working at something can (sometimes) overcome such deficiency, I plough on. My ‘famous person’ is Nelson Mandela and I’m writing about ballroom dancing on Robben Island, which is an image I’ve always found inspirational. It’s coming slowly! Another recent effort, ‘a letter’   was to Al...

As the picture says Words can be a powerful thing. I use the capital of the word deliberately because this is particularly important when you are a writer. But I've come to realise lately that they can also be slippery little blighters. Especially when there is a deadline looming. Who it comes to writing my novels I have no trouble finding the right words. or ideas. Ideas are mainly what I am talking about today, rather than words per se. Again ideas for my novels flow thick and fast and I find the words come along with them. If I should get any measure of writers block it is usually an idea I need. Once I brainstorm a few scenarios the words coming flooding back. Slippery creatures they may be but they don't stay hidden for long. Lately, when it comes to ideas for anything shorter my words seem to get up and take a holiday. So I decided that my blog post today would give ideas for blog posts and short stories. The focus will be on ideas for writers as this blog is, aft...

Recently I was given this delightful book by my daughter who thought (quite rightly) that it would amuse me. LOST IN TRANSLATION, by Ella Frances Sanders, is a collection of single words  describing mostly, but not always, familiar situations for which, in English, we'd use several. There is, for example: MURR-MA, from an almost extinct Australian language, which means searching for things under water with your feet.      There is the lovely-sounding TIAM, in Farsi, meaning the twinkle in your eyes when you meet someone special, and on the downside: KUMMERSPECK, in German, which literally translates as 'grief-bacon', meaning the excess weight gained by emotional over-eating. The illustrations are fun, too - do check it out. For authors specialising in crime and horror,how are you responding to recent global events which seem to surpass anything dreamed up in a novel? Which of us, writing futuristic fantasy twenty or so years ago, would have invented a let...