Authors Electric

  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...

This is a well-worn topic, but then I’m a well-worn writer. I have spasms of sending ‘stuff’ out. Sometimes new stuff, sometimes stuff that’s been the rounds before – on the little flickering wings of hope that this time, this time, it would find a home. Here, dear Editor, is my precious child, a drop of my heart’s blood, a small shining piece of my soul. Take it and cherish it. What?? It doesn’t fit your publishing needs? Thanks but no thanks? Not even that, but silence? I look again and see, now, the taint in my heart’s blood, the deformity in my precious child, the smear across the piece of my soul. How could I have thought anyone would want it, let alone love and cherish it? I am a deluded fool. I will slink off into outer darkness and never show my sorry head again. Thought I could write, did I? Hah!  Black hole of despair (Fingal's Cave, really) Or...what was the matter with the idiot who failed to see the worth of my precious child, the life-pulse of my ...

See-saw, Margery Daw, Johnny shall have a new master; He shall have but a penny a day, Because he can’t work any faster. It will be no surprise to fellow writers that life can be a bit up-and-down.   Since my last blog, mine has been absolutely Zebedee/tart’s knickers/ W.H.Y.   You’d think that, at my age, and after all these years, the highs and lows would have flattened out somewhat. Not so. A piece of work accepted, a nice review, any small pat on the back, and I’m soaring with the skylarks. A non-response, a rejection, a fewer –than- 5- stars rating, and I’m in the murky depths. The Slough of Despond. The Pit. I am Finished as a Writer. Was I ever any good? Was it all just a fluke? As March turned towards April and the first botanical tulips brightened the kitchen windowsill, the bleurghh of that long grey winter started to lift and so did my spirits and energy – and optimism. I went into submissions overdrive: poems, a monologue ,   short plays. Noth...