Authors Electric

We come here to jam once a month with our friends in the swinging saloon called AE. Let me start off with this definition…so I don’t get in a stickier jam with those who think I mean jelly: A   jam session   is a musical event, process, or activity where musicians play (i.e. "jam") by improvising without extensive preparation or predefined arrangements. Jam sessions are often used by musicians to develop new material (music), find suitable arrangements, or simply as a social gathering and communal practice session . To some extent, AE’s unique structure precludes an exact parallel: 29 writers who post once each month does not precisely equal a group of six musicians who hook up every Sunday. True. But we have enough in common to pursue the metaphor. In fact, the metaphor’s enriched by another significant difference:   our ‘solos’ can continue in the Comments section to our posts…and we’re free to sound off in the Comments to our colleagues’ posts. In the...

          I do wish my mother wouldn’t answer the door or phone in my absence with, ‘Oh, she’s not in, she’s riding Tom.’            Most callers probably wouldn’t bat an eyelid, but I can guess that the postman probably smirked           Let me tell you about my love affair with Tom. He’s so tall I have to stand on a box to mount him. He’s very dark, apart from a couple of white socks, very male, and impossibly handsome but he knows this, so that’s possibly a minus. He always smells divine too, although I appreciate this is an acquired taste. He ran away with me once, and you might think that an incredibly romantic thing to do, but Tom’s idea of excitement was tearing hell for leather across open parkland whilst I danced that crazy line between exhilaration and terror.            Tom is...

I've just been tagged in a Blog Hop meme by Susie Kelly via Victoria Corby called The Next Big Thing - French Twist. A Q&A about current work in progress. It looks great  and I want to participate, I will participate. But it's a long time since I wrote about writing. Problem is, it's a long time since I wrote at all despite all recent good intentions. I have 3 WIPs to complete, selecting one to revisit will, I'm sure, help in the mission to get back to writing. It brings it all back, in a good way, as to what it's all about. My happiest writing times were the pre-publishing hoo ha years of creative writing classes, mostly short stories, a bit of poetry. No pressure beyond getting the words right enough to read out loud, listening to others and entering a few competitions. Like many of those who were to become my friends on the courses, I dreamt of one day being able to write what I wanted to write, publish how I wanted to publish - .....oh hang on? So what...