Authors Electric

 I was at the pub in late August with some poet friends berating my lack of creative direction, as I am inclined to do when one of them told me about his personal project to post a 'triadic couplet' a day to social media. Any hint of a challenge and I'm hooked, so I've been writing a six line poem a day ever since. The form is simple, but flexible. There have to be three couplets and rhyme, rhythm, line length is entirely up to you. They are horribly addictive. It’s something I would recommend to anyone in the creative doldrums. Six lines isn’t very much and, as I have imposed no quality control, there is no real pressure to write anything ‘good': I have no poetry reputation to trash.  That said, I’ve been both embarrassed and pleasantly surprised when friends  have told me they are enjoying them. Part of me thinks I would have spent more time on them, if I'd thought people would read them, the more grown up part  reminds myself that no one forced me to foist ha...

This has nothing to do with anything What follows is a piece I posted on my own blog between Xmas and New Year. My excuse/reason for repeating it here is that I think it illustrates the process of how asking questions of ourselves as writers (questions of which I gave examples in three of my AE blogs in the summer of 2015), provides the substance and complexities of stories and novels. The range and nature of the responses I got to the challenge at the end made me want to provoke some of the literati who frequent the AE blog into giving their take on the exercise. First, then, the blog. Facebook is a strange place for all sorts of reasons – some good, some less so. You can, for example, find out which 18 th century politician, Renaissance painter, or Jane Austen character you most resemble just by answering a few questions. Really useful, eh? Other questions help you decide whether you’re a porcupine, a swallow-tailed butterfly, or a haddock. Some ask you to combine the ...