Authors Electric

I had been waiting for quite a while for the third in one of my favourite series by one of my favourite authors, so I could hardly wait to read it when it was finally published. While the story managed to wrap up some plot threads that had been left dangling after the first two books in the series, in a way that was satisfying in itself, I couldn't help finding the structure of the story a bit laboured. After thinking about it for quite a while, I realised why I had noticed this. The answer surprised me. I had myself wrestled with a similar writing problem in the past.  I am a very low-profile writer - I have written and self-published a lot of novels but none have been wildly successful, which I think is partly because I tend to write in the odd gaps between genres. This is more or less unintentional. My cosy mysteries are either not cosy enough or not mysterious enough, and my historical romances are not romantic enough, though I have found a few loyal readers who seem to stick b...

Sometimes being a writer is like being on the wrong side of a door, a glass door, that offers tantalising glimpses of the world on the other side.   When I was young, I just broke through it using whatever was at hand; determination, energy and ignorance mainly which, correctly wielded, are powerful tools. These days I peer through the misted glass, admiring the scenery. I go away and rifle through my office drawers. I find several dried up felt tip pens, a broken biro, a usb that no longer works and an aged roll of cellotape which appears to have no end. A sensible woman would throw them out, but this one observes that none of these dispiriting objects resembles a key and closes the drawer. The door waits.       On the other side, a dramatic storm is brewing. The sky is charcoal black and, as I watch, white lightning forks. Its afterburn dazzles me and I blink it away. I hope whoever lives there is safe: I have not met them yet, but I would care about the...