Authors Electric

For this post, I've been tagged by Valerie Laws to explain my writing process. We all tackle the job differently, don't we? There are one or two things we agree on, such as editing a lot and reading work aloud to spot the clunky bits, but there's no right and wrong way. It took me a while to find that out! Valerie Laws ( www.valerielaws.com ) is a crime novelist, poet, playwright and sci-art installation specialist. Of her thirteen published books, 4 are currently available as ebooks. A mathematics/physics graduate, she devises new poetic forms and science-themed poetry installations and commissions including the infamous Arts Council–funded   Quantum Sheep,   spray-painting haiku onto live sheep to celebrate quantum theory.   Much of her recent work arises from funded residencies with pathologists, neuroscientists, human specimens and dissections. Another quantum haiku on inflated beachballs in Hackney Lido featured in BBC2’...

          The thing is, I did a daft thing a few weeks ago.           It seemed like a good idea at the time, as these things often do. I had a great splurge on tidying up, editing and then sending out a bunch of stuff: poems, picture book texts and opening chapters of novels.           I felt good for about half a day, then less good, then ghastly as the first rejections came in. You know the drill: It Is All Over. I Am Finished. Perhaps I Was Only Ever a One-trick Pony.           However, rejections were only the start of it. Then came the silence. The waiting. Waiting for deadlines, for the requisite number of weeks/months to go by until 'if you haven't heard from us by...you can assume you won't, ever'.           That's when the Slough of Despond sucks me i...

          A writer is someone who writes. Seems easy doesn’t it? But, at what stage do writers become professionals? Not so easy. Is it when they write their first article, story, novel, or book? Or is it tied to publication? And if it’s tied to publication, what kind of publication? Does publication in magazines count? What about online magazines? Does it have to be a book? And what about e-books? Do you have to be published by one of the Big Six to be recognised as a professional author? In my opinion that would be a bit restrictive. So, should this be extended to other publishing houses who are not part of the Big Six? And what about the multiplicity of independent publishers (Indies) that are springing up?           I started to wonder about this after chatting to the membership secretary of the CWA (Crime Writers Association) who indicated that the number of self published e-book auth...

As prickly as William? A little while ago, I was asked to speak to a group of readers. One of them had spent many years as a professional editor with one of the big, prestigious publishing corporations. All of them had read the Physic Garden and were interested in talking about it and asking questions. I’ve done plenty of these sessions and you don’t expect everyone to like the book. Some of the questions can be challenging, so you have to be able to think on your feet. All of which is a good thing. But on this occasion something happened that brought me up short. ‘How on earth,’ said this ex-editor personage, ‘Did you manage to write in the first person voice of somebody so unlikeable ?’ There was one of those dismayed silences in the group, with everyone trying not to catch my eye. An uneasy stirring. A little murmur of protest. I’ll admit I was gobsmacked. It wasn’t that she was questioning my writing abilities. Not really. She was asking me how I could possibly have writ...

          So you’re sitting on the patio with a Pimms, some pistachios and a laptop, surrounded by cascades of scented flowers with the gentle humming of bumble bees in the background, and the occasional burst of birdsong…       A lean, tanned figure appears with a single red rose, and an exquisite selection of Belgian chocolates. As he leans over you, his blond hair brushing your cheek, your thoughts turn to the next scene, when the heroine finds herself pressed up against a Viking warrior as she endeavours to rescue the family heirloom from the clutches of the one-eyed blacksmith who killed her brother… All of a sudden, a bit of research seems in order, and you shut the laptop and head back into the house with your…             Of course, that’s the sort of stuff I wrote under a pseudonym, and I’m not revealing the pen-name here! So how was it for you, tr...

My mind drifted into fantasy land at a very early age, and stayed there, more or less. Like my mother, I’ve never really thought of writing as a proper job, and the highs and lows of earning from it (which for most of us are getting lower all the time) never had much concrete reality. When I needed proper money I did a proper job (or worked on the grotty tabloids at least) until the financial choke-chain eased a bit, and for the rest of it – well, who wants to be rich anyway? Enough is as good as a feast; did any of you ever meet a rich man/woman who was happy? Me neither. Lately, though, my life’s been more grounded in reality, and I haven’t enjoyed it particularly much. People very dear to me and mine are falling gently to pieces, and I’ve been a minor part of the hands-on caring process. It’s made the idea of knocking off another novella or two, or taking much part in Cally Phillips’s Edinburgh ebookfest (both of which I actually want to do) seem a wee bit too much. Despite t...

It's a lovely thing to feel you're in at the start of something which, if all goes well, will be really good. So I'm going to talk about something which has been in contemplative mode for a long time now but now might actually come to life. A new independent publisher. Do we really need yet another? Cally, Dan, Julia and Kathleen already mastermind very effective operations which we see as potent role models. And there are scores more doing great things. (There are also a few who aren't.) So why not have a go?  Introducing;   BLANK PAGE PRESS. I had hoped  to introduce our rather good colophon here, but it seems beyond my puny technological powers . Blank Page Press has been a long time in the making and it's not quite there yet. Like many Indies, it was born out of the common realisation that traditional publishing was now virtually dead to us but losing our old publishers didn't mean we'd lost our minds as well. And besides, there is a host of n...