Authors Electric

I don't often use this post for blatant marketing. My hope is to entertain, or make you think - if only for a moment. If anyone is inspired to follow the links and buy a book, well that's a bonus. So please bear with me, just this once. You'll see why. You can't have missed the news about recent earthquakes. This time last year is was Nepal. Recently there have been two huge quakes in Japan, followed by a third in Ecuador. Each time there are pictures of collapsed buildings, exhausted men and women digging in the rubble in the hope of pulling one person out alive. Anyone who survives under the stones and the dust for longer than a day or so is celebrated. Do we, from the comfort of our sofas, grow immune to such disasters? Do we see so many that we forget that these are people just like us, with children and dreams. People who work and play and squabble over what to watch on the telly. People who want nothing more than family around them, food to eat - and a r...

I find myself on the road this month. I am at a conference in Bowling Green, Kentucky, celebrating the work of Robert Penn Warren. I had every intention of writing the final instalment of my Metafictional Comic Countdown, but when I sat down to write it here in my hotle room, I realized two things: 1. My notes were sitting on my desk half a country away, and 2. Prince died. Seriously, if God doesn't cut this out, we're all going to have to kill ourselves just hear good music. Never fear, though, I have a column for you. It's one I have kept on file for just such an occasion. It's another one of those social media questionnaires that come across my Facebook page periodically. This one seems particularly appropriate for this site. It is called:  Are you a Literary Geek? 1) What author do you own the most books by? I have seven or more by several authors:Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Penn Warren, Neil Gaiman, Joseph Heller, John Irving, Stephen King, J. R. R. ...

On a recent visit to Bristol Old Vic I spotted posters for their upcoming production of The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk , a play inspired by the renowned painting by Chagal.  Then opening my book-club read of Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach,  I discovered illustrations in the form of Dutch Old Master paintings which are clearly germane to the author’s conception of her plot and characters. So what's going on? Crossing from one genre to another is hardly unusual – books become films, plays and musicals all the time, or even vice versa. But how often does one artistic creation take another as its inspiration?  Many poems of course reflect on paintings (did I know this is called ekphrasis ? – I’d like to think I did, if not, thank you Google for reminding me) but although many  novels, like Donna Tart's wonderful The Goldfinch , involve famous works of art, there aren’t so very many that delve inside a painting for character and plot. The obvious one is of cours...

'Crossover' is a term sometimes used by children's publishers to refer to a book published for young readers on a children's list - usually but not always the YA (young adult) section - that crosses over into an adult readership. I am often to be found reading YA fiction, because a lot of the titles I used to find in the fantasy and science fiction section have migrated over there. In fact, I might never have read any children's fiction as an adult reader, or sent my own work to a children's publisher, without the British Science Fiction Association magazine's review of Philip Pullman's Northern Lights ( the first title of His Dark Materials trilogy ) , which I read and enjoyed back in the 1990's and always assumed was published on an adult SF list, until I discovered it was originally brought out by a children's publisher. At around the same time, Susan Price's The Sterkarm Handshake  won the Guardian Children's fiction prize. It in...

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...

It’s that time of year again. The time when all business accounts have to be made up to date to satisfy the tax men. Now, this would not be a problem if my bookkeeping was done on a daily or weekly basis, and every year I swear to do this to avoid stress at the end of the financial year. But, like all good resolutions this usually falls to the wayside after the space of a month or two, with the result there is a big blank hole in my accounts instead of lovely numbers which balance out immaculately. I have always used software to balance my current and credit card accounts because, although money and I have a love/hate relationship, I do like playing with software, which is perhaps why I use two different money programs. Money to me is just something I get paid and something I can spend, it has no more importance than that. Oh yes! I agree, it’s quite nice to have money in your pocket and quite stressful if it’s not there. Like most of us, I’ve had moments in my life...

That's me! Beaming when my paperbacks arrived It's always a tad intimidating being the "new kid" in any scenario. But this year has already brought me a lot of new and first situations, and thankfully it's not beginning to feel so daunting any more. I have been welcomed into the Authors Electric's small but perfectly formed group and this is my first post on the website. So, I'd really just like to take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about me. I am 30 years old, a single mother and indie author. So far this year I have released my debut solo novel, In the Shadows, co-authored a novella called Web of Deceit and am currently in the process of co-writing a new crime series (the first book, The Caller, is available for pre-order on Amazon). My love of reading books and writing stories stems way back to when I was a little girl. I carried a small hardback book with me to write me tales in. At some point my poor mother was given it as a bir...