Authors Electric

It is that time of year when some of us would much prefer to hibernate. Once new year celebrations are over (in the UK at least) there are two months of cold and damp to look forward to – and I am a summer girl.   Events such as signings are invariably a lot more fun than my winter-brain tells me they will be, and something writers do, even in deepest, darkest winter. Especially when good friends are relying on you to be there.   This was the case for the recent signing that I attended to promote The Daemons of Devil’s End. It was the last event in the signing tour to promote both the   The Daemons of Devil’s End DVD , starring Damaris Hayman, made by   Reel Time Pictures, and the accompanying anthologies The Daemons of Devil’s End , and/or   Olive Hawthorne and the Daemons of Devil’s End , both from Telos Pres s. Yes, two editions of the same book ( a nother story in its own right). It was touch and go whether I would make it  a...

In my reading and writing I have found that the English language favors the use of negative words to add impact to a statement. Idioms, phrases, and figures of speech also favor the negative form for emphasis. Let me explain. It’s morning, and you’re on your way out the door, and your partner say’s, “Don’t forget your lunch.” Why don’t we say, “REMEMBER your lunch,” instead? You had a meeting with a person of authority, like a police officer or a judge. Your friend asks if you were nervous and you respond; “I wasn’t afraid.” Instead of saying, “I was very brave, and all went well,” WHY does our language default to a negative response? It appears that there is emphasis added by the use of a negative word. For example, when achieving success in some endeavor, we say, “I could NOT have been happier.”   Instead of a simple, positive remark, “I am so happy!” Just saying, “we’re happy” doesn’t create as powerful a statement as we get by adding a negative for emphasis. ...

When I left home in 1968 at the age of nineteen to go to art school, like most students, I couldn’t take very much with me. Three weeks later I went home for the weekend. My mother led me up to my bedroom and said, “Surprise! Isn’t it lovely?” The room had been completely redecorated, and most of my possessions had been thrown away. She had no idea what was materially valuable or nostalgically important, and I had to stand there and say how nice the room looked. All my drawings went, and my writings, and most of my books. It used to upset her that I read the same books over and over again – not to the exclusion of anything else, but because I loved them and wanted to re-enter that world. So – thank goodness for the Internet. I have just started to look for those lost books again – in the early days of the web, my searches were pretty fruitless. But not now! To my delight, if I could remember the title, someone, somewhere, has probably put a copy up for sale. My first rediscove...

In our modern hustle and bustle world I would venture to say that one of our most precious commodities is time. The more labour saving devices we acquire, the more we seem to fill our days and the minutes just slip by. As the picture suggests our time just slips away.  My last post on this blog was Motivation Matters and this post takes that theme further  Whilst the principles are the same for everyone, this is a writing blog so I am going to focus on time and our writing. By using even just a few of these you will find your writing time expands and your word count will rise. 1. Schedule important tasks - while this might seem like a no brainer, how many of us actually do this. My regular contribution to this blog is a perfect example. I know I am scheduled for the 16th of each month and yet the date sneaks up on me and can often slip by unnoticed. This should have been out at 00:30 and here I am at 09.40, still writing it. So, taking my own advice, there is...