Authors Electric

Spring has ... woops, it’s winter again. Is anyone else paralysed by difficult weather? - As I wrote that I struggled for the right adjective. Weather is simply weather; we describe it as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ according to our own construct of it. And that construct can change over time. For instance, the recent snow and ice saw me stuck at home. The path from the doorway of my flats to the street was sheet ice and I already have one broken finger - I don’t need a second. But if my grandsons had been here they would have been undeterred by a little ice (they would probably have made it slippier by sliding on it) and I would have clung to the railings beside them so we could reach the park to play snowballs. Snow, for most children, is a playground. For me, it cuts me off.  I know people who are comparably deterred by strong sunshine. The second the sun appears. I’m out there. The slightest glimmer and I’m smiling. But for some the heat is enough to send them to a darkened r...

A few years ago, shortly after I joined Authors Electric, I agreed to write a guest post for one of our member's personal blog about using music when I write. I never did write that blog. I even forgot which member asked me (If you're reading this, whoever you are, I am sorry.) It's not that I forgot to write the blog, or decided not to write it. I was looking forward to it. I even started it a couple of times. I just couldn't ever get it to really gel, and then it gradually sank into the background as life got in the way, never forgotten, always lurking right there on the edge of my attention, until it was too late to write the thing for its intended venue (even if I could remember what that venue was). This month, however, I am at a loss for a topic for my post, and so I come back to the blog I should have written years ago. Depends on how this post goes, really. If memory (which is a fickle thing) serves, I was supposed to discuss my writing playlist. Th...

Iconic: Edinburgh from Calton Hill I’ve always thought setting a book in a famous city gives it a head start. The skyline and the iconic views, familiar to most readers, present us with an instant connection to our audience.  Assuming of course we get it right - woe betide the writer who gets a street name wrong or transports the gets the hero/ine across town on the wrong bus! So there’s always a case for making the place as much of a fiction as the characters and adjusting the geography to suit.  Of course the really successful writer (especially one who can conjure up a long-running detective series!) will add seriously to that city’s cachet and tourist offering.    D. O. Hill (Image Preus Museum Norway) In the Blink of an Eye , which recreates the life of an Edinburgh artist – compelled me to use a city I knew as a visitor rather than a native, with the added difficulty of going back nearly 200 years.   As a newcomer to historical...

Today is  World Poetry Day , which was started by the United Nations in 1999 to celebrate poetry as a way for society to regain and assert its identity. The thing I've come to realize about poets, as opposed to novelists or other types of writers, is that they don't expect to make a living from their poetry alone, even if it gets published widely. It seems to me that this detachment of art from commerce might be to poetry's benefit, as there is presumably less temptation for a poet to "sell out" in pursuit of a lucrative contract, dumbing down or otherwise editing their work to appeal to the widest possible audience (as it's been suggested I do by various agents and editors in the course of my career as a children's author - my resistance to this idea is possibly the reason why I am not more widely published as a children's author, and why I can identify with poets!). I remember attending a poetry festival some years ago where, after the  poet Seli...

A most delightful primary school near Gloucester will be performing Tattybogle the Musical for their Easter show, so they invited me to spend a day with the year 1 and 2 children, reading stories and answering questions. Year 1 had prepared written questions   – very impressive for such small people!   Year 2’s were spontaneous. My favourite was ‘What’s your daddy’s name?’ One smart little girl also worked out how old I was by asking how long ago I’d written Tattybogle and how old I was then. My absolutely top part of the day was a Year 1 written question: when did you becom the Other? It set me thinking about how much of ‘the other’ we are as authors. Are we a breed apart? A series of sub-species, rather, since there are several distinct types of writer? Or, can anyone and everyone write stories? The short answer is, I suppose, yes, anyone can, but whether or not they should, and then put them out for public consumption, is another matter entirely. I’ve been thinking a ...

You know how it is – somebody mentions a particular subject on Facebook or Twitter, which sparks that domino effect of comments, which often stray off topic, interweaving with the original post but following trains of thought from a dozen, two dozen and more people. You watch the thread build and add to the chatter but in your head the memories are sparked of things only related to the subject by tenuous fibres of thought. It is the catching those thoughts that can be essential to a writer. Last night I danced on the edges of a thread that dealt with the subject of eating pet food. Specifically who had would own up to sampling dog or cat food, when and of what kind. It is the kind of topic that at one time you would only ever have heard in the dying hours of a party. Who was going to own up to eating dog food after all? Quite a number as it turned out. Dog biscuits seemed the most popular choice for the gourmet pet owner. Bonios and Spillers Shapes being the most mentioned. ...

    Writers can be shy retiring creatures, preferring their stories to remain quietly on the page. However, there comes a time when more is required, and hiding behind the printed word is no longer an option. If you're doing well you may be paid to do it. You may have an audience of hundreds, or an audience of three. Or it may be that self-promotion means you have to do it for free, with few obvious sales. Remember, though, that the person who listened avidly, read the whole of the first chapter on the sales stand and bought nothing may remember it in the future, when a present is needed, or a recommendation, or holiday reading is on the agenda. What's required can differ wildly. There are straightforward readings from books, when merely being audible can be enough – as long as there’s a mic, and you remember you’re meant to speak into it. It depends what you write, though. If there's a lot of dialogue you may have to manage different accents, as well as threatening char...