Authors Electric

All over the world the climate is changing. But this is not a post about the threat that is global climate change. Rather a whinge about the vagaries of the British summer. There has, in recent years (2018 excluded) been a pattern of glorious weather while young people sit exams and then the heavens open as soon as the schools break up. Parents wrap must wrap little Susie into raincoats and wellies and try to look enthusiastic about trips to the park. But this year ... well, the initial pattern was the same, with the inclusion of serious winds and storms that sent even the hardiest parent scurrying for cover. However, there has been one major difference: the weather forecast, in recent years increasingly trustworthy, has become so unreliable as to be almost useless. I know that low pressure has dominated, and with it comes prolonged periods of rain followed by sunshine and showers - and so timings can be a bit hit and miss. This year, with such a forecast, I set off with my fleece...

A few years ago, in 2014 to be exact, I was asked to participate in the "My Writing Process" blog tour, where writers answered questions about their writing process and discussed their current writing processes. I came across the questionnaire recently and thought it'd be neat to see how my ideas have remained the same or changed over the last few years. My original answers are in Times font, my current commentary is in Arial . 1) What am I working on?  I am working on a few things at the moment. First of all I am drafting the second volume of my Guns of the Waste Land series of novellas, Desolation . This series retells the King Arthur myths as an American Western. I published the first volume, Departure , last year and it has received some good reviews on Amazon.  I finished Desolation , but the name changed to Diversion   by the time it went to print. A much better name I think. The third volume, Dispersal , also came out and won honorable mention for historica...

Reading - for pleasure, obvs! I’ve reached that point when life (or what’s left of it, let’s not talk numbers!) is too short to carry on reading a book I’m not enjoying. So on my list of unfinished books are novels judged ‘great’ by the rest of the world. Cloud Atlas springs to mind – I think I started it twice but never got beyond the opening chapter as well as other more  random things which have rolled up on my book pile – I didn’t dislike Colm Toibins Norah Webster but wasn’t moved to carry on with it so eventually sent it on its way to a charity shop. With these and other masterpieces I’m happy to apply the 50 page rule*. If it’s not working for me by then, I might as well give up. But then there’s the book that does appeal straight away and has you hooked for quite a while.   Until  you start to lose interest. At first you blame yourself: lack of concentration, lack of intelligence! You’re clearly just missing something. But as the evenings pass you’r...

Since living in my current house in a densely-populated urban area, I seem to have developed an allergy to Wi-Fi*, which (quite literally sometimes) is a pain. Wireless technology is pretty much everywhere you go these days... show me a cafe that doesn't offer free Wi-Fi along with its expensive cappuccinos that are no doubt helping to pay for your 'free' connection. I can visit such a cafe and enjoy the cappuccino, and I can stay long enough to have lunch with my friends if I'm not sitting right next to the router, but I would not like to try sleeping there. And it seems I am not alone. According to the  Electrosensitivity UK website , " Surveys suggest 30% of people are slightly allergic to radio exposure, usually without knowing it. " If you sit next to your Wi-Fi router for too long, it can make you sick. Possible symptoms include: headaches, brain fog, concentration issues, anxiety, depression, nausea, insomnia, tinnitus, thyroid changes, heart prob...

Certificates have been on my mind of late – the little bits of paper that put you in various boxes, à la Pete Seeger. Births, marriages, deaths, all define you, or rather, the public perceptions of you, and they are all archived somewhere so they can be scrutinised for ever by whoever. Pete Seeger describes the boxes we are assigned to as ‘made of ticky-tacky’ and ‘all the same’, but they can also be seen as defining our differences, for good or ill. We collect them as we go along, these little bits of paper – proof of vaccinations, school and university attainments, etc. I am certified to drive a car but not a lorry, bus or minibus. I’m a certified citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with my maroon European Union passport. A short pause here while I weep and curse at its potential loss. It’s good for eight more years, though. Ha! There’s an obvious difference between some of those bits of paper we have thrust upon us and those ...

For a recent story acceptance I was asked to provide a short insight into the inspiration behind my fiction. And as always that question gave me pause for deep thought. Where do those ideas begin? Most of us will recall being given a word of phrase as inspiration to write a story for homework. It was good practice for spotting a headline or story in a newspaper, or maybe an incident at work or with friends, which sparked that train of thought. Writing fantasy and horror it is the folklore and local legends that have always been a passion that figure large in my back catalogue. I readily admit to plundering those sources, but the resources are vast and forgiving. That said, a seed of inspiration is needed to even begin to know where to start in such a sea of riches. Mermaid's Pool - between Leek and Buxton The market for this story had the wide open guideline of Folk Horror, which is a vast area that means different things to different people. Think Algernon Blackwood...