Authors Electric

  ‘You have been a grate riter…’ So begins the message on a card from my granddaughter which I've kept and treasure. She made it quite a long time ago to welcome me on a visit to her and her parents. The greeting didn’t then go on to analyse my opus or offer any exegetical criticism, constructive or otherwise, so back then I couldn’t really ask her to elucidate her choice of tense, but I found it interesting. ‘You have been’ doesn’t have the negative implications of   ‘You were’. ‘You were’ means you’re no longer whatever it is, as in ‘You were a grate riter but now you’re crap’. However, ‘have been’ still does give you the feeling that it needs to be qualified in some way. You expect it to be followed by ‘but’, as in ‘You have been a grate riter but you need to pay more attention to your use of the imperfect subjunctive’. Playing with tenses is great (or grate). There’s a very active sequence in Flaubert’s Salammbô where leaders of the mercenary armies get together and o...

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.  I’ll be en route to Scotland when this goes out. I’m part of the Brechin/Angus Book Festival (19th - 21st November). I’m running a workshop (on flash fiction) and giving an author talk. It will be lovely to meet up with writing friends, who are also taking part. I love the idea of events to celebrate books whether you read them, write them, or do both. I can’t imagine my life without books. Nor do I wish to! Literacy is to be cherished.   I’ve sometimes gone to medieval weekends and return from those aware, had I lived then, I would most likely have been an illiterate peasant. I probably wouldn’t have reached the age I am now (and it is likely I would have died in childbirth).   I smile when people talk about what or whom they might have been in a previous life. It’s always someone famous, glamorous, or both. Never anyone who was a peasant! Funny that…    For all the horrors...

In the olden days, when typewriters and carbon copies and sending everything off by post was the way things were done, getting an agent was comparatively easy. It wasn’t something you could do by simply pressing a computer key; it took time, effort, nice plastic folders and a lot of typewriter ribbons. Not as many people bothered. I sent three short stories off to an agent, and was taken on straight away. She wanted me to write a book and so, full of confidence and the conviction that I could do something really different I went for speculative fiction, and my main character was an intelligent vegetable that could move and was used as a form of transport. I probably had some sort of plot, but I can’t remember it now. Astonishingly, she didn’t like it. I didn’t learn my lesson because, many years later, although I’d had a lot of short stories published and several radio plays broadcast I was still trying to do something radical. That time I set it 5 million years in the future; evolutio...

I beg your indulgence this week as I give you an update on what is happening in this writer's life. In all fairness, it is not just self indulgence but an effort to help you, whether author reader, to find new promotional ideas or find new books to read. It’s not often I write a post such as this and the reason I am doing so is, it’s been a frightfully exciting week. This week will also continue to be exciting.  Firstly, I released the seventh book in my DI Shona McKenzie Mysteries series. Now, releasing a new book is always a momentous occasion but this one is even more momentous as it has been delayed by two years. Readers worldwide are rejoicing as they've been waiting for this book to arrive. I am also rejoicing as I didn’t think it was ever going to get published.  My first tip to you is, never give up. You will get there in the end and the feeling of joy will be indescribable. Tied in with this, I also got my Covid booster on the same day. These are somewhat tied togethe...

  I’m writing this blog in the peace and quietness of my study. Behind me is a stack with maths books for four children, paper tape to keep one of my children happy building stuff, a Viking helmet that needs a bigger box and Velcro dots to be attached to pictures. A few years ago I found writing a wonderful release at the end of a manic day. Just me and my laptop, daydreaming up stories when the kids were in bed. Such a peaceful, private hobby. Occasionally, hubby would bring me a glass of wine or one of the kids would wake up with some complaint, but my evenings were spent serenely and relaxed. Since then, life has taken on all kinds of twists and turns. My fun stories became a little more involved. I thought more about my characters and what they would like for dinner. Before I knew it, I had a novel and a publisher willing to look at it. I tried to explain that English wasn’t my first language and they were very tactful about what exactly they meant by ‘substantial editing...

Life was a ride on the wild side when I was just a Hell's Angel. But the morning I found myself as Wyatt Earp approaching the OK Corral....life grew confusing and scary. While we gear up for the thirty-second gunfight, let me check on my Harley and try to explain. It all began, you see, with a WIP that I thought would be a cakewalk. Easy-peasy. For the fifth entry in my Seattle BOP mystery series, I wanted something simple after mountains of research that I'd had to climb for the fourth novel. Bingo: I'd send the two lead characters, Chief and Ammy off on a two week vacation. And on the way, to make this a mystery, they'd solve a simple pro bono. I couldn't stop thinking that a two-week motorcycle vacation would be perfect for the couple--though neither they nor I had ever set butt on a chopper. That didn't daunt me any more than my never having been to Arizona, where I thought to send them to deliver a pair of bikes while exploring the Southwest. Day by day, my...

The first thing I think about when packing for a holiday or trip is which books I will take with me. Lower down on my to do list, a curious bystander will find the usual items. Pants. Toothpaste. Jeans. Earrings. Couple of nice tops. But absolutely the most important thing has to be the reading material.   On the rare occasions I have to fly, there is one book which always comes with me as hand luggage and gets me through the terrifying moments as we taxi along the runway and shoot up into the air. At times like these, I pray for a speedy and painless death while furiously reading, “The Victorian House” by Judith Flanders, one of my very favourite authors. It never fails to soothe.   Which brings me neatly on to another favourite book, much of it set in Victorian times. I must have bought it ten or so years ago, attracted by the front cover. A young woman gazes into the camera, her high-necked brocade dress and hairdo proclaiming her to be from the nineteenth century. An end...