Authors Electric

                                            Image Credit: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.  I love the changing colours of autumn. I get several good workouts raking up leaves outside my home too. This time of year also means curling up with hot chocolate ( Options Mint , thanks) and a good book, whether it is a paperback or something on my Kindle. The nights closing in encourages reading. Perhaps it is one of the great consolations of longer evenings.  Another consolation is preparing my Book Wish List for Christmas. One lovely thing about being a writer is it is so easy to tell your loved ones what you’d like for the festive season. I always want books, pens, notebooks etc. There is no such thing as having too many of these things and it makes me easy to buy for. Do you choose books to read to match the season? If anything, as the nig...

As you read this, National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as it is fondly called, will be just over half way through. Writers all over the world will collectively have written millions of words and will be storming towards their final goal of 50,000. Some writers will already have completed this number of words and may have stopped at that point or may be carrying on to write an entire novel. Some writers may be struggling to move their word count forward and that magical 50,000 seems to be far in the distance. I speak to everyone today but mainly to those who are struggling.  To those of you who are storming ahead, congratulations, I applaud you. This is a fabulous achievement and you should give yourself a pat on the back and some extra chocolate (other treats are available). At the end of November you can download that winners certificate and claim your winner goodies. You might even buy yourself a NaNoWriMo Winner T-Shirt. Why not, you deserve it after all your hard work. To...

  November is an odd month, I think. I don’t like cold, wet weather and by November, even I have to conclude that the summer has definitely gone. On the other hand, November is NaNoWriMo time, where lots of us commit to write 50,000 words in November. That’s exciting, it’s busy, it’s a lot to do, especially as I decided this year to aim for 70,000 so my first draft of book 3 would be finished, rather than have it hang around my head for most of December and possibly January. Exciting! And such a great excuse for not going anywhere, for being far away, daydreaming about somebody else’s life... It helps with the weather as well. My first proper NaNo project was Sapphire Beach, set in Crete, in September, with lots of soft beaches, baklava and sunshine. This year, my poor characters are making their way through a jungle; one nearly got eaten by a crocodile. Not as sweet as dreaming of baklava, but definitely warmer than it is outside. Having said that, we went to Bournemouth las...

With a title like that, I know I really should start off with a bang. A pulp flourish or note of high drama. Shutters flapping. Lightning flashing. Thunder booming. That and more. And yet, I beg your forgiveness, I must start with a single word. And not even one in English:                                         Ardalio That's the final word in an eight-line Latin poem I was trying to translate. Martial, the poet, spent six lines telling us how Atticus could do anything in the nicest or prettiest, effortless way. The word 'belle' or 'bellus' appears thirteen times in those first six lines. And each repetition seems a bit more mocking. Then, suddenly, Martial springs his trademark stinger: at the tail end, a raucous quip or dazzling bit of word  play. Here, he wonders: 'Since you do nothing well and everything not badly/What would you have me say of you?' The answer in Latin: Magnus ...

Every other writer in the whole world, ever, it seems gets asked the same question at live events. “Where do you get your ideas from?” It’s become a bit of a joke now, a well-worn trope in the industry. I have only ever been asked this once, at a school talk and I was so chuffed that I think I scared the student a little with my enthusiastic response.   However, questions that people do often ask include, “How do you think up your character names?” and, “Are they based on real people?”   When I was writing the Diary of Isabella M Smugge, my search history was peppered with things like, “posh girls’ names from the 1980s” and, “popular Suffolk surnames.” I didn’t introduce many new characters in the Trials of Isabella M Smugge, but by the time I was writing book three, I’d come up with an absolutely spiffing plan. I was out on the road for the first time, invited to both the Brechin Bookfest and the Scottish Association of Writers event in Dundee by the magnificent Wendy H J...

What is life as an author really like? I look at my life and sometimes try to compare it to other authors and ask myself, am I doing this right? What can I do to be a better author? I often wonder - Should I be writing more? Should I be marketing more? Should I be reading more? Should I be learning more? Is there a right way to be an author I ask myself and as I reflect, I want to share my thoughts. Perhaps you have often wondered this exact same thing. So here are my reflections - 1. All authors are different and rightly so. Yes there are some general principles to being an author but there cannot be a uniformity in the applications. Authors reserve the right to be individualistic in their approach. 2. There are so many different types of authors, writing in different genres, it won't be wise to try to be like anyone but yourself and stay true to who you are and what you write. 3. Yes, you can be inspired by other authors. You can learn from their lives, from what they have done t...

  Today is publication day for “A Gathering of Gargoyles” the fifth book in the series “The Adventures of Letty Parker.” Letty’s story started in 2018 with “City of Secrets” which introduced my twelve year old pie seller in an alternative Victorian Bristol, to the world. It’s been great fun writing her story and watching her come to terms with questions of good and evil and adjusting to the compromises we all have to make in life. Soon however she will be too old for her target readership and the next book will be the last. It will be sad to say goodbye but in the meantime, I’m enjoying her meeting with the gargoyles and like any writer who sees their idea come to fruition there is a great sense of achievement. I am pleased and happy to have come so far with an idea that began with a snapshot image of a red-haired urchin sitting on the wharf side watching the sunset bleed into the river. As with so many good things, there is also a tinge of sadness. My mum who loved Letty a...