My Blog
Welcome to my blog – all about books and writing and publishing
You may have read my web site. You will know that I am new to this game, this game of WRITING and getting PUBLISHED. I love books, I collect them avidly, have shelves and shelves of them, many queuing up to be read. I love reading classic beautiful literature, being transported into different worlds. I love the English language, its play on words. My personal interest is FICTION: I like it thoughtful, I like it deep and intricate, with undertones and sub-plots and bouts of fast-paced action, involving real characters. I write stories about normal people in mystifying circumstances, that slow-burn with curiosity before coming together in dramatic denouements, that are sometimes surprising, often violent.
But that’s just me. You may be into something completely different.
If you are a reader, thinking about becoming a writer, then these blogs may have something for you.
If you are a writer, just starting to learn the craft, beginning to recognise the challenges, then maybe we can share experiences, learn the ropes together.
I shall split these blogs into two categories: writing (the creation) and publishing (the business).
AFTER EFFECTS
For too long over recent times, we in the UK became obsessed with the psychodrama that sucked the lifeblood out of virtually every other issue. Brexit, like a serial TV boxed set with an increasingly implausible plot, hypnotized us with its ‘no deal’ hypotheses...
THE ART OF SOLITUDE
… not necessarily for one hundred years. News items are measured by their novelty factor, to attract attention. The pandemic over the last two or three weeks has provided plenty of unusual and novel news items. And we writers, we novelists, are all about novelty. We...
Welcome to the new year, the new decade
Over the last decade, our advanced liberal democracies have crafted a society in which millions of people no longer feel recognised or rewarded, a broken society, in which the majority hold the view that traditional politics no longer listens to them but happily...
Recent Visit to JERICHO WRITERS at York University, September 6-8 2019
“You do not get what you deserve in this business, only what you negotiate – no one will beat your door down to publish you.” From listening and talking to writers, literary agents, book doctors, publishers and retailers over the weekend, certain messages ring out...
A Shelfie Of Books
MY FAVOURITE SIX BOOKS OF ALL TIME Here we are on a quiet afternoon at the end of August, I just thought about my favourite books of all time - these are books that I loved from the very start of reading them, books that I have read again and sometimes again, going...
Audio Is The Growing Thing
There has been a 5.4% decline in physical book sales in 2018 in UK, first fall in 5 years, at £2.95bn - but note that audio book sales surged 43% to £69m worth. Does anyone know anything about audio books and how to get into them? I would love to hear from...