Posted by on Dec 19, 2006 in indian sweets, novel research, novel writing | No Comments

Better days … My Indian sweets arrived – the pera are wonderful but I haven’t opened the others yet so the photo will have to wait, if I dared to unseal all the boxes now I would have stuffed myself stupid by evening, and I have to go out to dinner tonight (pooh! Business, who […]

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Posted by on Dec 18, 2006 in indian sweets, non writing days | No Comments

Things I hate: Small women in big 4x4s who stop in the middle of narrow streets to hold conversations with friends on the pavement in Lewes Newhaven Driving in rain Non-writing days. I think that says it all really. Tomorrow I am going to write all day, pausing only to answer the door to the […]

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Posted by on Dec 15, 2006 in charlie williams, Desert Orchid, writing skills | One Comment

What a writer needs for Christmas – indomitability Charlie Williams and I might not be expected to have a lot in common, but on two things we agree. Browsing his blog, which is a bit like drinking snakebite in the saloon bar of an East End pub while a grudge euchre match is being played, […]

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Posted by on Dec 14, 2006 in bling, editing, rejection | One Comment

Bling writing I’ve rejected a couple of examples of this recently, as an editor, and I think it’s both a growing trend and a sign of immaturity in the writer’s psyche. I’d define bling writing as the process of throwing brilliant effects at a story until it scintillates like a disco ball. Some writers are […]

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Posted by on Dec 13, 2006 in first drafts, procrastination | 3 Comments

Thirty minutes, mark the page I once knew a journalist who taught me the one thing that has been the most value to me in my writing career. He didn’t know he was instructing a future writer – at the time I was a barmaid and he drank every day in the pub I worked […]

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Posted by on Dec 12, 2006 in writing clothes | 5 Comments

What do you wear to write? After yesterday’s deluge of responses – and boy, aren’t we all different – I wanted to explore another subject. I know writers who say their main work-related pleasure is that they can schlep around in a dressing gown all day. I can’t. To write, I have to be properly […]

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Posted by on Dec 11, 2006 in good writing, music, procrastination | 7 Comments

A Room without a View Where do you write? My PC monitor faces a blank corner of the room, not a single picture or postcard alleviates this boring view and to see out of the window I have to turn through nearly 360 degrees. I’m not one of those writers who can cope with distraction […]

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Posted by on Dec 8, 2006 in agents, novel writing, submissions | No Comments

What am I doing again? One of the biggest problems for any fiction writer is getting their head above the daily issues of making a living to fix on their long term ambitions. Most of us want to get a novel published. That desire has three concrete steps. Write novel Edit novel Send novel to […]

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Posted by on Dec 7, 2006 in editing | No Comments

Reading as an editor One of the toughest things I have to do with students is tell them that, had I been reading as an editor, I wouldn’t have got past the third paragraph of their story. It’s a horrible thing to say, isn’t it? But without knowing how an editor works and thinks, too […]

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Posted by on Dec 6, 2006 in Elastic Press, Jai Clare | 2 Comments

Good news Elastic Press, one of Britain’s most imaginative small publishers, has picked some winners in the past, as far as I’m concerned. Brian Howell’s collection The Sound of White Ants, and David Swann’s collection The Last Days of Johnny North are both on my bookshelf. Now they have listed Jai Clare’s The Cusp of […]

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