Sex – or not – as the case may be I’ve had that sniffy conversation again. The one where a ‘real’ writer turns to me and says, ‘Don’t you feel demeaned, writing erotica?’ Well no, actually. Let’s see: 1 – It’s fun2 – It’s lucrative3 – I get to meet some wonderful people who take […]

Posted by on Nov 27, 2007 in radio plays, writing neuroses | 2 Comments

The Play Wot I Wrote On Saturday we had a workshop with actors (real actors!) reading scenes from our plays. Having decided I was going to be sick with nerves I actually got up feeling fine, ate a huge breakfast and walked the dogs before heading off to Brighton for the readings – at which […]

Posted by on Nov 22, 2007 in adverbs, radio plays | One Comment

The proverbial adverbial I nearly didn’t get to blog today, because I’ve been wrestling with one of those weird little paradoxes that strike a writer from time to time – to whit, the adverb. We are counselled, no exhorted, to remove this item from our writing. ‘Don’t do it,’ we’re told. Stephen King says ‘The […]

Posted by on Nov 20, 2007 in awards, nominations, shameless lions | 8 Comments

I’ve received an award A Roar for Powerful Words, initiated by The Shameless Lions Writing Circle in recognition of powerful writing. The kind nominator was Charles Lambert (I have no idea why my linky dink won’t work here and I’ve given up trying to make it pretty – we’re looking for powerful, right? Ugly is […]

Posted by on Nov 15, 2007 in good writing, Steve Vai, writing | 4 Comments

What has Steve Vai’s guitar playing got to do with a man trying to have sex with a bicycle? Well, to begin with, they were both drawn to my attention in the same week. The former, by my teenage son, the latter by blogger Steve Kane (http://.www.steve-kane.co.uk/blog/blog.htm) to whom I am indebted. As I began […]

Posted by on Nov 13, 2007 in broadband, procrastination | One Comment

Better It is better to have dial-up than nothing, but better still to have broadband! Which, somewhat precariously, I do have again. On the plus side, the loss of internet access for six days means that I now sit down at my computer with a small pean of praise ringing in my head for the […]

Posted by on Nov 9, 2007 in Uncategorised | 2 Comments

Normal service Will be resumed – when Orange actually get off their fat backsides and send me the new livebox I need. Until then, dear and sadly missed readers, I not only lack internet access but even email … so think of me sitting in the library (thank all Gods for governemnt open access policies […]

Veneration or idolatry? Books. I’ve said before that I love them, and I’m suspicious of writers who don’t read a lot (a lot for them, for some people that’s twelve books a year, for others three hundred) but I don’t get book idolatry. For me it’s the content, not the object, that matters. Most of […]