When it’s another piece of writing. I managed to stop writing the short story (the one that was a novel, you remember) this week so that I could resurrect the idea for a children’s novel from a horrible first draft written one thousand (well, ten) years ago. And the reason for stopping? To send three … Read More
Month: August 2007
Publishers and writers: the relationship?
These are what’s left of the boyf’s roses, and as I was looking at them last night and wondering if they had another day left in them (they have, because I decided to dry them this morning), we began a conversation about an idea that’s been in my head for a while, but hasn’t properly … Read More
Booking through Thursday … on Friday
Just caught up with Booking Through Thursday (thank you Simon at Stuck in a Book)… where a weekly bookish question is posed. Here’s this week’s question: When growing up did your family share your love of books? If so, did one person get you into reading? And, do you have any family-oriented memories with books … Read More
Mostly Books, indie bookshops and indie publishers
THIS is the place to go if you want to learn how to sell your book into indie bookshops Last Sunday I and four others spent the day at the table you can just see through the window. We were given delicious and copious cups of tea and coffee all day (rudely I brought my … Read More
Emily Young’s Wounded Angel
sculpture copyright Emily Young, photograph copyright Angelo Plantamura You can see this beautiful angel (called Wounded Angel I) in Kew Gardens, in London, or you can see a photograph of him in Tacit Hill’s A Light Touch and a Long View which was published in June and is full full full of colour plates of … Read More
Editing, MATs and piles of paper
Most writers, in fact surely all of us except those with humungous sales, earn their living by doing something else (obviously not by MATing). I earn mine by editing other people’s non-fiction, and/or proofreading it. I have just quoted for a piece of editing work and while I am waiting for the editor at the … Read More
Back to reality
So, back to reality in my writing room (I’ll be there in a minute, when I’ve written this MAT … er, I mean, blog) after a dizzy day yesterday living on the adrenalin that Stuck in a Book’s review of Speaking of Love generated. Before I was published, a line or two from an enthusiastic … Read More
Orchids for Simon
I am overwhelmed. This orchid is for Simon at Stuck in a Book for his overwhelming review of Speaking of Love. See The word on … at the top on the right. Orchids, according to Clare Florists’ flower meanings are flowers of magnificence and, although I’m not at all sure what the thanking-for-a-blog-book-review etiquette is, … Read More
Writing, MATs and ticker-tape turn ups
On Friday morning, in the bath, before I started work (a bath can be a MAT, but only if I’m still in it after the practical stuff is over), the sentence, ‘On the whole we resist falling in love’ turned up in my head. This isn’t unusual (not that sentence, but sentences in general, or … Read More
Roses, MATs and Annie Lawson’s "Partner"
Isn’t this rose beautiful? My boyf gave it to me (see below), and I took its portrait with my new digital camera which I went out to buy today, prompted by the beauty of Find me a Bluebird‘s blog, and helped by a good friend who is a wonderful artist and knows about digital cameras. … Read More
Blogging (is a MAT)
I’ve spent the morning roving from blog to blog (I never could surf, too much water up my nose) and finding more and more delightful things to read. I’ve been reading blogs about books and life at Asylym, BooksPlease, Cornflower, dovegreyreader and Stuck in a Book; and blogs about writing books and life at Bookarazzi, … Read More
Making the language sing
So … I spent yesterday rewriting the first seven pages of the short-story-that-was-a-novel. Or, as I prefer to call it, making the language sing. Now that’s not a full-scale opera you understand, just one short under-rehearsed aria, but I hate clunky language. I’m a huge fan of the less-is-more-poetic school of writing, but when I’m … Read More
First novels and short stories
The thing about writing your first novel is that as well as doing it you’re finding out how to do it. So, you would have thought that I’d have discovered at least the fundamentals of the how by now. But it seems that I haven’t, or hadn’t. My second novel, which I had the idea … Read More
Man Booker Longlist, MATs and Natalie Goldberg
So … the Booker Longlist is out and it includes four first novels which can only be good news for those of us with books which have cleared the finding-a-publisher-for-the-first-novel hurdle. I looked in vain for Speaking of Love, knowing that it wouldn’t be there but hoping, fantastically against the odds, that it would be. … Read More
Bookarazzi and Find me a Bluebird
I’d intended to post every day … so much for the best-laid plans, or even the worst-laid. Anyway, one of the things I’ve discovered while trying to find ways to midwife my first novel, Speaking of Love, out into the world (yes, that’s another MAT) is Bookarazzi, and on the Bookarazzi recommended blogs page was … Read More