I’m in the final week of Jericho Writers’ Self-Editing your novel course run by Debi Alper and Emma Darwin and all I can say is if you’ve written a first (or even a twenty-first) draft of a novel and you know something’s wrong but you can’t put your finger on it, or you’ve had agent(s) ask for … Read More
Third Novel
Rejection is a rite of passage for writers, and the Raw Chocolate Company
One of the things that a writer takes a while truly to believe (it’s taken me a while) is that rejection is part of the process: it’s necessary, inevitable and makes our work better. It’s a rite of passage.But the thing is, no piece of writing is born fully formed, just as no child is … Read More
Blurt It Out and Instead of a Card
I’m submitting the manuscript of my third novel to literary agents. It’s a process that requires much patience, a certain amount of luck and, most importantly, the ability to pitch my work well to the right agent at the right agency at the right time. (I’ll post the result when there is one.) Recently I … Read More
Third novel, and the Reith Lectures, 2016
This month I finished my third novel. Finished to be interpreted loosely: there will be redrafts when I’m working with an agent and then with an editor. It’s working title is For the Love of Life. Rejoice. At least for now. But now, while I do all the things I haven’t had time to do (updating … Read More
Ideas are NOT stories; and the Biblioteca Jardim
It becomes obvious if you write, but perhaps not if you don’t: ideas are not stories. Before I wrote or, at least, before I finished a novel, I didn’t grasp this fundamental fact because ideas, when they come (and I’ve no idea where they come from) are so exciting. They’re the fuel; the energy; the surge; the … Read More
The Bookbag’s Top Ten Self-Published Books of 2013, and Visitation, a haunting image by Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison
I’ve just heard that the Bookbag has included Speaking of Love in its Top Ten Self-Published Books for 2013. Very exciting. Thank you, Bookbag. And a couple of weeks ago, at ENO‘s miraculous Magic Flute, directed by the ever-inventive Simon McBurney I saw, inside the programme, some of the most haunting, poetic and beautiful images I’ve seen for a long time. … Read More
For the Love of Life in COLLAGES, the Man Booker shortlist and a glorious goat gouda
In my post in July I wrote about the September publication of COLLAGES, a collection of new writing by students on Maggie Hamand’s wonderful CCWC courses. Maggie has kindly included an extract from my third novel, a work in progress called For the Love of Life, in the collection and now you can buy COLLAGES here, if … Read More
CCWC, Collages and the Peirene Press
Maggie Hamand who runs the Complete Creative Writing Courses, and the Treehouse Press, have collected and edited twenty-one stories from students on Maggie’s courses. The stories will be published under the title COLLAGES in September and I’m thrilled that a section from the beginning of my third novel, For the Love of Life, has been … Read More
Dying Matters
It’s Dying Matters Awareness Week and, as Iris Murdoch said (she’s quoted on the Awareness Week page): Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved. I think – although everything changes in the writing of a novel – but at the moment I think my third novel will be narrated by a beneficent angel because, … Read More
And now for the third novel …
… which I’ve just begun. Its working title is FOR THE LOVE OF LIFE. That’s to say I’ve begun thinking about it, dreaming on it, planning it and writing a chapter or two (mostly because the writers’ group I belong to is meeting soon and I need some work to submit for their wise attention. Otherwise … Read More