… this feeling inside. The rest of Elton John’s song doesn’t apply, but today is a day when it’s difficult to concentrate because I’m feeling a bit funny inside and I’m not even trying to MAT: a MAT is being forced upon me because … … in 24 hours’ time the author and the publisher … Read More
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Book reviews … to blog or not to blog …
… is a very interesting question. And there’s a very interesting post about it all over on Vulpes Libris which I’ve only just discovered – from dovegreyreader – all about whether blogging book reviewers are the saviours of small publishers, have caused the end of decent criticism or are unpaid cheerleaders. My vote goes to … Read More
Spread the Word some more …
On 4 February Richard Lea listed, on the Guardian Unlimited’s Arts Blog, the ten books on the Spread the Word shortlist under the heading: ‘What Goes into a “Book to Talk About”?’ Then he wonders why ‘the Kennedys, Enrights, Adichies et al were never in with a sniff’. He goes on, ‘It looks like a … Read More
The Man Booker prize
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones. (That’s the one I’d like to win.)
The short story that was a novel …
… is a draft away from finished, but I can’t post it here because one of the competitions that I am going to submit it to requires that it has not been published in ANY form. So I shall hear what the writers group has to say tomorrow, redraft, let it rest for a while … Read More
ANOTHER NEW FIRST PAGE …
… this is how it goes. Slowly. But here is a redrafted first page for the short story that was a novel. *** I drift from place to place and from year to year with such ease, now. But, despite what they think, I usually know that I am drifting. It’s just that I can’t … Read More
The novel that was a short story, part 202
The beginning that I posted here on Monday isn’t as good as I thought it was when I posted it … but that happens all the time. The trick is to write on: and that’s what I’m doing. Cafe solo image (c) NouvellesImages S.A. et Kurt Hutton – Getty images 2005 Posted by Angela Young … Read More
The short story that was a novel, part 201
After what seems like years, but has really only been weeks, of editing my head off, I find myself with a jewel of a day (today) when the paid editing has gone away, at least for a day, and so, after the beginning I wrote here I wrote this: …But I know I heard someone … Read More
The short story that was a novel, part 200
Hmmm … even though I’ve written that my relationship with my writing has changed, see here, I haven’t actually done any writing since then to test it. So how do I know it’s changed, I hear you asking? Because, just now, I returned from my writers’ group (we meet monthly but we haven’t met all … Read More
The Man Booker shortlist, FIRST NOVELS
So, none of the first novels longlisted made it to the Man Booker shortlist but perhaps, because this list has been so wonderfully readable (no I haven’t read them all, hardly any in fact, yet, but I’ve been reading dovegreyreader’s reviews and Asylum’s and I’ll get to them soon) maybe there’ll be more next year … 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
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
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