Thoughts about things I’ve written or read or heard or seen. An attempt to stay positive in a turbulent world.
Recent Articles
Paperback cover
This is what the paperback cover of Speaking of Love, to be published on 6 March 2008, will look like. If you’ve got any thoughts about it, I’d love to know. In fact, how about this: Tell me what story you think this cover tells in, say, a long sentence (or two) and the plotline...Continue reading→
The Man Booker prize
And so it’s: Anne Enright for The Gathering. Congratulations to her and her book. I heard on the radio (four) news last night (have you noticed that they say ‘BBC News for Radio Four’ now instead of the old ‘BBC Radio Four News’? I wonder why the strange, minute, change?). Anyway, as I was saying,...Continue reading→
The Man Booker prize
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones. (That’s the one I’d like to win.)Continue reading→
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...Continue reading→
When is a MAT harder than writing? …
… when it results in this: Describe your five strengths as a writer I found the challenge HERE and because I was busy MATing (reading readers’ and writers’ blogs to avoid writing) I told myself that I would do it, that stumbling across it served me right for avoiding writing, and that I’d get back...Continue reading→
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...Continue reading→
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...Continue reading→
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...Continue reading→
FICTION ALLSORTS
A literary agent friend of mine has just told me about a new website for writers and readers called Fiction Allsorts. There aren’t any links up to either readers’ sites or writers’ sites, nor links to books read or written yet … the site is still under construction. But I like the name (I can...Continue reading→
Writing about writing
George Mackay Brown wrote this about writing: Therefore he no more troubled the pool of silenceBut put on mask and cloak,Strung a guitarAnd moved among the folk.Dancing they cried,‘Ah, how our sober islandsAre gay again, since this blind lyrical trampInvaded the Fair!’ Under the last dead lampWhen all the dancers and masks had gone insideHis...Continue reading→
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