In the last three days I have re-written the same chapter three times. Each time I’ve cut and added characters, I’ve changed the sequence of events, I’ve added, eliminated and altered the backstory, I’ve had new ideas, discarded old ones and drank x cups of coffee. And each time it’s been a little bit better,…
Ah, the irony of it all. The past few days have seen a deluge of posts on a Facebook group’s site populated by Australian authors. The focus of their attention has been a single word: zephyr. A writer who had penned the line a zephyr of wind caressed the land was asking if there could be…
Eureka! Bingo! Hellsapoppin’ … and other expressions of delight and discovery; I do believe the seemingly interminable search for a British cafe that understands the words “a long black” is at last over. And in one of the more unlikely locations, too. Up and down this cafe-crowded land a request from this caffeine addict for…
The following extract is from a manuscript I was recently asked to assess for publication: ‘All right, I’ll see to changing that, might take a while.’ Eleanor continued with her agenda. ‘Now, what about Security? Personnel? Industrial Relations? Safety?’ ‘Hey, we need those.’ Arthur made a note. ‘Security and Safety have been the contractor’s problem…
Wonder of wonders: the Brits have decided to test all 11-year-olds on the proper use of verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs as well as prepositions and conjunctions. They are also to be taught to use punctuation marks correctly with a focus on full stops, question marks, commas, inverted commas and the dreaded apostrophe. One would…
Thanks goodness the Scots have decided to raise the retirement age for their police force. It means Ian Rankin can bring irascible old Rebus back to the mean streets of Edinburgh. Standing in Another Man’s Grave is already completed and due for release in November. It not only resurrects Rebus 25 years after he first…
It’s completely mad, totally ridiculous and one of the best evenings of sheer fun you will have in many a night at the theatre. It is, of course, the zany psuedo musical comedy Spamalot, playing all this week at the Hall for Cornwall. Created by Eric Idle it is, as the programme proudly states, a…
You’ve gotta laugh. No really, you do. You can’t help yourself. The show now running at the Hall for Cornwall is ridiculous, self-indulgent, nonsensical, lacking any point or reason and totally inane – but it provides as good an evening’s entertainment as we’ve had for quite some time. Four members of the notoriously idiotic Spymonkey…
Love the story from publisher/writer Anthony Horowitz who records the editor of his 205,000-word Oblivion suggesting he change the voice from third person to first person. Her “simple” idea was that this could be achieved by using the find/replace dropdown in Word. But, as Horowitz rightly comments, the reality was “it would mean totally rewriting…
As esteemed US novelist John Irving explains in a recent interview there is nothing more frustrating than the interferences that interrupt his routine. His day begins with an early rising, a walk with the dog, boiling eggs for breakfast and then into the office until he emerges in late afternoon for a session on his…