What is happening to parental responsibility? Indeed, what is happening to taking responsibility for one’s own actions? A mother found her 19-month-old daughter ripping open a packet of Ibuprofen tablets while they were waiting in a queue in a branch of WH Smith. Does she upbraid the child – teach her that such behaviour is not…
Once again we poor slaves of the written word are being categorised as an endangered species, especially those of us who devote our energies to long-form fiction and non-fiction. The Society of Authors is blaming the subsistence level of writers’ earnings on publishers who fail to pay adequate recompense for works that end up as…
My fellow writers have long intrigued me with the methods they use for creating the plot-lines of their novels. It is especially fascinating because my own means of devising a plot is probably best described as “let it happen” and I’ll follow along behind. My characters lead me; I don’t lead them or even tell them…
Seven weeks ago I walked into my local Barclays Bank with a query about my account. Simple? A customer services officer (first barrier) said I would have to wait to speak to one of her colleagues (second barrier) to make an appointment to discuss my query. Couldn’t she do this? Well, she could but someone…
Another challenging editing job has reached its successful conclusion, and one of which I am especially proud. It was a long time in the overall process with much rejigging, rewriting and tightening of the text. Meticulous and determined research produced a voluminous amount of detailed information, much of it revealed here for the first time, that had…
Bragging time … right out of the blue comes an email from Clare, Author Talent Rep, Literary Fiction Dept. at California Times Publishing, Los Angeles, asking for a copy of my first crime fiction book, Done Deal. She says “I read the summary of your book DONE DEAL and the premise sounds interesting.” I am…
What’s that noise? Ah, its my dyed-in-the-wool (pun not intended) Yorkshire ancestors (workers all in mills and mines) turning in their graves in Dewsbury as they learn of the local lad who left the streets where they once lived to pursue his job of choice in blowing himself and other people to smithereens.This is not…
Coincidental, but nice timing all the same. On the day when yet another unthinking, insensitive young Brit upsets local sensitivities by baring her boobs atop a sacred mountain, it’s good to see a plea to replace the nonsense of gap year jaunts with something more commonplace and meaningful. Sandie Okoro, global lead lawyer for HSBC Global Asset…
At a time when commemorations and celebrations of the end of the Second World War are at their height, it seems timely to record the publication of a book dedicated to the many women who made it possible for men to enlist and “do their bit”. Melbourne writer Jacqueline Dinan has painstakingly tracked down more than…
It’s a numbers game. How quickly a writer’s emotions can change. There I was, a couple of weeks back, with a novel stuck for months at slightly less than 40,000 words and struggling to find time or inclination to press on. Today, with a smile on my face, I note the tally has now passed…