Apologies for the long delay in posting. But silence doesn’t always mean inaction. Over the last few months I’ve been working on the sequel to ‘Lightmaker’. This is now well underway, the first draft is complete and I’m now adding polish. I won’t be dishing out an expected arrival date, but I’m pleased with progress…
More Orwell, less glue
I’m blessed with a fabulous writing group which covers both fiction and non-fiction. People bring work for critique, and group members provide friendly and constructive feedback. It’s great fun. Or it would be, if one member of the group didn’t harp on about automatic editing tools. Ok, it’s me doing the harping on. A friend…
Nature is where you start
I’ve received the autumnal flu jab every year for the last twenty years. I still only have one head. No one has given the entire world a Christmas present before, but our scientists are clubbing together to get everyone a nice anti-Covid vaccine. But some aren’t celebrating. They’re busy bleating about imagined vaccine dangers, and…
Take off your pants in just 22 steps!
Don’t worry, the pants are those you wear if you write by the seat of your pants. If you prod your keyboard and hope your characters will develop in fascinating ways and have heaps of scintillating yet coherent adventures, you’re a pantser. I was a pantser. Lightmaker took five years to write. I had hair…
Coming later this year…
Wonderful things aren’t they; the end of the month. If you’ve set yourself a goal of squirting out a blog post once a month they can motivate you into writing, and if you’re reading this it means I actually finished the writing. People often get paid at the month’s end, which is nice.
Review: Jericho Writers
No matter how long the path… Writing is a journey; you’re constantly learning the writing craft and also uncovering details about yourself. Some ways of travel are faster than others; sitting alone and thrashing out pages of verbiage may teach determination, but feedback from others can help you learn faster as can studying creative writing…
Kevinism? Elliottism? Seriously I don’t know.
Striving for increased pretension isn’t recommended, but here I am, desperately seeking to bolster my opinions by naming them. Are my ideas so weak they need inflating with an ‘ism’? Or have I developed a new way of thinking, or at least a tidy way to sweep together existing chunks of thought? You decide. Mentioning…
450 words on 5 Editors Tackling 12 Fatal Flaws
Hello everyone – apologies for the long absence. I could dish out an excuse revolving around my novel re-writing, but a new book review will dish out more fun. Sorting alphabetically is popular these days: our technology enjoys arranging everything, and computers often see numbers as coming before letters. If you put the title “5…
Abraham Lincoln and the Forth Bridge
Writing is a journey: a constant striving for new skills, a struggle to learn and implement new ways of communicating. Abraham Lincoln once said that if he was given six hours to chop down a tree he’d spend the first four hours sharpening the axe – he knew the value of preparation.
Lave Radio appearance
Another left tack in my blog posts, consistency doesn’t appear to be my strong point. The lovely people at Lave Radio interviewed me recently, following my appearance at Eastercon 2017. I talked about the upcoming Hugo Awards, my own writing, and even this blog. There’s nothing like recursion. My podcast is here. Lave Radio is linked…