This has to end! This idleness and guilt. What would Virginia say? Maybe this situation has prevented me visiting an exhibition of her work. I cannot face her disapprobation. You see it comes down to this. I have all the time in world so I watch the birds. Endlessly busy flitting from feeder to feeder, […]

In a discussion I heard recently – I believe on Radio 4 – an author was asked which writers influenced them and by whom they measured their own work. The response was, yes, that there are those ‘go-to’ authors to whose writing they aspire. That is not to say copy, for, as was said at […]

A romance is the genre claimed for ‘Mothering Sunday’ by Graham Swift, a novel which I’m reading for the third time prior to discussing at http://thespring.co.uk Book Group this month. Yes, it is a marvellous story of love but never borders on the sickly sweet, happy ending which I’ve always associated with that genre. I’ve avoided […]

Literary fiction has been in the news; concern that since the recession it has been particularly badly affected. There are also fears that things could get worse in the post-Brexit world. It is easy to see from the best seller lists that populist, genre fiction, is doing well, particularly promoted on Amazon with sales of […]

There is one prize that I don’t want to win – awarded each year for the worst sex scene in any novel. Mills and Boon for sticky romance, El James series starting with Fifty Shades of Grey which verge on porn, are to be avoided at all costs. Yet we all know how hard it […]

How many times have I done this? Left my characters high and dry. Total neglect. Two whole months we have been apart. I’ve thought of them when driving, that open space when the brain is intent on only one thing, the mechanics of getting from A to B. Then, I have made contact, remembered where […]

Val McDermid spoke these words when interviewing a fellow author on BBC 4 Front Row recently; ‘That’s what we authors do,’ she said, ‘plunder our own lives.’ And I was thrilled to hear her say this. For that is exactly what I do. Initially I was surprised as her novels are psychological thrillers, always featuring […]

Publishers employ whole departments to market their writers’ books – though I hear they are not as proactive as in the ‘olden days’. As an indie author none of this is available; we are on our own to promote our work Marketing is a skill learnt on degree courses. A science of psychology, knowing to […]

We all know that blissful moment of receiving a good review. Written on Amazon or Goodreads, or in some other publication, it is what writers crave. Or that pleasure might come from someone coming saying; ‘I really enjoyed that last book you wrote’. And even better, though not financially so; ‘I’ve lent it to … […]