08 Thursday Sep 2022
Posted in Books, Scribbling
This one is for T.
I’m always a little amused at being reminded that, in my corner of the world, measuring a written text in words, is still a somewhat alien notion. No, really. I still run into people who go round eyed and ask how on earth are they going to keep count – and are genuinely amazed to discover that any word processor will do it for them… Continue reading
01 Thursday Sep 2022
Posted in History
What was your greatest fear as children, o Readers?
Mine, between the ages of six and twelve, was nuclear war. In the early Eighties the eventuality was a heavily discussed subject in the news and everywhere. Besides, a career officer father and a whole family very keen on international politics meant that I heard a lot of mealtime discussion of what the USSR and the States might do to each other over our heads. In addition there was a spate of fiction and nonfiction stories about it – and I had a knack for watching and reading what I should not. Oh, the nightmares I got out of watching The Day After! And I saw those Soviet leaders on the news, so hard-eyed and grim, and they rather looked like people who’d have little qualms in destroying the world… At one point I even wrote a letter** to the then General Secretary of PCUS Andropov, explaining to him how bad it was, and could he please not bomb us? Yes well – but I must have been eight or nine. Continue reading
26 Friday Aug 2022
Posted in Poetry
So this morning I woke up with the tiniest bit of end-of-summer blues – and I was put in mind of this poem of Emily Dickinson’s.
Because, really, few things are better than poetry for the blues, and one can almost always trust Emily to have written something that will fit the occasion. In truth, what I mostly remembered of this one was “August burning low”, and off I went on a morning quest to unearth it. I can think of worse ways to start the day. Continue reading
18 Thursday Aug 2022
Do you have any particular liking for postage stamps, o Readers? I don’t, I must say.
My father was a stamp collector. When I was very young, he tried to share the hobby with me – and failed. All I remember are endless sessions sitting at a table covered in green felt, being scolded for breathing too hard on the silly little paper squares… Continue reading
12 Friday Aug 2022
Posted in Scribbling, Things
Tags
Such a lofty title, isn’t it? Very, very lofty for a post arguing that the human mind is, in several ways, an easily amused little hamster. Mine is, at least, and I’ll wager that yours is too – in several way – when it comes to motivation. Continue reading
28 Thursday Jul 2022
Posted in Scribbling, Things
I’d somehow managed to dodge it for more than two years and a half, but at last the plague caught me – or, in other word, I caught Covid at last. I suppose it was just a matter of time – and that I caught it at the theatre was just as inevitable as it was fitting.
Last Friday, more or less from one moment to the next, I found myself with a very sore throat and a temperature above 39° C. Within hours a rather fierce cough and a cold joined the company – and there I was. Continue reading
21 Thursday Jul 2022
Posted in Scribbling
Tags
copies, drafts, Microsoft Word, saving files, Scrivener, writing
What is your favourite writing software?
Mine is Scrivener, nowadays. I landed there about a decade ago, when I began to write plays for companies (as opposed to “in the vague hope that someone might one day stage them”), and quickly discovered that I wanted a software that did the right formatting for me. Continue reading
14 Thursday Jul 2022
Posted in Scribbling
Once upon a time, there was a Small Writer with a Huge Deadline.
The Huge Deadline was still rather far away – and that was perhaps the heart of the problem. Had it been looming large, roaring nearer and nearer, the Small Writer would have been writing like mad, and piling up a nice daily wordcount, and biting her nails, and drinking tea by the gallon, and generally doing what she was supposed to do… Continue reading
07 Thursday Jul 2022
Posted in History, Scribbling, Stories
Remember when, back in January, I told you that I was experimenting with the idea of a Draft 0 for A Treasonous Path, and I’d let you know how it worked for me? Well, it would seem it worked well enough, because I’m doing it again. Six months later, and I’m at work on Draft 0 of Tom’s third book – for now TW3. Continue reading
30 Thursday Jun 2022
I was going to say that I don’t quite remember when I read my first Cragg and Fidelis mystery… But of course, thanks to the archives of the Historical Novel Society I can tell precisely: it happened when I reviewed the fourth installment, Skin and Bones, back in 2016. Continue reading
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