Writing, Reviewing, Blogging and Books. Lots of Books.
6.1.11
Screw January, Stay In and Write
Dear writers, look outside. It's grey, isn't it? Raining and miserable and the last place you'd want to go? I'm also guessing that no-one wants to go out and play because everyone's sick of small talk and spending their money, and that you're secretly feeling like a bit of a chubster? I know, it sucks. It's January, it always does. So, what is one to do with all this extra time on the sofa? Watch new Glee and eat novelty fudge? Sure, but that's only Monday. How about picking up a pen, finding a fresh page in your pad and, as Kingsley Amis put it, 'applying the seat of one's trousers to the seat of one's chair'?
31.12.10
Book Quote Friday: The Hours
A fitting, if sombre, tribute to time passing, the year ending, and hope for 2011. Happy new year everyone.13.12.10
10.12.10
In Defence of Writing Courses
Writing courses get a bad rap. A myriad of critical voices exist online (see links at the bottom of the page*) that suggest, often quite vehemently, that writing courses are cynical, useless money-spinners that attempt to teach that which cannot be taught and churn out egotistical literary autobots without voice or individuality. Is that really the whole story though? I would like to take it upon myself, on this rainy Friday afternoon, to present the case for the defence.
6.12.10
3.12.10
Book Quote Friday: Sounds
For my book quote this week I've chosen a passage from Sounds, a short story by Vladimir Nabokov. He's obviously best known for Lolita and other work like Pnin and Pale Fire, but he wrote a prodigious number of short stories in his time, amongst which are some of the best examples of the form. Sounds was one of his first, and as someone at the very beginning of their much hoped-for writing career, it really interests me to see what other writers were able to achieve at the very beginning of theirs. Suffice to say, I am humbled.
29.11.10
Short Story Serial: ‘Saturday Afternoon, Odessa’ – Part Thirteen
...Maybe I'll just lock my bedroom door until he's gone. Click. There. Me on one side, them on the other. Maybe I should escape in a box of oranges like Cheburashka? I can be cute when necessary too.
THE END
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