You Never Know Who You Might Inspire

     As a blogger slash writer, I have days of triumph and days of malaise. Days when it’s wonderful and interactive and thrilling and days when I’m just sending messages into space. I know I’m not alone in this. Such is the blogger’s curse. 







Book Quote Friday: Cracking the (Da Vinci) Code

     Pacing. Tension. Nerves. Dear God, man! Competitive blockbuster writing. A nail-biting chase to the end.

     Its route? Short sentences. Rhetorical questions. Sexual tension. What can it all mean?  Random italics. Interior monologue. Questions? So many questions? Dynamic verbs. Crossing of boundaries. Direct speech. There’s surely been a mistake!

     ‘Langdon opened his mouth to explain the bizarre error, but Sophie flashed him a silencing glance that lasted only an instant. Her green eyes sent a crystal-clear message.

      Don’t ask questions. Just do it.

     Bewildered, Langdon punched in the extension on the slip of paper: 454.

     Sophie’s outgoing message immediately cut off, and Langdon heard an electronic voice announce in French: ‘You have one new message.’ Apparently, 454 was Sophie’s remote access code for picking up her messages while away from home.

     I’m picking up this woman’s messages? 

     Langdon could hear the tape rewinding now. Finally, it stopped, and the machine began to play. Again, the voice on the line was Sophie’s.

     ‘Mr Langdon’, the message began in a fearful whisper. ‘Do not react to this message. Just listen calmly. You are in danger right now. Follow my directions very closely.’

     Suspension. Exclamation.  Superannuation. Only you can help us now! Laughing all the way to the bank. 







App-ing Around with Egan and the Goon Squad

     The movement of fiction from paper into pixel is the (on-going) publishing change of our time. First real books, then e-books, now apps designed for use on our favourite fruity tech platforms. The mind boggles.

     So, I was sent the app for 'A Visit from the Goon Squad' by the lovely people at Constable & Robinson and was unsure what to expect. What does one normally expect from a book app? A few chapters and a bio? A related game and some snippets of the author's other work? Suffice to say, I was cynical yet curious (ex more, of course). But, to my pleasure, I found the entire book. And I liked it as an app. Here's why:







Virtual People Can Be Your Friends Too

     I realise that I am now going to sound like a massive geek and a crazy person, but what the hell. Here it is. I think a little-thought-of avenue of inspiration for writers might be playing the computer game The Sims. Best if it's the newest one, so Sims 3. I know how it sounds, but bear with me for just one sec…

      The Sims is an open-ended life simulation game with no explicit goal or focus beyond navigating your 'Sims' through time. All the trials and tribulations of a real existence are there, such as relationships, wants, desires, jobs, children, choices and strife. You can live a character's entire life for them, or just dip in and out for snapshots and the choosing of the house, the life, the wife. You can make them the toast of the town or the saddest, most apathetic slob who meets a bad end by eating month-old waffles or falling into the ladder-less swimming pool that allows them no way out. Now, does this sound like anything else to you? Creating a character, populating their world with people and then deciding whether they live or die? It sounds like a story, doesn't it? Yes, yes, it does.








Does Writing Have to be Political to Matter?

 As you may recall, I recently had my flash fiction piece 'Snow' nominated in the 3 Quarks Daily Art & Literature prize 2011 and that I ranked as high as a semi-finalist before not making it through to the final six. The finalists who did get through (found here) became these eventual winners:

1. Top Quark: Namit Arora, Joothan: A Dalit's Life
2. Strange Quark: Edan Lepucki, Reading and Race: On Slavery in Fiction
3. Charm Quark: Elliot Colla, The Poetry of Revolt 







Book Quote Friday: Releasing your Inner Bitch

     This passage from 'The Pursuit of Love' actually made me snort in bed the other night:

     ‘For dinner, Linda wore a white chintz dress with an enormous skirt, and a black lace scarf. She looked entirely ravishing, and it was obvious that Sir Leicester was much taken with her appearance – Lady Kroesig and Miss Marjorie, in bits of georgette and lace, seemed not to notice it. Marjorie was an intensely dreary girl, a few years older than Tony, who had failed so far to marry, and seemed to have no biological reason for existing.’







Find The Ideas You Want To Work With

     Something I’ve not heard bandied about much on writing blogs and the like is the idea of reading philosophy to find the ideas that you want to work with in your fiction. I think it’s perhaps quite a good one as without ideas, stories can’t exist. And who have the best, biggest, most out-there and profound ideas? Philosophers, of course.