Firstly, I'd like to belatedly wish my readers and fellow bloggers a very happy, healthy, successful and productive New Year! I read a great post today by Donna at a little bird tweets about reading lists for this year and last; I decided that I need a similar challenge for 2016, so here's my list of what I did… Continue reading What I Read in 2015 and My 2016 Reading Challenge
When I was younger, I heartily disliked New Year's Eve; for my mother, it was a time of looking back and rehashing old tragedies, old regrets. She cried without fail, and to younger me this was painful and put a real pall over the end of the year. But I've learned that like Janus, the Roman… Continue reading My 2015 Writing Review (and plans for 2016!)
As far back as I can recall, I've had an immoderate appetite for two things; sweets, and reading. One of my favourite childhood pastimes was to combine both; lying on my bed, or in the park, or lolling on the sofa with a large dog-eared paperback and a bag of American hard-gums, was my idea… Continue reading Are Ebooks changing the way we read and write novels?
"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. (Robert Louis Stevenson) It's not an original idea, just a homely little blog post, but I keep thinking about how becoming a gardener who can actually grow things is a useful metaphor for how I'm becoming a writer who… Continue reading Sowing the Seeds: What Being a Gardener Has Taught Me About Writing
"When I write a novel I'm writing about my own life; I'm writing a biography almost, always. And to make it look like a novel I either have a murder or a death at the end" (Beryl Bainbridge) That's it, I've clocked up 25,900 words as at the end of last night, which is just… Continue reading 25,000 words…
I'm currently writing up chapter six of my novel, And The Buntings Flew, and its taking a long time; too long. I plan to end the chapter with the first major plot development, but I'm stuck on a descriptive section; something about what I was writing was bothering me, making progress slow. I've had to undertake quite a bit of research for this chapter, including remapping… Continue reading Novels That Explore Growing Up in Northern Ireland During The Troubles
""And it stoned me"" (Van Morrison, 1970) The title of my novel in progress is And The Buntings Flew. It's a title I agonised over for a long time, so I'm not surprised when some people ask me, why does a self-confessed Grammar Prig have as the first word in the title of her first book, such… Continue reading And it started with “And”
"It had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God, there is no zero. I still exist!" (The Shrinking Man) I'm starting to flex my writing muscles now! As well as working on my novel, And The Buntings Flew, the past few months… Continue reading How Low Can You Go? Novels, Novellas and The Renaissance in Short and Micro Fiction
I was introduced early on to the importance of names in literary fiction, being a young fan of Dickens - nearly all of Dickens' character names feel relevant, even if we can't place our feelings about some of them. Compeyson, Magwitch, Pumblechook, Orlick - these names are all from one novel, Great Expectations. Other memorable… Continue reading My Name Is? Character and Place Names in Literary Fiction
I've created a taster PDF which I'm quite pleased with; it contains the synopsis and selected excerpts from chapter 1 of And The Buntings Flew. Please do have a read and let me know what you think and if you would like to read more excerpts; more importantly, if you would buy the book! And The… Continue reading And The Buntings Flew – Free excerpts from Chapter 1
