So here’s the thing: I haven’t posted much in a long while, but I have a good excuse: I’ve been working on the first draft of a new book. Well, not so much a first draft as a zeroth draft: 90,000 words of unconnected vignettes that don’t hang together. No change there, you might thinkContinue reading “A Return to the Blog (and a return to the novel)”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
A Morality Tale Concerning Vinegar
This isn’t exactly about creative writing, but as a writer, I consider it a morality tale about the state of the modern world. Here’s the thing: for as long as I can remember, Sarsons have made vinegar in a convenient little glass bottle with a sprinkler thingy on the top that screwed off when youContinue reading “A Morality Tale Concerning Vinegar”
A New Secret Identity
Just to warn those of you who may come across me in the street that, as of my Movember flirtation with facial hair, I may no longer appear as you expect me to. (I suggest you compare me to the man on the right hand side of my blog page and marvel at my masteryContinue reading “A New Secret Identity”
What Decides Literary Genre?
This week, I heard someone reading a poem that sounded to me exactly like prose. Now, I’ve always been bad at understanding or passing any meaningful comment on poetry (it’s my blind spot) but the more I listened the more I realised I was responding to the poem exactly as if it were a shortContinue reading “What Decides Literary Genre?”
The ‘Rules’ of Writing
I’m beginning to doubt more and more of the ‘rules’ of creating writing. Maybe this is a good thing. Take, for example, the shock and horror that goes around writers’ workshops when someone dares to ‘tell’ some piece of back story instead of ‘showing’ it. It has become more and more apparent to me inContinue reading “The ‘Rules’ of Writing”
