Often Denis speaks so softly that you have to put your ear down close to the page to hear what he is saying. Then the bastard turns the volume up.... Shortlisted for the Eyelands Book Awards 2024 Longlisted for the Page Turner Awards 2024
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One of the things that I think all writers do is constantly have their mind elsewhere. If you see a writer, from the amateur beginner to the seasoned professional, with their gaze lost somewhere in the distance it’s likely that they’re actually thinking about a story they’re writing or else planning on writing. In some […]
19.1.2025 12:03Living in metaphorsToday’s entry is one that will hopefully have all book lovers nodding quietly and smiling to themselves. However, I will get there the long way round. Part of what makes a linguist tick is the kind of thing that makes other people think ‘well, if you say so…’ or ‘and how does that help?’ or […]
13.12.2024 19:01Tsundoku‘Art is 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration’. You’ve heard this quote before, I’m sure. If you’re Proust or Mozart or Picasso, those percentages may change to 10%-90%, but not much more than that. I’m sure anyone reading this is nodding and smiling. ‘Yep, been there, done that’. Personally, I couldn’t agree more. However, I’d like […]
26.10.2024 17:09Here’s one I did earlier…I’m in the process of writing a novel (yep, brain about to explode, paranoid about changing even a comma in case there’s a butterfly effect and it causes continuity problems downstream), and I realise that one of the things I’m going to need is beta readers (people who read the book before it’s published to […]
30.9.2024 17:39Beta reader checklistContinuing on my series about the life of a struggling amateur author, the other day I got a rejection letter from a competition. Another one, I should point out. I keep them in a folder on my computer, and the day I get an acceptance letter I’ll count how many rejections it took me to […]
8.9.2024 07:26You can learn from everythingToday’s entry is going to be slightly shorter because it’s going to be about the book Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides. Plenty has been written about it, and by people way smarter than I am, so there’s no real need for me to explain why the book is great. It’s actually one of the most important […]
20.8.2024 15:30Books that I wish I’d written – MiddlesexI have just come back from Librebook, a bookshop in Brussels where my book is on the shelf. This sounds nonchalant, but it’s a big deal. Not for the world, granted, but it is for me. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s a surreal feeling to know that my book is available for […]
29.7.2024 13:51On the need for small bookshopsContinuing my informal series on the journey of an amateur writer, I would like to speak today about the effort it takes to finish a writing project. The gruelling, excruciating, mind-warpingly hard, but at the same time supremely rewarding effort of finishing even the shortest haiku. Many people embark on the adventure of writing, and […]
30.6.2024 11:37The Billy Elliot syndromeMy book is finally out in the world. It happened last Friday, and since then I’ve been thinking about what it feels like. I’ve come up with many similes for all the things that have been going through my head. I’m sure most of them won’t be all that original, seeing as there have been […]
19.5.2024 18:34Simile dayPedants get a bad rep. I don’t need to go into the details of why. We’re all well aware of their modus operandi. When you’re in a group of them, speaking can become stressful. You can see them paying attention to how you’re saying things instead of to what you’re saying. I was once in […]
20.4.2024 11:22In defense of pedants, plus some good news