Tag: Books

  • Who are you writing for?

    A meme popped into my Twitter feed the other day: A good writer always thinks about their reader. At first glance that looks like sage wisdom that’s hard to argue with, but my hackles immediately rose. Always? No, I really don’t think so. Maybe at the editing/polishing stage, but at the writing stage I think…

  • 26 = infinity

    I was going to rant this week, but it’s spring, the trees are blossoming, my WIP is progressing well and I don’t want to spoil the sensation of everything being right in the world. So instead, I’m going to share a fact that blew my tiny mind when it was pointed out to me. There…

  • The end isn’t in sight

    I’m cross and crotchety today. I feel like I’ve wasted my reading time this week on two books that didn’t end. Now, I don’t mean they were long, nor that they were dull. They didn’t end because their writers (and their editors and big, commercial publishers in turn) had failed to comprehend the fundamental requirement…

  • The Comfort of Old Friends

    I got book vouchers for my birthday in November, and more for Christmas. Whilst the days have been filled with lazy holiday vibes I’ve been checking Twitter recommendations and I now have a well-stuffed Kindle. So why do I find myself dipping back into my battered paperback of Steven Gould’s Jumper, which I must have read 8…

  • Teasers v Spoilers

    WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE BRIDGE SERIES 2 (ALTHOUGH IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THAT YET, WHY ON EARTH NOT?!) This post has been brewing for a while, because I keep having to grumble when people who should know better spoil books or TV programmes. Why on earth would you want to destroy the reading experience…

  • To be, or not to be…

    If you’re a reader, you won’t need the initials TBR explained. Our to-be-read piles are discussed with fellow readers in tones of mild to moderate alarm, as though they might one day take over our houses, our lives and eventually the civilised world. But I love my TBR pile. The idea of running out of…

  • Becoming a writer

    This week I visited the Write Romantics’ blog, where they discussed what they had wanted to be “when they grew up”. The blog was titled “life before writing” and they all had very different careers in mind. I was fascinated by this, because for me there wasn’t a life before writing – all I’ve ever…

  • Lie to me!

    Lie to me!

    I write (and read) fantasy, which is perhaps the most obviously “made-up” of fiction genres, and suspension of disbelief is key to spinning a successful fantasy tale. Suspension of disbelief can perhaps be summed up as ‘don’t allow a little reality to get in the way of a good story’, but it’s more subtle than that. From…