author

“Traditions are just peer pressure from dead people.” Eliot Schrefer

Came across this. Might be interesting: https://www.indieauthorbookfair.com/upcoming-events No idea if it's any good, but I'm thinking of going since it's on my doorstep. Anyone else going? Let me know and we can visit the local pup and get very sloshed beforehand for a quick drink.

Am I the only one who's spotted this? Bill Bryson on self-publishing

Writers often like to talk about how intuitive the writing process is, but in truth, building a book is a remarkably unintuitive task. Or, to put it more accurately, you need a lot more than intuition. You need plot and characters. You need a setting. You need a theme that is relevant and...

Deciding to write a book, it never feels like a great idea. It’s always like knowingly entering a bad marriage. If you had any sense, you wouldn’t do it, but you know you’re going to do it. Percival Everett

If you’re afraid of loneliness, don’t marry. Anton Chekhov

“My words will either attract a strong mind or offend a weak one.” Anne Sexton

All that non-fiction can do is answer questions. It’s fiction’s business to ask them. Richard Hughes

New blog post by Claire G What Came First, the Chicken or the Egg? Bear With Me! Okay, this is probably a weird analogy but this is how my (bird-brained!) mind works. So, in terms of the title question, I’ve thought long and hard about this and, with my limited scientific knowledge, I’ve...

Why do writers write? Because it isn’t there. Thomas Berger

“When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there’s all heaven and earth in a book, a real book I mean.” Christopher Morley

“If you show someone something you’ve written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, ‘When you’re ready’”. David Mitchell

The only problem with Haiku is that you just get started and then Roger McGough

“It seems incredible, the ease with which we sink through books quite out of sight, pass clamorous pages into soundless dreams.” William H. Gass

New blog post by AgentPete Welcome to Publishing Year Zero “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” wrote authors’ rights activist Charles Dickens as A Tale of Two Cities began its epic unfolding. He could easily have been...

David Lodge was one of my literary heroes and a true comic genius. David Lodge, Campus Trilogy novelist and academic, dies aged 89

The last clementine of xmas. A little gift to start the year right. https://archive.org/details/steering-the-craft-a-twenty-first-century-guide-to-sailing-the-sea-of-story-repr/page/n4/mode/1up

This year's book, at midnight turns to footnote in the next. Terri Guilemets

New blog post by Jake E Bombing in the reviews An indie author often lives or dies based on their books’ ratings and reviews. Okay, maybe that was a touch dramatic. Often, it’s a case of succeeding or failing rather than expiring but you get the point. An indie writer’s career is in the...

"A best seller was a book which somehow sold well simply because it was selling well". Sylvia Boorstein