When you read a novel, particularly an historical one, are you the kind of person who is upset if you can see it’s not historically accurate? I know a lot of people do get upset at this type of thing. Being a pedantic person, I have avoided writing an historical novel so far, because I know I’d have to make sure I had EVERYTHING right before I finished it. If even one person came back to me and said, ‘This isn’t right!’ I would be devastated. Of course, having written a science fiction novel, people can still say to me, […]

Last week I was talking about the torture that exists if you have to wait for the sequel of your favourite novel to be released. I’m starting to wonder if it might not be a good thing. A friend of mine posted a link to an interesting article at Huffington Post about the Gen Y Yuppie and their expectations. I’ve added a link to the article, if you want to see it. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wait-but-why/generation-y-unhappy_b_3930620.html I think it’s an accurate description of the state of affairs. Somewhere along the way, people have gained the idea that they’re special/amazing/extraordinary, and this equates to […]

When I first wrote my trilogy and tortured my good friends by giving them one chapter at a time, I admit that it was kind of fun. Then they encouraged me to try and get The Heir and its sequels published … but that meant that I couldn’t really give them anything else of the other two books (although I did give them the first chapter of The Crown at one stage) because I felt it was better if I kept it from them, especially if things in the story were likely to change during the editing process, which was […]

I’m a writer. I have been writing stories since I was about eight years old. What I write may have varied over the years, but it has always been a constant in my life. My father’s a writer. His first book was published almost thirty years ago. He’s kept going since then, and now has many titles to his name. My brother writes album reviews and has been known to write small sketches for groups to perform. My son, aged seven, recently won a creative writing award in his class at school. My father’s father was a wood machinist. His […]

In a word – no. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a professional editor. It can be difficult to notice, but no one ever sees all the mistakes in their own books. This is the case whether we are talking about simple spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, or the larger mistakes people tend to make when they’re writing. Repetition is a common one. Even in writing this blog I often find, when I read back over what I’ve written, that I’ve repeated myself for no good reason. It’s easy to do, and the longer the manuscript you are working […]