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More great blogs in Wikio's September top 20 UK Literature blog rankings, as previewed by the wonderful Cornflower, who comes in at #2. This blog is amazingly still hanging in there, in spite of the fact that it's been so sadly neglected recently due to novel immersion and poor internet connection - thanks so much to those who are still tuning in! I hope to have normal service resumed in a few days, when my retreat will come to an end. I do feel sad that this quality time with my novel will soon be over - and which I know I'm really fortunate to have had - but at the same time I'm itching to get back to society and being once more in proper communication with everyone.

Ordinary life is already creeping in: this week I had an urgent e-mail order from Bertram's for the second edition of The Birth Machine, the revised edition I published myself. And what do you do about that, when you are your own publisher but you're away, and although you always keep a few copies of your books in the back of the car, you have only two of that edition of that particular book with you because anyway you more or less consider it off the market and out of print, since a lovely new edition is due from Salt this autumn? Suggest they wait until copies of the new edition are available at the end of September, you might say (and I did). But no, the order's too urgent, and you have to find an old jiffy bag somewhere and sellotape it up with the two copies and a promise to complete the order when more copies are available (ie when your partner finishes painting the outside of the family house on the mountain and you can both go back to Manc).

And speaking of family, I even had a break from the novel this week, as other family members joined us, and we went for very long walks. Here's a sunset we saw one night on the beach (horizon's not very straight!)...


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It is difficult to know where to start with this book. I read it because of my love of Story?s work, but I have to say I found the experience to be loathsome. On a very basic level, the book is badly written. The style is pedestrian. It rambles and, as a result, it confuses. It hasn?t even been properly proofed as spelling mistakes and typographical errors abound. As a biography it fails on a basic level. It cites no sources and seems to contain nothing that could not be gleaned from Story?s fiction (always a dubious prospect for whilst Story was known to mine his own life extensively for material, it was fiction he was writing).

Whilst we are offered a vaguely chronological amble through Story?s life, it is not placed in any but the narrowest social context. Rather like placing something on its own in a display case. Having no idea of how usual or unusual were Story?s circumstances in his early life, for example, it ends up being presented as something of a freak show. A person?s formative years are important to an understanding of their life, especially if their life is considered worth documenting. Without that background, without that context, we are adrift from the very beginning.

And this continues. Jack Trevor Story was a writer. Yet much of the work is glossed over as if the author of the biography didn?t want to talk about the books and other writings beyond mentioning that they were written at a certain time. To me this rather misses the point, particularly as some of Story?s work is now difficult to get hold of. Even a dedicated collector like me has only a fraction of his output. And where the work is mentioned, I could not shake the feeling that it was being sneered at.

This was a missed opportunity on a grand scale. Jack Trevor Story was a complex man whose life was equally complex, not to say complicated. He was certainly a highly talented, not to say unique writer - a man who never let his work settle into a rut. One would think that the point of a biography would be to try to unravel the complexity and explore the writer?s life and his work. In the end, however, we are left with the impression the author gave up trying, that it was all too much like hard work, that he expected Story to dictate his life to him in a coherent fashion. Story certainly wasn?t happy with what he saw of it. Neither was I.

Story?s life and work is fascinating, as is the milieu in which he worked. The opportunity is there to explore how publishing worked for the jobbing writer in the ?50s and ?60s and beyond; how the television and film industry treated writers (and still does); how someone managed to keep writing and producing fresh material despite (and because of) the events in his life. The opportunity is also there to place Jack Trevor Story where he firmly belongs in the top rank of writers of the second half of the twentieth century. Sadly, all that has been wasted.

If you want to know about Jack Trevor Story, do not seek out this book. It would be a waste of effort and money. Seek out Jack Trevor Story?s books instead. There you will find writing of rare talent that outshines much of what passes for literature today; that is genuinely comic; and which reflects the chaos that is modern life.
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I'm not sure why the post here, about how to make your Moleskine into a more efficient planner, gave me the giggles, but it's also set me thinking again about notebooks again. My basic notebooks small (bag/pocket) and big (desk/holidays) are not organised in any way, except that I start at the beginning, and fill it from left to right, till it's full. I did once decide to collect my PhD thoughts at the back, but kept forgetting to put them there: now everything gets bunged in together.

In life, I like things sorted and organised by function and logic. I'd rather keep books on the floor and papers on the desk until I've time to put them away in the right place, than have muddle in the shelves and files. I use diaries and to-do lists and shopping lists: even the icons on my desktop are arranged by kind-of-programme. So why am I happy to throw everything into my Moleskine however it falls? (Though I do, it's true, get much more organised once a writing project is up and running.)

Imagination and the storytelling impulse came long before the documentary impulse in me: the first thing I wrote as an adult was Chapter One of a novel. So the only notebook I needed, I thought, was for notes for the novel. Then I realised that documentary writing can be fuel for the imagination; it needn't be an end in itself. But - but - what? Just put everything in? As it occurs to me? An idea for the novel, a line on a tree/smell/shop, research notes from a museum, some words which seem to be part of a poem I haven't written yet, a brilliant story title ditto, an eavesdropped conversation, an expensive book I want... But how do you keep the same kind of thing together and different things apart? Which notebook for which stuff? And whatever categories and headings you choose, the actual material always resists them: is that conversation research, or a story idea? How will you find anything again? How will you know it's there when you need it? But you must organise it somehow, you must get a grip on what you've actually got, or you might never find something you wanted again.

That's the key, I know, because I can feel my chest tightening. Absolute impermanence, irreversible loss, is terrifying because it's what awaits us all, and perhaps existential terror is one thing that makes you a writer, not an actor: writing makes your experience and therefore self permanent. Indeed, because writing something down is the best way to get it into your head, notebooks are a bulwark against loss too. But if I have to start by working out what section a note goes in I probably won't bother, or the lights will have changed, and then it really will be lost. So, while my notebook is a form of letting go of the outcome, it has also become part of my process. Whether I'm looking for a research fact I know is there somewhere, or for some small sparks which might ignite to make a story, with only a rough idea of the order of the past to guide me, I see stuff along the way. I've found ideas for novels when I was seeking notes on an 18th century waistcoat, and stumbled on found poetry in my daughter's handwriting (I was driving), when I sought that solution I had to the hole in Chapter Four. I do usually find what I need, and some nice surprises too, in the encounter with my writerly past. And if I don't, and the novel takes a slightly different turn because of it, so be it: if I want to write a novel as a bulwark against the greatest terror, I've learnt that I need to live with the smaller ones.

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I am thrilled to learn that one of my new stories, 'Falling', has been shortlisted for the Sean O'Faolain short story competition. Congrats to my fellow short-listees.

The shortlist here.
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It is sometimes difficult returning to a book that you read in your late teens and have not re-read since then. There is a huge accretion of memory (often erroneous as memory can be) and emotion, especially when it is one of those books you recall as having had a profound effect. So much so that I went on to read whatever of Hesse I could find.

Returning to this, I am struck by two things that I probably didn?t consider on the original reading. The first is the language. My German has never been good enough to tackle something like this so I rely on translation. That means I do not know if it is the original or the translation that is so stiff-necked, so formal, but it simply felt at odds with the subject of the book. The structure is by no means standard for a novel. Hesse is happy to play with that. It seems unlikely he would be so in thrall to his native language that he would not know how to match the language to the various moods of the book.

The second is that for me, this will always be a book associated with adolescence and a flowering of my creative side. To my adult self it seems a juvenile work. Interesting, but a bit embarrassing, a bit too conscious of its literariness. This does not mean I do not like it. Every work as ambitious as this must be allowed a level of ?roughness? because it is venturing into places no one has been before.

Although a novel this stems from an age before writing courses and professionalisation of the art dictated current ?axioms?. It is a novel of ideas. Whilst things happen (although not very much), the work is more interested in the development and exploration of ideas. The plot, such as it is, is a very loose framework on which to hang the discourse. Characters are almost irrelevant.

When I was reading the end section I was put in mind of the TV show The Prisoner (the original, not the appalling ?remake?). That too had its faults, but it was nonetheless intriguing and explored many of the themes to be found in Steppenwolf - about identity, about being trapped, about escape, about trying to make sense and impose a pattern on an essentially chaotic world. And ending with a seemingly bizarre series of surreal events from which ideas and messages can be constructed to your heart?s content.

I am glad I took the time to revisit, and I would recommend it to younger readers as it is a book that anyone concerned with the nature of our inner lives should read; but it should be read early when it has time to imprint those essential messages, especially those about the way in which the life of the mind cannot be sustained without recourse to the feeding of the body and the senses.
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Very pleased to say that William Rycroft has given Too Many Magpies a really nice review. Interestingly, he begins the review by posing the question, Does Twitter sells books? His answer is yes, as he found out about TMM through the #dearpublisher discussion on Twitter, via which he got into a dialogue with my publisher Chris at Salt. Chris, bless his heart, recommended it when William explained the kind of book he liked. Thank you to both of them, and very glad it came up to William's expectations!
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During my summer break this year, I went to join my fiancé at his Buddhist retreat centre in the heart of France.
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Over on this thread on WriteWords, children's author Leila Rasheed asked us all

do people go back to their draft and change the plot of specific scenes while keeping the function of the scene. I think the difference between the function and the plot of a scene is an important one.... it reminds me of the story about the hammer: a man has a hammer; it's the same hammer that belonged to his great-great-great grandfather. In those years, the head of the hammer has been changed many times, and so has the handle, as they wear out. Is it still the same hammer? Is my story still the same story, even though scenes have been replaced?

I know what she means: for a complex set of practical, storytelling reasons, I'm about to pick up three scenes in the WIP, which take place in the same private house on two different days, jam them all together in a single morning with a chorus of different minor characters, and set them in a building site. And it is about the function of the scene in the story, so it shouldn't matter where it's set or what happens in superficial terms of action, as long as both make this turn of the plot-engine believable (which was Leila's original problem). And yet because setting and action, in the broad sense of "computer-hacking-in-Afghanistan" or "women-winning-in-Silicon-Valley", are two of the primary ways in which we experience a novel, to change the setting or action of a scene can mean that it feels as if the novel has changed.

I wonder if it's rooted in the fact that as readers we tend to think, "Oh, they're having a row about how strong the coffee should be, and by the end the word 'divorce' has been said for the first time," and only after a moment (or at a second read if it's very elliptically done), "Oh, they're really having a row because the marriage is falling apart under the strain of fertility treatment." Equally, as writers our imaginations often work in the concrete terms of a specific settings and immediate actions. Another WriteWorder, womag writer Geraldine Ryan has a beautiful example of that: for ages she had a story working out in her head, and all she knew was that it was about french onion soup. It was weeks before she could say, "I know what it's about: Alzheimer's."  So it's only after a while, and perhaps only because for some other reason that setting/action isn't feasible, that we must start to think, "Okay, what's this scene really doing, and how else could I do it?" So you change the handle: the coffee row between husband and wife becomes a row between wife and father about the cost of her fertility treatment, but the head can still hammer the divorce-beginning-to-loom plot-nail in just as well.

And then perhaps the other-way-round thing happens: you can't get the row-with-the-father scene right. You just can't find one line of dialogue after another which will lead where you're trying to go. And you realise that this scene is flat because father and daughter wouldn't have a row and so your creative unconscious won't serve up the words for it. Then you think "Why wouldn't they have a row?", and realise that it's because he's insecure about how much she loves him, so wouldn't let her pick a fight. So it becomes a father-consoling-daughter scene, and it's the word "marriage-guidance" which comes up now for the first time. The hammer-head has changed in its turn. Is it still the same story?

I don't know, though I do know that it's almost certainly a better story. There's value in forgetting, but perhaps books-as-babies is the clue. My son is on his gap year, and about to go to university. Much of what he is now I couldn't possibly have predicted when he was three, from his face to his hoped-for career, and biologically speaking there's scarcely a cell of him which existed then. And yet there's a core of form and colouring, and of thought and feeling, which hasn't changed. He is still him, and so is your story.

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After not being to able to make a connection this morning (even though the weather was lovely - maybe it's not the weather!), I've now got 3 strokes on the 5-stroke connection gauge, and as soon as I connected up found this - a really lovely review of Too Many Magpies by writer Alison Wells. It's made my day, especially as what she says at the end is quite the best compliment one writer can pay to another:

As a reader it was the kind of book I have longed to read, as a writer, it is the kind of book I would dream of writing.

I can't tell you how very happy that makes me feel. Thank you, Alison.
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I love having a blog-writing beau.
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I am a person who prefers baths.The harder you fight to hold on to specific assumptions, the more likely there's gold in letting go of them.I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.
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Today's the third birthday of This Itch of Writing, and a good moment to thank everyone who's joined in over the years. I really didn't know, when I started this blog, whether I would find I had anything to say, or anything I wanted to say, let alone whether anyone would want to listen or respond. So it's been a delight to find that I have, and people do. Indeed, it hasn't just been fun: I've thrashed out ideas on here which ended up in my PhD, and your comments have enlarged not just my ideas about writing, but my knowledge of how other writers work, which has been invaluable for teaching. I've had wonderful and useful books recommended, and I've made great friendships and connections. I do know that the blog has rather outgrown the original categories, and one day when I've nothing better to do (or I'm desperately looking for displacement activity) I'll try to extend it. Meanwhile, I thought I'd celebrate by posting links to some of the pieces which have got the biggest response.

When it comes to posts about how you handle your creative self, one which seems to have struck a most resounding chord was on procrastinating: Cup of Tea? I'll Get Going in a Minute. A sister-piece, I guess you could call it, listed some of the garments you might have stashed in The Inner Critic's Dressing-up Box. With the book trade in even more of a spiral of doom and gloom I've found myself remembering The Market for Ropes, and saying over like a litany the reasons why, as a writer, you must try to keep industry news outside the boundaries of your creative self.

An early post, Practical Parenting, was having fun with the books-as-babies analogy, but it's startling to realise that the novel I was just waving off to university has been out in the world for nearly two years, and the one that's taking up all the space in my head is now a lusty school-child, trying to pass its 11+. Talking of milestones, Writing for Radio has been the most sustained series of posts, while another piece of fun is the very recent Author's Lament.

A post on a forum developed into How To Get The Best Out of An Editorial Service, and gave birth to the whole Resources section of the blog. It's been hugely useful to have to think technical issues out properly, too, from my post In Praise of the Long Sentence, to thinking aloud about reading aloud in Harnessing the Trojan Horse or the uses of reasearch in In Search of the Odd, Crunchy Details. Forums themselves have got me thinking, from flame wars over 'the rules' in Messes, Clones and Plots like a W, to the troubles caused by mis-matches between critiquer and critiquee in To the Point. I also love the connections that blogging leads to, which give birth to posts like Under Your Skin and Into Your Core.

One of the joys is how the blog gives me somewhere to explore tangential ideas, away from the current novel and its preoccupations. Whether it's talking about How many viola parts does it take to make a novel, or monochrome photography and polychrome sculpture in Nothing Remotely Trivial, when you start mapping to and fro among the arts, often something that's hard to articulate about writing becomes very clear. It was architecture which gave rise to Building the Bridge, which is another post that keeps cropping up in the stats. 

And finally, to celebrate this third birthday of This Itch of Writing, and as part of my resolution that it should keep on Being a Snow Leopard, here are two posts from the furthest, opposite edges of the liminal area which I, and my writing, and this blog, all inhabit: The Real Sixth Sense and Note Number 24

I hope you've enjoyed some of these, and some others. As ever, as a writer, I only really know I'm that heard by what the hearers say. So to everyone who comments, links, catches me at a reading, sends me an email or just shows up in the stats working your way through the archive I'd like to say: thank you for joining in the conversation.
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For days this has been my view in the mornings from my writing desk here in Wales, and as a result I haven't had much internet access. In the past I've thought it was the clouds that interfered with the signals (I think they're bounced back off the ridge in front of the house, as at the back we're shielded from Caernarfon and the masts by a hump of the hill and slate tips, and the ridge attracts cloud), and at other times I've thought it must be the wind. Well, we've had both this week, and as you can see we've been right inside the former. I've lost text messages and emails I've tried to send as a result of signals cutting out half-way through sending them, and for most of the time the web has been impossible. Today though, touch wood, the weather's better and last time I tried the connection was pretty good.

I managed to put yesterday's post up only after a lot of hassle. When I sat down to write it, I couldn't access Blogger at all, so I composed it in Word and when I got a connection pasted it in, and what a palaver that turned out to be: blogger simply wouldn't accept Word HTML, and I had to go through the whole thing deleting and replacing it all. They call it 'mobile broadband', but really, it's worse than dial-up used to be on my old groany desktop computer. And then, I discovered today, my latest version of the post hadn't published at all, although I'd thought it had...

Not surprisingly, I have ended up a lot of the time not even bothering, especially when I've got my novel pressing and that's the main reason I'm here. And I must say, I'm getting plenty of that done. And I've got another 10 days or so before other family members arrive here to join us...
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So now the dust has settled, and my story 'Calling', broadcast on Radio 4, has vanished into the ether (except for me, since I've got a lovely CD of all three Lost in the Lanes stories), and my writing brain's moved on to other projects. But there's no denying that even if I'm commissioned again, it's definitely one of the landmarks that will be visible for a long time, when I look back over my shoulder. So what does the landmark consist of? Some of these are my perceptions, some I gathered from friends who listened.

My work read by someone else gains as much as it loses. Coming as I do from a Drama background, I'm always thinking in terms of reading my work aloud, and I think it's a pity when writers don't read well because it always seems to sell the work short. On the other hand my PhD supervisor, the poet Maura Dooley, says that she thinks that even if a writer doesn't read well, there's an authenticity about a writer reading, which transcends technical limitations. Of course Philip Voss didn't read every inflection as I would, and to that extent you could argue that the story was less authentic to my work than if I'd read it. On the other hand, because Philip Voss's take on the meaning and shape of the work was his take, it created a different but still complete whole: the way he read it was formed by the internal logic that he found in the story. And there's another tradeoff of this difference. Whereas as the writer I can - you might argue - transmit my words from page to listener most authentically, as an actor Philip inhabited the character of the narrator in a way that I can't.

People can't (or at least don't) easily listen to the radio while doing nothing. It's worth remembering that, I think. The producer had already said that because it's aural, it's important to establish very quickly the setting and circumstances of the story, and I was aware that as a listener you experience a story more inexorably in time, than you do as a reader. So I'd deliberately used a pretty simple narrative structure. But it's also true that we listen while doing something else. One friend was making a blackberry and apple pie, another was driving, a third ironing. I'm sure that in writing for radio, as in any other kind of writing, it's a mistake to try to allow for every grade of distraction: just like trying to please (or fool) all the people all of the time, that way madness lies. But it is worth putting yourself in your reader's place, and asking how best you can get them to hear your words.

If the story exists in time, so do your listeners. Having pushed my willingness to self-promote to its limit with Tweeting and emailing, I was rewarded by knowing that friends were actually listening at the same time as me. To my surprise I actually felt quite a prickle of tears in the throat at this sense of connectedness. And within five minutes of the end of the story, I had three or four emails and a couple of Tweets, from friends. By the end of the day I had many more, and they continued to arrive for the full seven days the story was on Listen Again. It was almost as immediate as doing a reading myself, and far more so than when a friend has my novel as their book-for-commuting for weeks on end. And yet because I wasn't reading, I was much closer to the experience of others.

Figurative language wins every time. Among lots of general nice comments, many people commented specially on two phrases: "the chimney pots looking like the stumps of a wood that?s been felled" and "A ginger cat, sheltering under a tipped-up cart, fled like a streak of evening sun." It seems to me these particularly caught people's attention for two reasons. One, because they're both visual, and we're such a visual species; it takes more practice to be able to imagine the other five of our six senses, and as a writer the vocabulary for them is often more limited and less concrete, so you have to work harder to be as evocative. And Two, they both help the visual imagination along, by providing a different, physical analogy for the object being described.

So I've learnt a lot, and enjoyed a lot. I've even got an idea for a radio play... But that's a whole different game.

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I've always read poetry, but it was workshopping other students' poetry at Glamorgan, under the aegis of the likes of Sheenagh Pugh, Gillian Clarke and Tony Curtis, that taught me a bit about how poetry works: most particularly contemporary poetry, where it's so much less obvious what the poet is doing and how they're doing it. The rest of what I know about how poetry works I chiefly learnt from Ruth Padel's 52 Ways of Looking At A Poem. Now I go to readings, and work on poems and poetic techniques as part of developing my prose, and get my students to do the same.

So far, so sensible. So why is it that every now and again I find myself with a line thumping in my head, which demands to be turned into a silly bit of verse, complete with a regular scheme of consonantal end-rhymes (which is what non-poets mean when they talk about rhyming), a thumping metre and traditional stanzas? And I do mean verse - the lord knows this isn't poetry.

One reason is that the perceived difficulty of handling the very basics (which aren't that difficult really) of formal verse disarms my inner critic. No one's expecting Art. The meaning doesn't have to be profound, and I'm not pretending that my very faulty technique serves the meaning in any significant way. Nor am I exposing my self too much, as I would be if I appeared to Mean It. The world assumes that lyric poetry is all about yourself, but as with many novelists and most actors, fiction is as much mask for me as it's direct self-expression. But this is just fun, right? It's the same principle as the writing class which sets lots of small, quick exercises. If it doesn't work, who cares? Indeed, some kinds of not-working in writing light verse can be part of the fun, since there's always a potential silliness about rhyming in English (unlike, say, Italian) and in working with very regular, skipping-rhyme meter: a silliness which also disarms. And, perhaps more seriously, I enjoy doing this stuff, and while play is a good reason for doing anything, being silly with the tools of a trade you take seriously is always particularly direct therapy.

But another reason is more important. Theodore Roethke said that "Form is not regarded as a neat mould to be filled, but rather as a sieve to catch certain kinds of material", which seems to me one of the most profoundly true statements about art anyone's ever made, and why people who think that it's not poetry unless it rhymes and scans, and it is poetry if it does, are so wrong: they're mistaking the sieve for the meal. But traditional poetic forms are very clear, well-proportioned sieves. So what on earth was I trying to catch? Well, this line arrived in my head: "I wished I were an author and could write the whole day through". An iambic hexameter, and I realised while wrangling with it that the stressed syllables aren't equally stressed, so you could get all technical and argue about anapaests and substitutions and clipped feet. (But let's not, not least because I can't find Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled to make sure I'm getting it right. Fry's book is both annoyingly good ammunition for the tedious, die-hard, rhyming-and-scanning brigade, and brilliant at explaining it all. And at times it's very funny and vulgar.)

I wasn't trying to say anything new so form wasn't sieving out any thoughts I haven't had. But in trying to get my very easy rhyme scheme and my not-so-easy metre to behave themselves, my mind did have to range in a different way through my word-hoard. Sound and rhythm came into it, not just as a plus to make the writing sound better, but as a necessary qualification for a word to get in at all. And suddenly the search started to turn up words I hadn't known were right: form was catching meanings, and meanings I didn't know I'd meant. It was, if you like, both great fun, and rather serious, writing this. (See? I still can't bring myself to call it a poem...)

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As someone who much enjoys the work of Hammett and Chandler, it seemed only right that at some stage I would seek out Macdonald?s books. That it has taken so long is a bit of a mystery. I knew he was considered the heir to Hammett and Chandler, but somehow I had never got round to reading any of his work. It?s something I?ll be putting right in the near future.

Although not his first novel, this is the first of a series to feature his private eye Lew Archer. Archer is cast in the same mould as others of his ilk. He has been a policeman, served in Intelligence during the Second World War, has a broken marriage, is something of a tough guy, but is not as tough as he acts. Because his inner world is available to us through the use of first person narrative.

In the same West coast settings as Hammett and Chandler, Macdonald explores the same territory and uses the same settings, yet we have a view of the world that is from a slightly different perspective. This is partly due to the fact that Macdonald takes up the reins in the post-war era. I?m looking forward to his work written in the 60s to see how he observes the social changes of the time.

In The Moving Target, he notes how some men who flourished in a combat situation had trouble readjusting to civilian life and often fell into trouble or made a concerted move into a life of crime. This is introduced as a natural part of the story (a kidnap caper that goes wrong and exposes the ways in which upright citizens can be corrupted by the influence and presence of the corrupt).

By the time Macdonald wrote this book, he was had already proved himself as a writer. It is somewhat lacking in variations of pace. In part that is the race-against-time element of the story, but a few moments to draw breath would have produced greater contrast for the tension. Apart from that, this is a slick novel that pays great attention to detail, not just in terms of plot and character, but in the mechanics of writing as well.

It?s always a joy to find a ?new? author whose books one enjoys. I can see lots of pleasurable reading ahead.
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This book is something of a literary earthquake. From the very beginning you are aware of a fault line; you know that in the depths there are tensions building. And as with all earthquake zones, the eye moves from place to place assessing the safe spots, the danger points, the escape routes, all in the knowledge that when the earth moves, all bets are off. Because when and where an earthquake is triggered and with what ferocity is wholly unpredictable.

Here, the seismic rumblings are of a personal nature. As the book opens, we follow Henrietta into the epicentre. And already we can feel the coiled energy that will release and turn everybody?s life upside down and inside out, knowing they will have to cope with a world full of aftershocks as they survive in the ruins and start the long process of rebuilding.

Such a novel could be unremittingly gloomy. Happily for us, it is not. The themes of love, loss, betrayal, faith, and illusion are handled well. There is no moralising, no sense that the author has an axe to grind, merely that she has an insight she wishes to share and the talent to share it in such an interesting and entertaining way. It treats serious subjects with sensitivity, yet it manages also to be comic. There are no knockabout routines, no custard pies in the face. The humour and the comedy are integral to the characters and to the situation ? and much of what happens grows out of the characters in an entirely natural way.

Indeed, the book put me in mind of Jack Trevor Story, for it is a somewhat surreal yet convincing tale populated by characters who, for all their oddities and intensities, are wholly believable and deftly drawn. These are characters not always in control of their fate, who view the world with a bewildered eye, but who manage to survive. Swept away by the craze of Psychic Dancing, we are offered glimpses into the world of stage magicians and mentalists, as well as the lives of those caught out by success.

The author also does the reader the honour of treating them as intelligent. No spoon feeding of pap on plastic spoons. Rather, we are fed morsels of the best quality with a spoon that? Well, maybe there is no spoon. The writing is smooth and clear, like a good whisky; because it is also intoxicating. The story is well constructed and complex without resorting to tricksiness. The resolution is satisfying even if, like real life, all the ends are not neatly tied in a bow.

There were a couple of times I found myself wondering why it had been written in the present tense. I normally find this difficult to cope with, but the pace and content soon made me forget about it. It did however put me in mind of a film script and made me realise what a great television series this would make.

If you like an intelligent read that is both thoughtful and entertaining; if you like a book that is well written; if you like something a little out of the ordinary; then I suggest you buy this book. You?ll be doing yourself a favour and you?ll be supporting a writer who deserves much greater recognition.
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Often billed as a retelling of James Hogg?s masterwork, it is a great deal more than that, and to suggest otherwise seems to me to belittle what the author has achieved. Indeed, this is Emma Tennant at her very best. Confident, intelligent, and searching, she has produced a novel of great simplicity and enormous power.

The simplicity lies not in the story which is an interweaving of many layers, but in the telling. A lesser author would have made a hash of trying to keep so many narratives moving forward in such a way. Yet we are never lost in these layers, just as we are never lost in the mysteries. Nothing is explained, yet we are never left behind, because the author paints such a convincing picture.

The narrative is tight, tense, and slips in and out of the surreal in a way that many so-called magic realist writers have never managed. Such seamless writing is a joy to read; the use of such techniques enhancing the story. And there is extra joy in the fact we are left to engage with the story at our own level. A fantastical show is put on for our delight, both entertaining and thought provoking. How far we wish to go in looking behind the scenery is up to us. The door is there should we choose, but it is never once pushed at us.

Jane?s journey is one of feverish nightmare, never certain what is dream, what is hallucination, and what is real. Her encounters, her memories, and her actions move in and out of these different realms. And the end of the book takes us out of the quintessential urban setting with its noise and business back to the wilds where one can feel the cool, green, damp and the loneliness that lies at the heart of this sad tale.

Buy. Read. Marvel.
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The heavy doors beat out their irregular, echoing tattoo in her memory as the train came to a stop. Confused layers of recollection and reality shimmered in the curved space; the sulphurous stink of steam, the acrid stench of diesel and dust, the clattering flap of pigeons, incomprehensible tannoy announcements and the sound of hundreds of voices, hundreds of feet.

Hanging back from the crowds, she strolled along the wide platform, trailing slow, twisting whorls of misty chaos. The grey and grimy past spread out, dissolving into the hard light of the present. She pushed through the automatic ticket barrier and looked for somewhere to sit. She told herself she needed a moment to let the memories settle and the layers of time to synchronise. She told herself everything would be all right. It was a mistake she always made.

As soon as she sat, she accepted the journey had been a mistake. Ghosts crowded the concourse. She watched them filling the space, surging back and forth, pushing through one another, fraying the edges of reality.

Accretions of time piled up like dust in the station; the detritus of centuries accummulated from all the moments lost, the anxiety, the attempt to hurry, swirled across the concourse and deposited in corners. They were all the same. From the monorail station at Srinagar that she had never since been able to find to the remote halts in the middle of all those nowheres; small, large, decaying, brand new, open air, enclosed, empty, full, they were polyps strung out on a network of steel connectivity, islands of frutration and dreams, places of greeting and parting, steeped in emotion.

Dangerous places where she had no control.

She pushed herself up from the bench and crossed to the departure board, looking up at the old mahogany structure that had once stood there. An old, cold wind tugged at the long skirts of her coat. Long past light filtered through dust. Silence fell. It would be years before there was another train.

Vague echoes drifted beneath the high glass canopy.

With a shiver, she turned from the board and walked out through the abandoned ticket hall. The station forecourt had that ?70s Sunday morning feel. The whole length of Queen?s Road stretched before her, empty of ghosts, people, movement. In the chill, hazy distance was the sea.

?Bugger.? She pushed a finger under her glasses and wiped away a tear. The ?70s really was the last place she wanted to be right now.
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With all the grace of a drunken dancer, the ghost teetered about the empty square. It would lean and move off in one direction, picking up speed until it righted itself. Spinning on the spot for a moment or two, faint in the painfully bright sunshine, it would lean in another direction and be on its way again, sinuous, trailing pale peach wisps of nothingness and a faint hiss.

Jeniche watched the erratic ballet from the deep shadow of a cellar doorway. Dust ghosts were rarely seen in the city. It was rarely this quiet. Most people would be sitting or lying in a shaded room, waiting for the afternoon heat to abate, especially at this time of the year. But there were normally some people about; luckless servants mostly, sent on the errands of the fools for whom they worked.

The square and the roads leading to it, the shops and stalls. All were quiet beneath the weight of the heat, sunlight shimmering from the hard baked mud walls. Quiet except for the ghost that skittered across the open space, spinning toward Jeniche and then changing direction. She pulled her keffiyeh up over the lower half of her face, squinting as dust drifted into the stairwell. Childhood memories drifted in with it, just as unwanted. She blinked the dust from her eyes, wiping away a grimy tear with the back of her hand.

Turning in the dark, she watched the ghost swithering for a moment before gathering new energy. It dashed along the main road out of the square, picking up more dust as it went, twisting, hissing, and taking on a more solid form. Without warning it collapsed. Mute sunlight pressed down into the silence.
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Birth is painful.
Gut wrenching.
Heart aching.
Head fucking.
Painful.

All the more painful
When you thought you were barren
When you thought
That last time
Was the one time
The only time
The true time.

Em.
Just the name.
Conjures all the sweetness.
The bitterness.
The pain.
Of birth.
And loss.
The whole gentle, uncertain dance.
Finished.
Before it really started.

You are still there.
I can close my eyes
And see you as we whirl beneath the tree.
Lifetimes ago.
And gone.

You live within me.
Loved.

And now.
How can I love another?

Birth is painful.
Gut wrenching.
Heart aching.
Head fucking.
Painful.
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...this is where it all began.
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I was only a teenager, but always made to feel welcome. It was a bit of a thrill, really. All sorts of people used to be in and out of the place. Writers. Artists. Poets. Some local. Some, sort of, well, international if you like. Martin Henty, who owned the shop and the press, he seemed to know everyone who was worth knowing.

Everyone used to go on about London and all that, but it wasn?t the only place where things were happening. In fact, Martin used to say it was easier to get things done in Brighton as there weren?t all the wasters and hangers on. People who wanted to be part of the scene but had nothing to contribute. Some he didn?t mind, but there were always those who were on the make, sponging off people. That?s what was good about Octopus, cos Martin always got rid of those types.

One of the real reasons I kept going back was cos I fell in love. [laughs]. It was a real teenage crush. Daft really. She was, well, I don?t know, thinking about it, she must have been close on forty. But she was beautiful. Elegant. Had this amazing hair. A pale, rosy gold colour. Cut really short. And a face that? er? well, it?s like she?d seen so much, good and bad, yet found some sort of peace. Nearly. There was always something. [laughs] Woman of mystery.

I really did just hang around the place in the hope of seeing her, doing odd jobs for her. She ran one of the magazines that Octopus published. I?ve still got all my copies. I?d help with anything really. Learned a lot. Course, it?s all done by computer now. Shame really, cos it might make life easier but the finished product is always a bit too perfect. I like those old magazines and papers cos they had a raw edge to them. Not just the content, but the look of them as well.

Everything she did was done properly. Do you know what I mean? She took great care with it all. I used to watch her work. Sounds a bit creepy now, I suppose, but I really was? I even bunked off school sometimes.

Nobody knew much about her. You?d hear stories. There was one about her being a motorcycle rider of some sort. Never understood that. Some daft pillock said she was a thief. I got into real trouble over that. My one and only fight. Went a bit mad. [laughs] A bit mixed up. It took a few years to sort my head out. Didn?t help when she just vanished.

Sorry? Her name? Oh. Er. Charlie. Charlie Cornelius.

She?d be about seventy now. I often wonder what happened to her. Nobody knew where she?d gone. It?s funny. I was walking through that part of town just a few days ago, looking at the places, all changed now. And you know, I?ll swear I saw her. Couldn?t have been her, of course. Didn?t look any older. [laughs] I actually ran after this woman. Lost her in the crowds along Kensington Gardens. Just as well I suppose. What would I have said? Sorry. Thought you were someone I?m, er, was in love with. Thirty years ago.

Local Oral History Project
John Charles Woodman
Extract from transcript of session 47 (22 May 2000)
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I'm dusting the cobwebs off the blog and, as so often happens these days, I've accumulated a huge amount of literary 'stuff' to share which I will assemble into a single post.

Hoovering the anthology
You may remember that the East Dulwich Writers' Group published our first anthology, Hoovering the Roof, last year.



 I'm delighted to announce that the book has been shortlisted for the National Association of Writers' Groups awards.  Result to be announced at a ceremony on 4th Sept.

Meanwhile, we're editing the content for the 2nd anthology, to be published in Nov.  And this is where you come in.  We need your help (again) to choose a title.  Please go here to vote in our public poll.

Blushing for 33
There are several events coming up to publicise 33, the anthology of short stories with one set in each of London's boroughs. 


You can find details on Glasshouse Book's Facebook page and the books (spilt into 2 volumes) are available to buy on their website.

Meanwhile, there's a very nice review here that had me dancing (and snivelling).

Blogging for the Spaces
I have been invited by the lovely Liane Spicer to write a guest post for Novel Spaces.  My post will be appearing there on 15th September.

Getting Published
The winning team who organised the fabulous Festival of Writing in York earlier this year have turned their awesome talents to a Getting Published Event on 2nd October in London.  It promises to be a very productive and useful day.  In case you're wondering, I'm one of the Book Doctors.

Dance Your Way to Psychic Sex
This book by Alice Turing is magic.  Yes, you read that right - it's not just about magic ...  Even the way it has been produced has an undeniable whiff of the supernatural about it.

For a read unlike anything you will have come across before, order your limited edition copy here.  You can read reviews (including one by yours truly) here.



Clashing Innocents
While I'm sharing news of recently or about-to-be published books, I'm betting you will find Sue Guiney's latest novel impossible to resist.  I can't wait to receive my copy and I'm excited that this blog will be a stopping post on Sue's virtual tour.  Watch this space ...



Protecting PLR
This is really important, people.  The info below is pasted from the petition which I hope you will sign in order to protect this vital resource.

The Public Lending Right scheme, under which authors receive 6p when a book is borrowed from a public library, is funded by the Department for Culture Media and Sport. Over the last three years, while public spending has been buoyant, PLR?s allocation has fallen by 3%: over 10% in real terms.

While accepting that DCMS has been instructed to reduce its budget, we ask the Secretary of State, Jeremy Hunt, to recognise that the £7.5m spent on PLR gives effect to a legal right and is not a subsidy. It provides working writers with a modest income when their books are read by library users free of charge. PLR is particularly important to authors whose books are sold mainly to libraries and to those whose books are no longer in print but are still being used.

Press coverage tends to focus on a few successful authors, yet most struggle to make ends meet. PLR provides a significant and much-valued part of authors? incomes. The £6,600 upper limit ensures that the fund helps those most in need.

The admirably efficient PLR Office has already cut its running costs very substantially. Any reduction in PLR will have an immediate and detrimental effect on the ?front line? payments to authors. 

 

 
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Is there no end to the uplifting author stories in this blog?
It seems not ...

Remember I told you about Shelley Harris's triumph at Authonomy Live at the Festival of Writing in York?
Well, I'm delighted to pass on the news that Shelley's book had several publishers slavering over its potential and she has now signed a two book deal with W&N (who also published my first two books).

You can read Shelley's amazing journey in her own words here on WordCloud.
Exciting, or what?

(What d'you mean, you're not already on WordCloud?  It's only the best writing community on t'internet - and it's free to join.)

And the other tale?  No links for Roger Hardy as he has no online presence.

I first started working with Roger in October 2008.  His novel, Miracle in Carvoeiro, needed a lot of heavy engineering and there were issues in almost every area of plotting and characterisation, but there was a kernel of something very special there.   Two weeks later and after a lengthy email exchange, he was back with a complete redraft, asking for a second read, which I completed as well as posting the amended MS back to him.

By December 08, I was still discussing polishing and pitching of Book 1, but had meanwhile received Roger's second book for editing.  He'd hopped genres and produced a very good Da Vinci Code-esque book.  I thought The Eye of Sayf-Udeen had serious potential - it was different enough to provide a  fresh angle on the formula - and was far better written IMO than Dan Brown's books.  I was seriously impressed at the way Roger had learnt the lessons from previous feedback and incorporated them into his new writing.

So, by this time, Roger was pitching Book 1, editing Book 2 and already talking about Book 3.  More emails and in Jan I sent him the report of The Eye of Sayf-Udeen.  In Feb, he completed the first draft of his third book.  Artcore is a thriller set in the gay scenes in Amsterdam and Brighton.  Once again, I thought that his book should be theoretically publishable once he'd completed an edit. 

By March, he had self-published the first book on Lulu and I was working on the critique for Artcore as well as a reread for The Eye of Sayf-Udeen. I sent him an email re the latter, saying,
'Roger ? I love it!  Huge respect and kudos to you ? I really feel you are on the brink of coming up with a publishable MS.'

In April 2009, I pitched The Eye of Sayf-Udeen to the Writers' Workshop for the free read they offer for books recommended by editors as having commercial potential. 
They agreed with me ... YIPPEE!
... and pitched the book themselves to a well-known agent.  YIPPEE!

The agent felt the market for the genre was over saturated.  BOO!
Roger decided he'd carry on pitching to other agents himself.

May 2009 and I was editing the redraft of Artcore.
July 2009 found me editing the 3rd draft of Artcore

Book 4, Sylvia, arrived on my desk in October 2009.
Alas.  I had told Roger I was convinced he'd get there in the end as long as he kept on writing and pitching.  Sadly, with this book, he seemed to have forgotten that each book needed to be better than the last; that he needed to focus on quality, not just quantity.  Although his writing skills has improved beyond recognition, I felt this was his weakest book yet.

With characteristic resilience, Roger took the criticism on the chin.  I told him I thought he needed to slow down and do some more reading in order to prepare for his next book, which we had already discussed.

After lots more discussions, I received the first draft of The Zarathustra Principle in March 2010.  This was Roger's most ambitious book yet.  Set in Cologne in the 1920s, it told the story of a relationship between a young  agnostic man from an Orthodox Jewish family and a fellow student, the two united by a shared love for Nietzsche.  That scenario, and the central European setting in the days before Nazism took a hold, has been explored in literature before but what made Roger's book stand out was that there was a strong spiritual element in the form of a latter day prophet. 

What worried me was that this unique quality was both the book's greatest strength and its fundamental weakness.  We all know how publishers like to pigeon hole books and my concern was that this one was straddling genres.  But damn, it was good! 

Meanwhile, Roger and I finally had the chance to meet face to face in York.  Later in April, I received the second draft of The Zarathustra Principle for editing.  

And now?  Roger is still pitching his previous books and has amassed a sizable pile of rejection slips.
Think 'water' ... Think 'duck's back' ...  He's published all four (neither of us count Sylvia) on Lulu and he's cooking his next book. 

It sounds as though it will incorporate his undoubted strengths.
It sounds as though it will avoid both the genre-straddling and the too similar/too different conundrum that has dogged his previous books.
I know it will be very well-written.
It sounds like this could be the one ...!

By now, you're probably asking yourself why I'm sharing all this with you.  Maybe you're exhausted just thinking about Roger's prodigious output and his determination to keep on writing and pitching.
'After all,' you might say, 'Roger still hasn't fulfilled his ambitions in spite of all that incredibly hard work.'

But there's the point, y'see.  Roger's writing skills, which always had genuine potential as far as I'm concerned, have gone from strength to strength.  At times his creations have tortured him to the point of obsession, but most of the time he has derived wonderful satisfaction from the creative process.  He is also determined and persistent, rolling with the punches and never allowing rejections to make him lose sight of his goals.

I'M CONVINCED THAT THE DAY WILL COME WHEN I HAVE A GEN-U-INE ROGER HARDY BOOK ON MY SHELVES THAT HAS THE LOGO OF A MAJOR PUBLISHING COMPANY ON THE SPINE.

I wanted you to hear his name here first!

Incidentally, if you have a book that's ready to be released into the world, you might be interested in the Getting Published Day this October, which should give you many of the tools you need.

Good luck!
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Are you sitting comfortably?
Then I'll begin ...



Once upon a time, (last night actually) I attended the Brit Writers' Awards at the O2.  G and I were sitting at a table with a very nice group of people but one woman in particular stood out for her warmth and friendliness and she shared her personal story with us.

Catherine  Cooper worked as a primary school teacher for 29 years until four years ago, at the age of 50, she was simultaneously diagnosed with both breast cancer and a debilitating genetic condition resulting in severe disability.  She was forced to take immediate retirement on medical grounds, thereby losing her health and the job she loved in one devastating double whammy.

As we all know, we can't control what life throws at us.  All we can control is how we react to the hand we're dealt.  Catherine's response to her situation is awe inspiring.

'I always said I'd write a book when I retired,' she told us.  'The retirement came somewhat earlier than anticipated, but I saw it as an opportunity to get going.'

Disabled, pumped full of drugs and in constant pain that prevented her sleeping at night, she began writing a series of children's books, illustrated by her husband.

'I wanted to write the kind of magical fantasy adventure story I would have enjoyed reading to my classes, had I still been teaching,' Catherine said.

She told us it was writing fiction that kept her going through the dark days and nights, and she gave thanks for the chance it gave her to escape from a grim reality into a fictional world of her own making.

Catherine self-published the first three books and began taking them into schools, inspiring children with her love of books and reading.  She set herself a target: 500 books to be sold by Xmas; another 500 by Easter; 1500 by the summer.  Each target was met and exceeded.


Humble in spite of this impressive success, Catherine was surprised and delighted to be short listed in the BWA children's category.  When her name was announced as the winner and we watched Catherine, walking with the aid of two sticks, make her way to accept her award, all of us on the table were choked.

But the story doesn't end there.  Oh no ...

The evening wore on, with more uplifting tales of writers achieving their dreams.  The only category for published writers was won with universal approval by the mighty Terry Pratchett.  All around the O2 applause broke out as each new winner went to collect their awards.

And then ... the grand finale as we waited to hear who had won the overall BWA award.  £10,000, an instant book deal, 300 copies of the winner's book already printed and hot from the press, universal acclaim ...

Drum roll, please ...

And the winner was ... Catherine Cooper!

So, if you're one of those people who are always making excuses why they can't write ... or who crumple under life's knockbacks ... or believe dreams can't come true ... be inspired by Catherine's story.

But note:  this success didn't come to her out of thin air.  It came about through her determination to rise above adversity; her ability to create something positive from the most negative of circumstances; days, weeks and months of sheer hard work; the generosity of her spirit and the magic of her own imagination.


There's no doubt that this is just the first day of the rest of Catherine's life and I'm sure you will be hearing more from her in the future. Meanwhile, you can get a sneaky preview of her Jack Brenin series of books here.

Amazing though it is, Catherine's was not the only magical personal story last night.  I was blown away to hear that the winner of the short story category was Helen Hardy, longstanding and valued member of the East Dulwich Writer's Group.  (Before anyone suggests corruption, let me hasten to add that I judged the full length novel category, so had no hand in Helen's well-deserved success.)

Helen was unable to accept her award in person because ... she gave birth earlier the same day!  How magical is that?

And if I may be so bold, I'd like to add one small piece of personal evidence that I have had a small part to play in The BWA story.  On page 5 of the souvenir brochure there were quotes from Cameron, Clegg, Alex Salmond, a Local Literacy Leader, a member of the Muslim Writers' Awards (from which BWA grew) and two judges.  One of them was Professor Thom Brookes.

Guess who the other was ...

Here's what I said:
With the dire situation currently reflected in the publishing industry, and the almost insurmountable difficulties faced by new writers in achieving that elusive first deal, initiatives like the BWA provide a much-needed and welcome opportunity for new authors to receive recognition for their writing.

So there we go.  That's the end of the (true) fairy tale and I hope all involved live happily ever after.

As for you, what are you waiting for?  Come on.  No excuses now. Get writing!

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Oh boy, July is barely underway and I'm already overwhelmed at the number of crucial dates in my diary.

So, on the basis that a lit date shared is ... a lit date shared ... I'm giving you all the info in one post so you can put them  in your diary too.

Hope to see you there ... and there ... and ... 

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What
Members of the East Dulwich Writers' Group will be chatting to passers by and selling Hoovering the Roof, their first anthology, as well as other books by EDWG members.  HtR is now on its 2nd print run, having sold out of the 1st. 

When
10.00 am - 3.00 pm Sat  3rd July

Where
Northcross Road market, London, SE22

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What
EDWG members are at it again - this time with munchies and readings from Hoovering the Roof

When
4.00 - 6.00 pm Sun 4th July

Where
Alhambra (sumptuous shop selling Spanish goodies), 148 Kirkdale, London, SE26 4BB

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What
24 hr Oxfam Bookfest readathon.
When
9.00 am Mon 5th July - 9.00 am Tues 6th July.  7 members of EDWG (including some woman called Debi Alper) will  be reading in 20 minute slots between midnight and 2.00 am. (Gasp)

Where
Oxfam Bookstore, 91 Marylebone High Street, London, W1U 4RB

UPDATE:  THE TIMINGS OF THIS EVENT HAVE BEEN CHANGED.  IT WILL NOW RUN FROM 8.00 AM MON 5TH JULY AND WILL FINISH AT MIDNIGHT.

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What
EDWG event with readings from the anthology

When
7.00 - 8.30 pm Thurs 8th July

Where
Review Bookshop, Bellenden Road, SE15 4QY

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What
Launch of 33, short story anthology published by Glasshouse Books with a story set in each of London's boroughs.  Authors include Stella Duffy,  Emma Darwin, Nicola Monaghan, Jess Ruston, Rachael Dunlop and many more.  (That Debi Alper woman crops up there again.)  See here for further details.


When
From 6.30 pm Wed 14th July

Where 
The Press House Wine Bar, 1 St Bride's Passage, EC4Y 8EJ.  If you can't make the launch, you can pre-order a copy of the book here.

*******************************************************************************

What
Brit Writers' Awards Ceremony.  The talented finalists, selected from 21,000 entries, will hear the results in a stellar evening.  (Hang on - that Alper woman isn't one of them ... oh yeah, she was one of the judges instead.)


When
Thurs 15th July

Where
IndigO2,  O2 Arena, Peninsula Square, London, SE10 0DX

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What I really need now is an extended lie down in a darkened room.
Can't see that happening before August ...
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I'm delighted and honoured to be this week's stop on Elizabeth Baines's blog tour to promote her gem of a book, Too Many Magpies.

It's over a year ago that Elizabeth was last here, promoting her short stories  (busy woman, eh?).  As that took the form of an interview (which you can see here) this time I've asked Elizabeth to do a virtual reading.

First the intro:
Can we believe in magic and spells? Can we put our faith in science?

A young mother married to a scientist fears for her children?s safety as the natural world around her becomes ever more uncertain. Until, that is, she meets a charismatic stranger who seems to offer a different kind of power? But is he a saviour or a frightening danger? And, as her life is overturned, what is happening to her children whom she vowed to keep safe? Why is her son Danny now acting so strangely?

In this haunting, urgent and timely novel, Elizabeth Baines brings her customary searing insight to the problems of sorting our rational from our irrational fears and of bringing children into a newly precarious world. In prose that spins its own spell she exposes our hidden desires and the scientific and magical modes of thinking which have got us to where we are now.


Got that?  Sounds good?  So here we go.  Top up your glass.  Make yourself comfortable.  An extract follows.

FOR SORROW

On the baby?s first birthday the Smarties on the cake went frilly round the edges. The first sign of odd things happening.

No one took it seriously.

He said it was magic. (He; he doesn?t have a name, not here, not in my head.). ?I told you,? he said afterwards, ?things would start happening now you and I have met.?

?Magic,? said Danny too, four years old and excited, waiting in an agony of impatience for the start of the birthday tea in the garden, though never in any doubt that things would go as planned, or that birthday teas would go on happening, and Daddy always come to join them in time.

And, this time, he did. He came round the side of the house, Daddy, my husband, ducking under the honeysuckle and coming to kiss us all, smelling faintly of the lab, that sharp high chemical smell.

He was a scientist, my husband. He had a rational explanation. He looked at the Smarties and grinned. Lovely teeth, he had, not a single filling, and naturally curly hair. The kinks of it glistened in the sun. It came back to me then, all the reasons I loved my husband.

?See,? said Danny, pointing the funny way he did with his left middle finger, ?they?re like little mince pies.?

And they were, each sweet surrounded by a perfect row of frills. My husband looked at them and laughed.

?Osmosis,? I think he said, I wasn?t in a state to remember the actual word. Something about things running, their contents seeping through their skins, leaving themselves behind. At any rate, he said I must have put them on when the icing was too wet.

Of course. Because of what had happened, I hadn?t been in a state to judge the drying time of icing.

But it was odd. Why, for instance, if things had melted, had the colours not run?

I cut the cake. I doled them out, the magic Smarties. A piece for my husband, and one for each child.

And the blackbird pipped confidently, as if that garden and those hedges would always be there for him to call across; and there we sat, husband and wife and two-point-four children, point-four being the child we might have had if certain chemical chances in our bodies had or hadn?t occurred, and which we?d never have now, now things had started to happen.



It was the day before the baby?s first birthday that I met him.

In the park there were magpies, too many to be counted. When I was a child there were never so many of them ? one for sorrow, you said, two for joy ? but now there were too many for such short rhymes or such simple messages, they?d multiplied and colonized the towns.

That afternoon we?d both been on a committee, educationists drafted in to advise on artists in schools, my first outside commitment since before I?d had the babies. My first time back in the world.

Though I wasn?t really back there; I couldn?t concentrate on the dry committee language, I?d got too used to simple sounds linked to the vivid senses, or to holding and
rocking without the need for words at all.

It was hot in that committee room, early May and unseasonably hot although there?d been no sun all day. They had the window open and puffs of engine smell rose up through the still air. They were discussing the database of artists, and I was thinking idly of how in the centre of town there was never the sound of birds.

A train rolled over the viaduct, blue-and-grey toytown carriages sliding unbelievably along the top of a sky-high brick wall towards the suburbs where my husband would be putting the children to bed.

Tonight, for once, the baby would have to go to bed without his breastfeed.

On cue, as I thought of that, my breasts tingled, automatic, with primitive life, and on cue the familiar sleepiness overcame me. I?d lost the drift of the argument in the room now. I?d gone too far, metamorphosing down those baby years, and I was gaping now, hardly breathing in this flat dry committee-land. I yawned.

He?d hardly spoken till then.

He didn?t speak when he didn?t have to. Knowing too much about words to squander them.

I looked, I noticed him, for the first time really, just before he spoke. I saw a careful tension around his large mouth. Fastidiousness reining in something else.

And when he spoke he held his lips as though tasting something. Testing.

I knew then. He had the power.



As we crossed the park afterwards, suddenly there were birds again. Magpies, dropping out of the trees, like bunting, like Jacks-out-of-boxes. They cackled, they seemed hilarious.

We tried counting.

?Seven,? he said. ?What does that signify??

I said, too sternly, that I didn?t believe in charms or spells.

He laughed. I saw that his teeth were bad, stained and very full of fillings. He said: ?There are charms and there are charms, and there are spells and there are spells,? and I had no idea what he meant.

The sun came out, dazzling and disorientating between the trees. The magpies glistened then, medallion green and alchemy blue. They were watching us sideways, they cocked their heads slyly over their bird-shoulders, waiting, or maybe taunting, it was hard to say.

We moved on, and they flapped away into the columns of sun between black tree trunks, still there but suffused and melted with the light.

He said, ?Seven for a secret never to be told.?

I said quickly that I didn?t believe in secrets. And I told him all about my husband, and about the kids, to indicate at once that there was no chance whatever, should he be thinking along those lines, of any kind of intrigue, any kind of setup where I?d need to make divisions, protect him from knowledge or guard my family?s privacy from him. And, to nip in the bud any growing attraction, I babbled on about the children in the bourgeois way I?d guessed by now he wouldn?t approve of. But those shapes in the sun, I could sense them shifting. I lost courage in what I was saying, and he was laughing at it anyway, showing those big handsome teeth with all those awful brown fillings. I guessed suddenly what he?d meant: that the best charm, the real secret, is in losing your fear.

I?d stopped walking, I discovered. The bark of a tree was behind me, ridged and warm. Under my feet something crumbled, sugary, the dead catkins off the tree.

I said stupidly, no not stupidly, I thought it might protect me, it was one the things which Richard and I held most important in our life together: ?We only give the children sugar at special times like birthdays.?

After all, it was my baby?s first birthday next day.

It didn?t work, that spell. And I knew, after all, that it wouldn?t. I sensed, didn?t see him come closer. He took hold of my hand. He knew that vivid power of touching, he knew without being told that once he?d made contact I wouldn?t be able to take it away.



The magpies flew off again.

The first time I?d seen so many was the day I discovered I was pregnant with Danny, my first child. Three for a girl, you once said, four for a boy, god knows what seeing so many could mean.

He had hold of my hand.

He said, ?What are their names??

If this has whetted your appetite, follow the rest of the tour here.
If you'd like to hear Elizabeth's podcast, go here.
Links to reviews can be found in the sidebar on Elizabeth's blog here.
Next stop on the tour is at Tom Vowler's blog here.
The last stop was at Nuala Ni Chonchuir's blog here.
For further insights, I really do recommend you check out the other stops on the tour.

UPDATE: ERRORS ON THOSE TOUR STOPS.
LAST ONE WAS AT VANESSA GEBBIE'S BLOG HERE
.NEXT WEEK ELIZABETH WILL BE APPEARING AT ECO-LIBRIS (WITH WHOM SHE IS PLANTING A TREE FOR EACH COPY)


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Appearing on the Litopia After Dark internet radio panel show last night, I quite surprised myself how worked up I got about the futile nature of the glory given to people doing stupid things. There is something very sad about the obsession with doing things because they stretch human beings to the limit. This is what leads to attempts to trek across the North or South Pole on foot, or to climb Everest without oxygen. To any sensible onlooker, it?s stupidity. There is no scientific benefit. There is no discovery. It?s little more than risky posturing.

The ultimate example of this madness is that awards have already been funded for the first person to climb Mount Olympus on Mars, to cross the Martian poles 'without airborne support or resupply' and to descend the vast Valles Marineris on Mars 'using no technological support other than that required for life support and basic mountaineering.' Leaving aside the total strangeness of these challenges (for example, what airborne support do they have in mind?  There is no air on Mars), this is Boy's Own stuff that now seems hugely dated - it is celebrating vast effort for no benefit whatsoever. You might as well have an award for the first person to hop all the way round the Moon, or the first person to eat a whole asteroid (it's possible in very small pieces) - these are challenges that should inspire a huge 'so what?'

Those who design great treks across vast wastes would laugh at a challenge of standing on one foot for as long as you can, or hopping around Manhattan with a paper bag over your head ? yet each has exactly the same benefit: it tests the limit of human endurance. If that doesn't present enough danger, stand on one foot as long as you can on the edge of the roof of a 20 storey building. We should see these 'great feats' for what they are. A way of showing off that has no more value than standing on one foot.
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This summer we had a little expedition to France, and though the miserable exchange rate with the Euro means that the booze cruise is a thing of the past, if you are over there anyway it's well worth stocking up on wines.

Apart from the usual red we were buying a bit of the pink stuff for the alleged summer days. (I've no idea why we call it rosé - it would be very pretentious to call red wine 'rouge'.) It proved absolutely impossible to avoid buying a box of the wine illustrated. Who could resist sipping a glass of Cotes du Brian? (And it really is quite sippable.)

It strikes me there's a real opportunity here. Find out the 20 most popular names in the UK (first and last) and put out wines with that name on the label. You'd get lots of sales.

In case there is any suspicion that this had already happened I ought to point out that the Cotes du Brian is a real wine growing area. If you take a look at this page in Oz Clarke's Wine Atlas you will find it in Languedoc-Roussillon, fairly near Carcassone (number 72 on the map).

As well as my cheap and cheerful stuff, there's also a slightly posher Cotes de Brian producer - see for example this and this.
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Adrian Edmondson was slagging off the new, younger comedians the other day. So many of them, he suggests, perform basically the same act, interspersed with appearances on panel shows. You could interchange them and no one would notice the difference. He has a point, but some of the bright young-ish things have a certain something (in fact Ade did acknowledge this), and among those bright stars I would include Dara O Briain.

I've recently read our Dara's book Tickling the English (subtitled a funny man's notes on a country and his people), in which he tries that popular sport, analyzing what makes the English, erm, English, in this case through observation on a tour of comedy venues. Leaving aside the somewhat biassed sample that is represented by a comedy audience, it is quite interesting, though doesn't have the insight as an observational travel book of Stuart Maconie's cracking pair of titles Pies and Prejudice and Adventures on the High Teas.

There was one very interesting point, though. Dara (sorry for the familiarity, but if I write 'O Briain' it looks like I'm back in Latin class, using the vocative: 'Briain; O Briain; Briain; To a Briain; Of a Briain; By, with or from a Briain') wonders why we get so worried about immigration in the UK. He points out that in the last census (admittedly rather dated figures now) only around 2.5% of the population were ethnically Asian and around 2% Afro-Caribbean. He can't understand why some people get so worked up about us being overwhelmed - which is strange, because his own work area (the media, I mean, not comedians) can surely take a major portion of the blame.

Take the news. I have many times seen news bulletins that go on (and on) about the number of immigrants coming into the country and the difficulty of controlling the process and supporting them. I have hardly ever heard the news put this into context with percentages of the population as a whole. Result? It sounds like we're drowning in unwanted multiculturalism.

Even worse, whenever said news cameras need to portray a school (say), you can pretty well guarantee the class will not have a mix of ethnic background that is representative of the national demographic. In part this is because of laziness - the TV crews can't be bothered to move away from London to find a more representative picture - and in part it's incorrectly applied political correctness that assumes any classroom with less than half the students of varied ethnic background is biassed.

So really, Dara, it's not surprising people misunderstand the position when you lot are always showing us that it's different from the way it really is. Have a word with your mates in the newsroom, won't you?

Photo from Wikipedia
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I was reading in some authors' publication (I think ALCS News) that an author who writes for the teen audience asked the young people at his talk a question about how much money they thought he earned from booksales.

'You buy a book in a bookshop for £10,' he said. 'How much of that do you think the author gets?'

The most popular answer was 100%, followed by 50%, then 75%, which between them accounted for most of the replies. Now leaving aside the total lack of business sense in 100% (come on, guys, the shop has to make something out of this), it's still quite remarkable how much they believed authors get.

On a paperback, it is often 7.5% of net. Let's assume the bookshop gets a 50% discount - that means that on this £10 paperback, the author gets around 37p. I have to say, when I type that, even I find it shocking. To be fair, it's not always so bad. If you sell above a set number, say 10,000 copies, you might get 10 or even 12.5%, while hardbacks usually start at a higher percentage. But even so, on a £17.50 hardback an author will still only get around £1.

Now I know authors are always whinging on about money. It's an old charter or something. But the trouble is, with only the earnings of people like J. K. Rowling making the media, it's sometimes difficult to appreciate that we aren't all raking in vast quantities of cash. So do us a favour, guv. Buy a book.

Photo by Clare Dudman
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An anonymous commenter got a bit heated a while ago when I dared to say that there hasn't been a great composer since Stravinsky. I think possibly his/her problem was confusing great music with great composers. Let me explain.

I think it is entirely possible for a good, but not great, composer to produce a great piece. But being a truly great composer requires more - a whole swathe of great music and a shift in the nature of music itself from that of his/her* contemporaries. (*Political correctness, I suspect. I don't think there have been any great female composers yet.)

Just to stress the lack of need to be a great composer to produce great music, my absolute favourite piece is by someone I couldn't regard as a great composer, as are several more of my top ten.

Oddly, I was introduced to my favourite piece by a game. Many moons ago I used to review games for various VNU publications, and one game (I can't remember its name) started with a bit of video giving backstory of how the human race was forced to leave the Earth. In the background, as the ships departed the dying planet, was the most evocative, heart-tugging piece of music I had ever heard. It turned out to be Barber's Agnus Dei, the vocal arrangement of his Adagio for Strings, which turned out even better than the original.



Another example of a composer even Anonymous couldn't regard as great coming up with a stunning piece, is down to one Robert Lucas de Pearsall (no, really) an early Victorian composer who wrote the very impressive 8 part arrangement of In Dulce Jubilo in Carols for Choirs. His masterpiece is even more surprising than Barber's adaptation, as it's essentially pastiche. Yet Pearsall's Lay a Garland - in essence a cod slow madrigal well after its time - is simply wonderful.



And finally, just to rub the point home, not only a piece I like, but the UK's favourite piece of classical music according to Classic FM, and yet by a composer not generally regarded as a great. This is Ralph Vaughan Williams. While he has more excellent compositions to his name than Barber or Pearsall, he still doesn't quite make it into the ranks of the mighty. Yet who can resist the eloquent summeryness of The Lark Ascending? Not I, for one.


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I am running two courses in the next couple of months for those who are interested in improving their writing.

The first is part of the Nottingham Writers' Studio series of workshops and focuses on planning and developing your novel  - where you go once you've got an idea, in other words. It runs all day on 25th September at the Nottingham Contemporary. For further details, or to book a place contact Robin Vaughan-Williams on admin@nottinghamwritersstudio.co.uk 

The second is for writers much further down the line, those with well developed or finished novels looking to find an agent or publisher. The idea is to help writers make that jump from writing well to getting their writing noticed. Ahead of the course, each participant is asked to send their proposal document comprising three chapters, a synopsis and covering letter. The course will focus on these proposals, looking at the work that each individual needs to do to get the attention of an agent, and so has an element of manuscript reading built in. It will look at the actual projects, what changes might improve them or make them more marketable but it will also examine the wording of the proposal, and synopsis, to help the writer sell his or her novel more effectively. If I feel that individual projects would be of interest to agents I know then I may make recommendations for the writers concerned. This course will take place on 14th and 15th of October at Antenna in Nottingham. For further details, or to book, see http://gettingyourworkoutthere.blogspot.com/ or contact me direct.
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Well, I promised some links. Here's the first one. DONKEY, directed by Deborah Haywood, written and produced by my good self.

http://www.virginmediashorts.co.uk/films/entry/344741/donkey
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Starfishing is out in the USA now via the good people at Scribner. You can buy your copy in all the usual places. It is a rather sumptuous looking book, as the attached picture I hope demonstrates.

I also have a new Facebook page. There already was a community site here , which is basically mostly wikipedia stuff at the moment. I've set up my official page here so do go along and join, or should I say 'like' using the official FB lingo. I suspect I'll update this page much more regularly than this blog, so it's a better way of keeping in touch with what's going on.

I've been making films too. Oh yeah, I am a film producer, baby. Only very short films, but films nonetheless, and one of them is from a script what I wrote. It's the first time I've seen my work come to life like this and it's very exciting. We're going to enter them for the Virgin Media Shorts competition and try to win some money towards making a feature. It was a real eye opening experience and I was left with total respect for the job directors do, especially my main lady the super talented  Deborah Haywood. I'll write more about all this  when I have time and energy and the films should be online soon, so I'll send some links.

I also have a short story in the current edition of The Battered Suitcase, which can be read online or downloaded to your Kindle. You can also order a POD copy, I believe, but check the website for more details. 

Don't mention the World Cup...
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It won't come as much of a surprise to anyone who knows me at all that the death of Alan Sillitoe last week came as a real blow to me. I didn't know Alan well, but we had met a few times and he'd been an enduring support to my career all the way. More than that, his books and writing were part of what inspired me to write in the first place. I can't express what his letters, quotes and general support meant to me.

The first time I met Alan Sillitoe was when I was revising for my 'O' level English. Not in person, but on the page, that most famous passage of Arthur's journey down the stairs used as an extract in one of the past papers we were looking at. I was immediately taken with his writing, with the fact it was Nottingham, proper Nottingham, the place I knew, and with the vivid scenes he painted. I had read a lot of Lawrence before this but had never come across Sillitoe. And so something began, something deep inside me about writing (which was something I'd always wanted to do) and about Nottingham too. It would take twenty years to develop into my first novel The Killing Jar but I believe that this moment is where the book began.

I finally met the man himself those twenty years on. It was at a production of the theatre adaptation of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning at Lakeside Arts Centre. We walked out so that Chad could smoke and, of course, Alan was also smoking. I didn't say much to him - just hello - but the timing felt significant. Just the day before, I'd received my first proof copy of The Killing Jar from Chatto. I wished I had it with me. It was the only copy of the book I had but I would have handed it to Alan there and then without a quiver of indecision. As it was, I stood with my husband and tried not to stare. Then a journalist walked over and began talking to Alan about the Arctic Monkeys and their use of his words in the title of their debut album Whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not. 

It strikes me that this is something Alan Sillitoe did really well, reaching across the generations. Nottingham had become a very different place since he wrote SNSM but there was something essential about the book, about being young, about kicking out against the system. Something important. Not only had it spoken to me but to the even younger Arctic Monkeys and, when I did a search on MySpace, it seemed to a whole raft of other young men and women. Brilliant Nottingham Culture mag Left Lion quoted him too, choosing his words for their own motto: All the rest is propaganda. 

Since then I've met Alan a number of times. The day I got my Betty Trask, when I finally did get chance to give him a copy of my book, which I was thrilled that he asked me sign, and put my address in so he could write to me afterwards. Write to me he did. In fact, we sparked up quite a bit of a correspondence for the next three and a bit years. His kind words about my writing will stay with me for a long time and his letters will be something I cherish until the day I die. I feel an immense sense of privilege to be able to pull them out from the safe place I keep them and see Alan's own handwriting telling me to 'keep on keeping on'.

I had a dream a couple of days after he died. I was living in a really run down house, a right hovel, with peeling wallpaper and bare pipes that leaked, nasty carpet with ground in dirt and Alan Sillitoe was coming to visit me there. I felt embarrassed. He was this great writer, and used to a bit of luxury, and here was I offering him a cup of tea in my dingy place. Of course, he didn't seem to mind. Then we went outside. The garden was massive, acres and acres of green stretching for miles and miles. I pointed it out to him. I told him about my plans for the wonderful things I was going to build on that land.

Sometimes I think the subconscious is the most beautiful thing in the world.
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I have finished my departure novel.

At the risk of inciting sickness, jealousy or furious ire, I'm going to admit here that the bulk of the novel was written in a week and half. I edited it over the course of two days and then I sent it to my agent. We've now spoken about a couple of minor revisions and he's sending it out next week to editors.

I posted word counts as I went on Facebook and was told off by a friend for making it all sound too easy. In fact, this friend and I, we used to joke all the time about the adverts you saw in magazines like Writers' News that began with the headline 'Why not be a writer?' as if it was as easy as having the idea. We used to talk about one particular aspiring friend who was bashing out the words like nonsense and we suspected was looking round the room shouting 'Look no hands!' as she did it. And that's probably the way I looked when I was writing this novel.

The thing was, thanks to new and consuming work commitments, I had a short time horizon to get a draft out. It was that week or probably not at all. So I set myself a daily word count target of six thousand words that even I found ridiculous. Then the first day, I wrote them. And the second day, I wrote them. Three days in and my draft had doubled in size. The next day, I was halfway there. There was something incredibly refreshing about getting through the project so quickly. There were other advantages too; It was easy to keep the story in my head, to remember where I was and what the characters had done.

Don't get me wrong, the actual writing I did in that week and half was really the conclusion of lots of work I'd done on the project. I'd planned the book meticulously, thought about it at length, talked it out to my most trusted writing allies. I had read around, finding every similar novel I could get my hands on and reading it, revisiting others that I'd read years before but wanted to have more fresh in my mind. In the background, I had done all my homework so that when it came to writing the book, it flowed, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

So, no, it isn't that easy to write a novel. That said, the process made me think a little. As a touring writer, I hear the same things again and again when I go to meet readers. These vary from generic questions (Where do you get your ideas from? What are your writing habits? Do you use a computer or write it longhand with a pen?) to specific ones about my books (What happened to Jon? What was it Kerrie found in the outhouse?) to wistful statements about the art of writing. (I'd love to write a book, What a marvellous thing to have done, I've always wanted to write a book.)

It's the last of these that came to mind after I'd finished my draft of this novel. I've always wanted to write a book. I remember once mentioning to an acquaintance I bumped into on the tube 'I want to write' and his counter 'Who doesn't?' and he was so very right, I've worked out now.

So who does write? What makes the difference? I can only say what I say to anyone who comes out with this statement and their wistful far away eyes. Do it. It possibly sounds trite and simplistic, but I really believe that's all you need to do. Put one word in front of another, hold your breath and write until you get to the end. (By trial and error I have found that for me it's better to have some idea where I'm going before I start out. Although, I've also found that the only way to learn how to write a novel is to try it and fail a few times...)

An English teacher I worked with years and years ago, one of the crowd who'd gone into teaching because of Dead Poet's Society and been sorely disappointed in leaky, crumbling comps, he once told me that he thought I lived by the film's motto and did seize the day. I wasn't sure at the time; mostly I thought I lived day to day and didn't think too carefully about anything but, in hindsight, he might have had a point. I surprised myself in the last few weeks. I decided I was writing the novel quickly, and I wrote it. Quickly. 


I hope that I don't come across as arrogant on this post or you think I'm showing off. That would mean I haven't got my point across very well at all. Really, I want to stress that, whilst it might not be easy, writing a novel is possible. It really does get done one word at a time.

Right. I want you all standing on your desks with a fist to your chest. Come on! Carpe Diem you lot!
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I gave my heart to a boy, and it wasn't pretty.
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Apart from being a book that I'm in what is Starfishing? Answers on a postcard. I've been trawling the web to see what other people think but no one's quite got the answer I'm looking for yet.

From the Urban Dictionary:

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I haven't posted here for ages and the main reason for that is I had fuck all to say. I was busy too. Busy keeping hold of my job and your money ha ha. Yes, I am an evil trader who has made the country go wrong.

I have to say that all of this recent fuss about traders and bonuses has done my head in. Don't get me wrong; I know the money we get paid is obscene, we all do. I don't think for one second that I deserve it or anything. Some days I sit at my trading screen and I laugh at what I?m doing, piss my sides that there?s someone willing to pay good hard cash for me to do this.

But the credit crisis is my fault? What a pile of crap.

First of all, I'd like to point out the difference between a retail bank, like Lloyds TSB or Barclays, and an investment bank like Merrill Lynch or CSFB. Retail banks are the ones who look after your money for you, give you a bit of interest, and lend to you if your credit rating's good enough (at least, that?s the way it?s supposed to work lmfao.) These banks probably have a treasury department and, yes, these treasury departments will trade interest rate products and so on, but they're not really traders. They exist to make sure the bank has enough ready cash to pay out what it needs to, but also to use any surplus money to earn more profit overnight. Believe it or not, the perfect bank balance for someone like Halifax or Barclays is zero, at least when they?re sleeping, because that way they?ve used any leftovers to make more money. Efficient.

Are you with me so far?

An investment bank or trading company is whole different kettle of bananas and, yes, these companies are out to make a profit from the market. A brokerage, like I work for, provides market access for those who can't go direct and the customers have to pay a fee for the privilege. Like a stockbrokers, except we deal in futures and options.

And guess what? The crisis we've got to now is more complicated than either of these things.

You could blame the traders, labelling us greedy, irresponsible wide boys and girls. We?re an easy target. Nobody likes it that there are people in the world earning what we do, living our lifestyle. I can see about a million reasons for Joanna Public to hate the likes of me, but the credit crisis isn't one of them imo.

You could blame the retail banks. The ones with the piss poor management and irresponsible lending policies. You'd be nearer the mark. The whole thing started with banks in the states lending money to people who couldn't afford it and then, hey, guess what, they didn't pay it back. Shock fucking horror.

You could also blame the regulator. Sure as hell there were things the FSA could have done better. You only have to look at the example of Northern Rock to realise that. And what were Northern Rock doing wrong? Oh, they were lending to people who couldn't afford it. Is this sounding familiar?

The politicians have played their part in this debacle, no fucking doubt about it, don?t they always? You can go all the way back to Maggie and look at ways things have been regulated, or not more to the point, and blame her if you like. Why not? Everyone does and there?s something in it.

But, you know what? You need to go a lot closer to home to really get to the root of all this evil.

Have you ever borrowed money for something you didn?t really need? Have you ever borrowed more money than you really should have? Do you regularly spend more than comes in your wages? Do you have more shoes than you need, rails of clothes you don?t wear? Can you honestly say that you don?t fall for the crap of designer labels or strive for the perfect home, collecting things and buying right into the consumer bollox that we all do? Don?t get me wrong; I can?t. But I?m not the one getting holier than thou here.

There?s all sorts of shit in the world right now that you can blame anyone you like for. Global warming. Endangered species. Reality TV and Girls Aloud. You can sit at home and moan about all this stuff till you?re blue in the face, but have you ever done anything about any of it? Like fuck you have.

If the crunch fits?
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I read this in a book today:

"All men are murderers, Juliet thought. All of them. They murder women. They take a woman, and little by little they murder her."*

It made me sit up, that statement. It made me wonder if that was true or not. I've certainly met my fair share of men who are this kind of murderer. I've definitely felt murdered in this way before. But ALL men?

The character in the book, Juliet, she's pissed off because some knob had a bit of a sexist shot at her at a dinner party and her husband, instead of backing her up, he sat back and made some comment about her tits. Lol. Juliet should have a go in my book, see how she feels. I doubt she'd last five minutes. I'd love to see her face when the lads on the trading floor shouted 'beaver' at her. I'd love to see how she reacted when they whistled and shouted the first time she walked in.

But she does have a point about some men, a certain type of man. The kind who has affairs behind his wife's back. The kind who'll shag you in the toilets while she sits sipping vodka and tonic upstairs. This kind of knob needs to be careful. Women can be murderers too....


*From Arlington Park, by Rachel Cusk (which is a very good read, if you wanna know about it...)
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Pymgy Giraffes
IBM compatible
Organised anarchists
Angry buddist monks
Honest Politician
Holy War
American Intelligence
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We are still accepting submissions for the new, international journal Short Fiction in Theory and Practice until the end of this month. As some of you know, we're aiming to publish a terrific range of pieces -- from writers, academics and editors.

If you feel you might have an idea to develop or a piece that is already taking shape, please see the Call for Submissions. We'd be pleased to hear from you. Although the standard submission length is, as you will see, 4,000 words (plus) for articles, we're also happy to consider shorter pieces. If you'd like to discuss an idea or a piece briefly before submitting, you're very welcome to email Ailsa Cox, the Principal Editor, at coxa@edgehill.ac.uk .

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