In my previous article I did my best to put you off any fantasy of making a living from writing. If you’re still here, I take it you’ve engaged with that and you’re ready to find out what you can do as a writer (and if you missed it, read it first and then come… Read More A Brief Guide to Writing: 3 – Thinking like a writer
My brain is wired a little differently to most other brains of around my age. When thinking of writing a series to help and encourage writers, my first thought was ‘what can I say to really scare them off?’ So here I am starting my series of short guides by telling you why you shouldn’t… Read More A Brief Guide to Writing: 2 – Why you shouldn’t be a writer
I felt it was about time to put down in writing the various things I’ve learned, or found helpful, about this game we call ‘being a writer’. I remember, when I first started to train as a writer, that many of the writers I followed boasted of their credentials that they’d been commercially writing for… Read More A Brief Guide to Writing: 1 – Introduction
My rating: 4 of 5 stars With the final book in the quadrilogy that is The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, I was surprised just how this got to me considering I wasn’t convinced at first. ‘Talking to Dragons’ presents very differently to the previous three books; not a surprise in some ways considering this was the… Read More Book Review: Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
My rating: 4 of 5 stars If children’s/YA fiction isn’t your thing, bear with me a little longer. One more review to go after this and then I’m done with this wonderful series of books. A meatier classic will come soon! For everyone else who has an inner child like mine, carry on reading… The… Read More Book Review: Calling on Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
My rating: 3 of 5 stars Patrick N. Allitt comes across, in this series of audio lectures, as a very pleasant, easy-going and genial academic. His voice absolutely sounds like it belongs to a British comedian though I can’t, for the life of me, think who he makes me think of. Overall, the lectures feel… Read More Review: The Rise and Fall of the British Empire by Patrick N. Allitt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars Continuing on from enjoying the ‘Enchanted Forest Chronicles’ which began with ‘Dealing with Dragons‘, returning to the series thirteen years after first reading them to my young children, I was delighted to find that the second book was every bit as entertaining as the first. Wrede’s rather wonderful idea… Read More Book Review: Searching for Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
My rating: 3 of 5 stars Ahhh, Terry Pratchett is one of my most beloved authors and I do love his Discworld books which, I must confess, I thought this was going to be. Having borrowed a selection of Pratchett books from a village friend, I had assumed they were all Discworld novels. I found… Read More Book Review: Dodger by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars In general, in the news world at least, there is – at least in pretence – an abhorrence of bias. Reporters and journalists are supposed to be neutral, impartial observers. Of course, in reality, true objectivity is impossible; every writer has a direction from whence they came and another… Read More Book Review: Failures of State – The Inside Story of Britain’s Battle with Coronavirus by Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnott
My rating: 1 of 5 stars What an utter waste of time ‘Moby Dick’ proved to be. There are times when you wonder just the state of publishing was in the 1850s when Melville’s ‘classic’ was written. I get it that you have an iconic image – crazed sea captain seeking revenge of the monstrous… Read More Book Review: Moby-Dick or, the Whale by Herman Melville
Write Out Loud 