The Absent Heart is very much a novel about letters and how they defined Frances Sitwell’s relationship with Robert Louis Stevenson, but it’s not a novel of letters. I’m actually quite a fan of the epistolary novel and, with all of the R.L.S.’s letters to my heroine at my disposal, I could have gone down … Continue reading Letters in fiction: Robert Harris, Gill Hornby and me!
It’s been quite a few years since I started writing The Absent Heart (and two years since I visited RLS’s former home!) and the vast proportion of the hours I’ve spent with it have been in rewriting, but then as Robert Graves said, ‘There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting’, an … Continue reading Small changes, big difference. Editing and loving it! #histfic @linenpressbooks
Robert Louis Stevenson & J.M. Barrie, A Friendship in Letters, by Michael Shaw, Sandstone Press, 2020 “Write to me again in my infinite distance” So wrote Robert Louis Stevenson in the year 1893 from his home in Samoa to fellow writer J. M. Barrie who was in, or near, his native town of Kirriemuir in … Continue reading A friendship in messages: with thanks to #RLS and @SandstonePress
Last Monday my U3A writing group (who have grappled gamely with Zoom and capricious email to turn in some really great work this year) had three short stories to consider and they made me think of the importance of openings. The group are all very aware of the pitfalls of working out where a story … Continue reading Story Openings: not where to begin but how
If you’ve never heard of it, Nanowrimo is an annual event in which novelists and aspiring novelists are challenged each November to write 50,000 words in the course of the month. It’s been going on for quite a while and although, November being a Novemberish kind of month, I occasionally make a private challenge to … Continue reading #Nanowrimo2019 – what’s the point?
Ali Bacon, Author 