Amongst the many delights of signing with Linen Press has been the unexpected joy of having an editor. I’ve been in more than one writing critique group and learned lots from writing workshops, so I consider myself quite a good self-editor, but having lived with Blink for several years and in multiple versions, I hadn’t … Continue reading The Joy of Being Edited – and a festival in St Andrews
A friend recently recommended a series of books about a coroner set in Bristol Having just finished May We Be Forgiven – an absorbing but in some ways challenging read (check out the disparate reviews!) – it seemed a good moment for a straightforward crime thriller and so I popped down to the library and … Continue reading Getting it wrong: or may we be forgiven
Editing. We all do it. We all need it. It’s part of the writing process I actually like: looking at what I’ve done, revising, snipping, polishing. Those of us who are unpublished will probably might rely on our own aptitude or take ourselves along to a group where critical friends will see the howlers our … Continue reading The unkindest cut of all. On being edited
Picture this. I’m reading a novel, an e-book, one of those that is advertised ‘free today.’ Well it may have been 99p, but either way, given the time and labour that writing a novel involves, this author has basically gifted the book to me and anyone else who might like to read it, a generous … Continue reading How I stubbed my toe on a sentence.
I have now written the last piece of the plot of my W.I.P. and have only a chapter or so of ‘loose ends’ to tidy up. Am I celebrating? Actually, no. Because I find writing the act of finishing a novel a strangely vicarious pleasure. Last time it proved no pleasure at all, but more … Continue reading End Game
Ali Bacon / Books and Other Things 