On Losing Iain Banks
(First published in Three Monkeys Online) “Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different and more fundamental reasons than I’d disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim. That’s my score to date. Three. I […]
Writing Related Procrastination
I admit that these activities are only very tangentially related to writing but they’re two rather simple websites I’ve found that will give you incredibly true vital statistics about your work in progress that could change the course of your writing career Lulu Titlescorer It tells you the statistical likelihood of your novel becoming […]
Preliminary illustration for ‘Rapeseed’
My little younger sister sketched this the other day. She hasn’t finished reading Rapeseed yet but in the space of five minutes (no exaggeration) she doodled this. I got really excited and took a picture with my phone to put up here so I apologise for the poor picture quality. In a few minutes she summed up […]
REVIEW: ‘Once More With Footnotes’ by Terry Pratchett
I don’t normally read short story collections. I read plenty of short stories but it’s only recently, since foraying into short story writing territory myself, that I find myself reading collections from cover to cover. I used to discriminate, read the shorter ones if I was pressed for time, or the title story, or the one that […]
My Writing Playlist
I find it difficult to write without music. This could be because my first successful serious attempt at writing took place last summer while I was still living at home. I’d always dabbled in writing but I re-read Stephen King’s On Writing and decided to take his work ethic literally and write 2,000 words a […]
Game of Thrones Fatigue
So Season 2 is drawing to a close. What have we learned? Peter Dinklage is awesome (not that we needed to be reminded), this season is much less anchored without Sean Bean, and boobies solve everything. Awhile ago I wrote a post about prostitution in the first few books basically trying to come up with […]
Christmas Existential Angst (AKA the nativity reborn)
So I’m in the throes of my final edit (scary days ahead), I just thought I’d drop in and share two of my favourite stories that explore what the holiday season is all about: The birth of Santa! I kid, I kid, but these are somewhat non-traditional stories about old St. nick, enjoy Nicholas Was… by Neil […]
NaNo Reflections
So that was… Interesting, to say the least. Turns out November is a pretty crap month for getting things done in; there’s fighting the obligatory winter cold, End of term meet ups/parties/shindigs, so much college work, the fact that my class has only just decided we want to publish an anthology of which I masochistically chose the […]
24 hours stalking Terry Pratchett
I should probably give some background before I’m arrested. I love Terry Pratchett, absolutely adore everything he’s ever written. When I was about 10 my uncle from Delaware recommended the dragon lance books to me. You couldn’t get them very easily here so they used to send them over to me. Then Mom got me […]
10,000 words: take 2
So you may remember the insanity that was last Saturday night. I am doing something similar this weekend, perhaps more relaxed times, a different word count. I haven’t decided the rules yet but it definitely won’t be as late as last week, it’s my parents wedding anniversary tomorrow and myself and my sister are cooking, […]